Spotlight

Still Stace, Stacey Chomiak (2021)

This memoir about a young woman wrestling with whether she can affirm her homosexuality with her identity as a Christian is a really beautiful book and it touched me on a lot of levels. Not only does the author’s journey mirror mine in a lot of ways — we’re the same age, so the teenage pop cultural references hit pretty hard, but even the timing of major events in our stories overlapped to some degree. This memoir is beautiful and honest, and dripping with grace for everyone, something that is all-too rare in the LGBTQ2S+-and-Christianity space. This will be a book I will gift to friends and family trying to manage these questions of faith, sexuality, and personal integrity.

Read this if you’re interested in:

• Queer Christian stories
• Lesbian representation
• Memoir
• Coming of age
• Contemporary spirituality
• Canadian content

My rating: 10/10

Weekly Roundup

• Lullabies for Little Criminals, Heather O’Neil (2006), 8/10: This was a hard read, following as it does the life of an intelligent and resilient girl with a father who is loving and attentive when he’s not using (and he always seems to be using) and who is in and out of ‘the system’ (literary, Canadian content, family drama, social issues, backlist)
• A Fashionable Indulgence, KJ Charles (2015), 9/10: A historical queer romance that does the best job of any Regency romance I’ve encountered in trying to deal with the actual politics and social issues of the period (LGBTQ2S+, historical, romance, social issues)
• Ruins of Gorlan, John Flanagan (2004), 10/10: The fantastic start to a middle grade fantasy series (‘Rangers Apprentice’), about a teenage orphan who becomes an apprentice to the Rangers, a mysterious group that protect the realm in ways no one really understands (middle grade, fantasy, adventure, backlist)
• Last Summer on State Street, Toya Wolfe (2022), 9/10: A difficult but hopeful story of life in Chicago’s southside projects at the turn of the millennium (YA, literary, social issues, racism, Chicago)
• The Siren Depths, Martha Wells (2012), 8/10: The third book in the ‘Books of the Raksura’ series, this follows Moon as he is forced to leave Jade and Indigo Cloud when he is claimed by his home court, of which he has no memory (fantasy, adventure)