Book Reviews

Look After Her

Look After Her

By Hannah Brown, Inanna Publications, 448 pages, $22.95, 2020 Packed with action and intrigue, and impeccably paced, Hannah Brown’s debut novel Look After Her is a gripping, accomplished piece of feminist historical fiction that provides insight into the depths of our...

Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian)

Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian)

It is the simplest sentences that devastate in the debut novel from Hazel Jane Plante. “Vivian was my favourite person,” the narrator writes about her best friend, unrequited lover, and fellow femme trans conspirator in the wake of her sudden passing. It’s more a...

Sonnet’s Shakespeare

Sonnet’s Shakespeare

Sonnet L’Abbé’s third poetry collection is an incredibly ambitious project that assimilates William Shakespeare’s poetry, and it does not disappoint. Letter by letter, L’Abbé inserts her own language into his poetry, erasing and engulfing his words into her own. While...

Tension

Tension

Tension, a graphic memoir by Afro-Asian artist Pearl Low, is about a woman learning to love and embrace her roots—literally. “I never used to mind my hair. . . until other people started to,” she writes in the opening strip, which depicts a younger Low who bemoans her...

Whatever, Iceberg

Whatever, Iceberg

Whatever, Iceberg chronicles an all-too-familiar queer romance interwoven with polyamory, single parenting, chronic pain, poverty, and aging. Despite the specificity of Ziniuk’s writing, the collection remains relatable for anyone who has ever been in a badly timed...

I’m Not Here

I’m Not Here

While reading GG’s new graphic novel, I’m Not Here, I was reminded of a short story by Delmore Schwartz, in which the narrator goes into a cinema and, much to their amazement and dismay, finds that the film being screened is of their parents’ first meeting. Knowing...

Don’t Tell Me What to Do

Don’t Tell Me What to Do

Each of the fifteen stories, mostly populated by female protagonists at less-than-perfect moments in their lives, show the work of a generous writer committed to creating characters unapologetically being themselves in all their flawed, misguided glory. In most books...

Where it Hurts

Where it Hurts

The essays in Where It Hurts are deeply felt, original, and a moving requiem for lives extinguished too early to have left a trace. De Leeuw writes with love and conviction while also asking important questions of the reader: how do we live with the empty spaces death...

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ROOM 47.4 FULL CIRCLE
Step back with Room into the past, to parents, to childhood homes, and to people once known and loved; dig into themes of grief and healing; and ultimately explore what it means to come full circle in literature.

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