Andi's Recs in Rotation: 6/10/22

Hey, book nerds! Welcome to a bi-weekly series where I provide rapid-fire recommendations from my most-recent reads. Here’s a list of my recs in rotation:

Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou 

I hate to be this person, but the cover art alone sold me on Disorientation months before its release date. It displays the life of off-kilter, unhinged Ingrid Yang; objects symbolic of her life float around her room zero-gravity style. This cover highlights how the plot moves fast and shifts between moments of severe reality and surreal dissociation. As Ingrid handles the pressures of finishing her PhD dissertation and a growing discomfort in her relationship, she falls deep into an amateur detective rabbit hole. At once a story that confronts the manifestations of internalized racism and sexism, it’s also a funny, satirical read. I ate this book up.

Little Rabbit by Alyssa Songsiridej

I didn’t read this book—I absorbed it. The prose is tactile; it presents the physicality of each moment in a way that left my own body thrumming, as if I had plugged into this book’s socket and its electricity ran through my veins. The two nameless characters—one a thirty-year-old queer woman, the other a much older man—explore the limitations of taboo sex. There’s a lot of shame bound up in this story. The woman, who is referred to as Little Rabbit or Rabbit, leads us with a perspective that wants what it wants despite all signs to let it go. It’s a sexy and perceptive must-read.

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

Gender Queer was the most banned book in 2021. This is one of the many reasons I bumped it to the top of my TBR. Yet, it reads as a tender, uplifting graphic memoir that shares Maia Kobabe’s journey coming into eir identity as nonbinary and asexual. Despite the frustration that naturally accompanies such a journey, there’s a lot of pure, uninhibited joy withinin these pages. It’s the type of joy that allows the heavy topics to breathe. I recommend this as a book that everyone should read for its humanizing qualities and ability to convey unfamiliar topics in a way that anyone can understand. It’s also, more than anything, a comfort to those that need it. 

I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

If you know me, you know that I love Casey McQuiston. Her first two books—Red, White, and Royal Blue and One Last Stop—have a special place in my heart. These books are full of happy, queer representation and I knew that I Kissed Shara Wheeler would be no different. Similar to her other work, this book lifts you up in a bubble of hope. It has hearty, distinct secondary characters and a main character—Chloe Green—who, despite being sure of her sexuality, really doesn’t know herself at all. She finds herself working with an unlikely group of people to solve a string of clues left by Shara Wheeler who has, as far as we know, dropped off the face of the earth. This is a really light, fun, and wholesome read!