Staff Picks

I had never heard of Jennifer Boylan before, and after reading Cleavage, she is a name to remember for sure! She fosters a safe space to learn about, hear, and understand transgender perspectives. A great book to explore the different experiences of transgender people, but also to become acquainted with the similarities! Boylan offers really unique insight to her life and lived experiences and captivates the reader to continue reading until the book is done!

 

Publishers description:

What is the difference between men and women? Jennifer Finney Boylan examines the divisions-as well as the common ground-between the genders, and reflects on her own experiences, both difficult and joyful, as a transgender American. Jennifer Finney Boylan's She's Not There was the first bestselling work written by a transgender American. Since its publication twenty years ago, she has become the go-to person for insight into the impact of gender on our lives, from the food we eat to the dreams we dream, both for ourselves and for our children. But Cleavage is more than a deep dive into gender identity; it's also a look at the difference between coming out as trans in 2000-when many people reacted to Boylan's transition with love-and the present era of blowback and fear. How does gender affect our sense of self? Our body image? The passage of time? The friends we lose-and keep? Boylan considers her womanhood, reflects on the boys and men who shaped her, and reconceives of herself as a writer, activist, parent, and spouse. With heart-wrenching honesty, she illustrates the feeling of liminality that followed her to adulthood, but demonstrates the redemptive power of love through it all. With Boylan's trademark humor and poignancy, Cleavage is a sharp, witty, and captivating look at the triumphs and losses of a life lived in two genders. Cleavage provides hope for a future in which we all have the freedom to live joyfully as men, as women, and in the space between us.

 

Immerse yourself in this beautifully illustrated graphic novel that follows the story of Mags and Nessa as they navigate queer love, heartache, secrets, and power.

 

Publisher description: 

Everyone has secrets. Mags's has teeth. Magdalena Herrera is about to graduate high school, but she already feels like an adult with serious responsibilities: caring for her ailing grandmother; working a part-time job; clandestine makeouts with a girl who has a boyfriend. And then there's her secret, which pulls her into the basement each night, drains her of energy, and leaves her bleeding. A secret that could hurt and even kill if it ever got out — like it did once before. So Mags keeps her head down, isolated in her small desert community. That is, until her childhood friend Nessa comes back to town, bringing vivid memories of the past, an intoxicating glimpse of the future, and a secret of her own. Mags won't get attached, of course. She's always been strong enough to survive without anyone's help. But when the darkness starts to close in on them both, Mags will have to drag her secret into the daylight and choose between risking everything... or having nothing left to lose.

Find The Deep Dark in our online catalog

This book transports you to West Virginia and through the lens of the very relatable autistic trans boy Miles, who struggles against systemic police brutality and a generations-long class war. Along the way, he gets help from the ghost of his martyred coal miner ancestor. Equal parts gut-wrenching and heart-warming, this is a book you can't put down.

 

Publisher's description:

On the night Miles Abernathy—sixteen-year-old socialist and proud West Virginian—comes out as trans to his parents, he sneaks off to a party, carrying evidence that may finally turn the tide of the blood feud plaguing Twist Creek: Photos that prove the county’s Sheriff Davies was responsible for the so-called “accident” that injured his dad, killed others, and crushed their grassroots efforts to unseat him. The feud began a hundred years ago when Miles’s great-great-grandfather, Saint Abernathy, incited a miners’ rebellion that ended with a public execution at the hands of law enforcement. Now, Miles becomes the feud’s latest victim as the sheriff’s son and his friends sniff out the evidence, follow him through the woods, and beat him nearly to death. In the hospital, the ghost of a soot-covered man hovers over Miles’s bedside while Sheriff Davies threatens Miles into silence. But when Miles accidently kills one of the boys who hurt him, he learns of other folks in Twist Creek who want out from under the sheriff’s heel. To free their families from this cycle of cruelty, they’re willing to put everything on the line—is Miles?

 

Magical realism meets radical trans liberation meets rock 'em sock 'em New York, a big city tumultuous ride to freedom and self actualization. A fun, heart-breaking romp through Kai Cheng Thom's take on what it takes to be trans in America.

 

Publisher's description:

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir is a coming-of-age story about a young Asian trans girl, pathological liar, and kung-fu expert who runs away from her parents' abusive home in a rainy city called Gloom. Striking off on her own, she finds her true family in a group of larger-than-life trans femmes who make their home in a mysterious pleasure district known only as the Street of Miracles. Under the wings of this fierce and fabulous flock, she blossoms into the woman she has always dreamed of being, with a little help from the unscrupulous Doctor Crocodile. When one of their number is brutally murdered, our protagonist joins her sisters in forming a vigilante gang to fight back against the transphobes, violent johns, and cops that stalk the Street of Miracles. But when things go terribly wrong, she must find the truth within herself in order to stop the violence and discover what it really means to grow up and find your family.

 

Clocking in at 153 pages, this is the book to read when you're looking to get back into reading. Chambers writes a delightfully hopepunk near-future sci-fi set during climate crisis, in which astronaut Ariadne and three crewmates make a crowdfunded journey into space. Delightfully queer and sincere.

 

Publisher description:

In a stand-alone novella from the award-winning, critically acclaimed author of the Wayfarer series, Ariadne O'Neill and her crewmates are hard at work in a planetary system 15 light-years from Sol, on a mission to ecologically survey four habitable worlds. Faced with the possibility of returning to a planet that has forgotten those who have left, Ariadne begins to chronicle the wonders and dangers of her mission.

 

Fine explores the vastness and fluidity of gender and its impact on the human experience. This compelling collection of illustrated interviews echoes that gender is "a language with a billion dialects." This series could be added to for years to come as language and gender are always evolving.

 

Publisher description:
As graphic artist Rhea Ewing neared college graduation in 2012, they became consumed by the question: What is gender? This obsession sparked a quest in which they eagerly approached both friends and strangers in their quiet Midwest town for interviews to turn into comics. A decade later, this project exploded into a sweeping portrait of the intricacies of gender expression with interviewees from all over the country. Questions such as "How do you Identify" produced fiercely honest stories of dealing with adolescence, taking hormones, changing pronouns—and how these experiences can differ, often drastically, depending on culture, race, and religion. Amidst beautifully rendered scenes emerges Ewing's own story of growing up in rural Kentucky, grappling with their identity as a teenager, and ultimately finding themself through art—and by creating something this very fine. Tender and wise, inclusive and inviting, Fine is an indispensable account for anyone eager to define gender in their own terms.

 

In A Million Quiet Revolutions, Robin Gow weaves a captivating narrative through the artful medium of verse, delving into the lives of two trans teens, Oliver and Aaron, as they navigate the complexities of love, identity, and the daunting transition from adolescence to adulthood.

 

Publisher's description: Two seventeen-year-old trans boys in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, struggling to understand themselves and their love for each other, are inspired by an online story about trans soldiers who fell in love during the American Revolution.

 

In this deliciously good fantasy graphic novel, Basil and her friends navigate the pressures of attending a magiculinary boarding school. This book contains amazing LGBTQ+ representation and an adorable romance that will make you hungry for a snack while reading! Cozy up with this book!

 

Publisher's description: 

Basil Eyres and Arabella Oregano are both students of cooking with magic at Porta Bella Magiculinary Academy, and although the two are instantly smitten with each other, Arabella has a secret with the potential to throw Basil's future aspirations into jeopardy.

Find Basil and Oregano in our online catalog. 

Part autobiography, part manifesto on gender and sexuality, part guidebook on FTM transition, part blueprint for effective activism. Jamison Green lays it all out in this eye opening read based on his decades of experience and personal journey. Read with pencil and paper at hand! And tissues!

 

Publisher description:
At least two generations of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people have emerged since Becoming a Visible Man was first published in 2004, but the book remains a beloved resource for trans people and their allies. Since the first edition's publication, author Jamison Green's writings and advocacy among business and governmental organizations around the world have led to major changes in the fields of law, medicine, and social policy, and his (mostly invisible) work has had significant effects on trans people globally. This new edition captures the changes of the last two decades, while also imparting a message of self-acceptance and health. With profoundly personal and eminently practical threads, Green clarifies transgender experience for transgender people and their families, friends, and coworkers. Medical and mental health care providers, educators, business leaders, and advocates seeking information about transgender concerns can all gain from Green's integrative approach to the topic. This book candidly addresses emotional relationships that are affected by a transition, and brings refined integrity to the struggle to self-define, whether one undergoes a transition or chooses not to. Emphasizing the lives of transgender men-who are often overlooked-he elucidates the experience of masculinity in a way that is self-assured and inclusive of feminist values. Green's inspirational wisdom has informed and empowered thousands of readers. There is still no other book like Becoming a Visible Man in the transgender canon.

Funny! Gory! Trans! Boys Weekend made me cheer for the trans artist's assistant hero and groan about masculinity and capitalism. It reminded me of another favorite, BTTM FDRS.

 

Publisher description:

Newly-out trans artist's assistant Sammie is invited to an old friend's bachelor weekend in El Campo, a hedonistic wonderland of a city floating in the Atlantic Ocean's international waters-think Las Vegas with even fewer rules. Though they have not identified as a man for over a year, Sammie's old friends haven't quite gotten the message-as evidenced by their former best friend Adam asking them to be his "best man." Arriving at the swanky hotel, Sammie immediately questions their decision to come. Bad enough that they have to suffer through a torrent of passive-aggressive comments from the groom's pals-all met with zero pushpack from supposed "nice guy" Adam. But also, they seem to be the only one who's noticed the mysterious cult that's also staying at the hotel, and is ritually dismembering guests and demanding fealty to their bloodthirsty god.