Honey Badger Romance, Royal Covens, a Summer Essential and More
Set yourself up for a fab summer of reading, viewing, and touching grass with this roundup of goodness!
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (on audiobook)
I know I’m horribly late to the party, but I’m finally listening to Braiding Sweetgrass, and I need to tell you it’s just as good as everyone has been saying. I somehow had the impression it would be more academic and difficult to parse, but it’s accessible and beautifully written. This audiobook is the perfect thing to put on while I walk the dog, making just being outside feel like a transformative experience. In case you needed the millionth and first person to recommend it, let me be that person.
—Danika
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
If you love books about books, please read this. Yellowface is the juiciest, most un-putdownable book I’ve read so far this year. It’s about a white woman who sees her path to literary stardom in her recently deceased friend’s manuscript — a manuscript about Chinese WWI laborers written by Athena, a literary darling who’s Chinese American. June’s dirty little secret about the origins of the book that rocketed her from relatively unknown author to literary phenom status takes her to some seriously toxic places. Twitter drama, arguments about who gets to write about who, fame monster antics — this book reveals some of the ugly sides of writing, publishing, and fandom with a healthy dose of dark humor and acerbic wit.
—Sharifah
Black Girl Sunscreen
If you’re heading out to read en plein air, don’t forget your sunscreen! I remember the days when people with a darker-than-pale skin tone had to resign themselves to sporting a white cast from sunscreen, but (thank goodness) we’re finally seeing products in cosmetics, bath, and body that acknowledge Black and Brown folks exist and take them into consideration. We have more BIPOC brands doing that good work, including Black Girl Sunscreen, which is crafted for people of color and gets so many well-deserved shoutouts from my people.
Now if you’ve been hearing the alarming news about forever chemicals and want something EWG Verified®, you’ll find a lot of mineral sunscreen options. Unless they’re tinted or expensive, they do tend to make a person look ashy because they rely on safe but bone-white Zinc Oxide. However, I’ve found that Babo Botanicals Sheer Mineral Sunscreen is affordable and blends better when applied to moisturized skin. “Just because you have melanin doesn’t mean you don’t need sunscreen” is the refrain I hear often from BIPOC folks lately, and ya know what — it’s true! So slap on that screen and get out there with a good book.
—Sharifah
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig (available now on streaming)
Like many elder millennials, I’ve been waiting for an adaptation of this Judy Blume classic for several decades, so I couldn’t be more delighted to report that it is just about perfect. Craig’s screenplay captures the rollercoaster of adolescence, from angst to exultation and back again, and treats Margaret’s big questions about life, the universe, and everything with a pitch-perfect blend of humor and seriousness. The whole cast is terrific, but Abby Ryder Fortson shines as the title character, and I’m not sure anyone has ever been more perfectly cast than Kathy Bates as Margaret’s well-meaning, over-involved grandmother. This is a joy from start to finish, and good for all time zones.
—Rebecca
Her Majesty’s Royal Coven Trilogy by Juno Dawson
The first two books in this series are out now (Her Majesty’s Royal Coven and The Shadow Cabinet), and sweet baby cheeses, I need you to read these books. In the first book, we meet four young girls who are about to be initiated into Her Majesty’s Royal Coven (HMRC), a coven established by Queen Elizabeth I on the low. Decades later we learn that the witch community has been torn apart by a civil war and a lot has changed between the four friends. Only one of them is still a part of HMRC, two are out here trying to pass off as normies, and a schism has led one to break off and start her own radically inclusive coven, one not mired in conservative ideas about magical purity, race, and gender. The stakes get ratcheted up when a young warlock with next-level magical powers is captured by authorities, and a prophecy about a great evil leaves everyone split on what to do about it. The book just explodes from there and the second book is even wilder. These books are deliciously fun and full of witchy magic, high stakes, queerness, feminism, so! much! swearing! and an epic battle between good and evil. They’re a big ol’ middle finger to transphobes (and one author in particular, cough cough). I cannot wait for Book 3.
Oh and did I mention the origins of the coven go back to Anne Boleyn? And that Juno Dawson is writing a prequel (Queen B) that takes us back to Tudor times?! And that the makers of The Crown are adapting HMRC for TV?! Excuse me while I go squeal into a pillow.
—Vanessa
The Honey Badger Chronicles by Shelly Laurenston
I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but it’s been pretty gross here in the mid-Atlantic: too hot, too humid, and not enough rain that doesn’t also produce flooding. (Thanks, climate change!) So when I tell you that I just want to read escapist books right now, you will understand. And you cannot get more escapist than Shelly Laurenston’s Honey Badger Chronicles, which follows three shapeshifting sisters and their gleefully deranged adventures. There are so many things to love about these books: the sisters’ love for each other, however different they are; each of their journeys to reconcile trauma via therapy (YAY!!!) and community support; them finding love; the full cast of supporting characters. But more than anything else, what I love about them are the, excuse my language, batshit plots. Weddings, roller derby, secret labs, intramural soccer, international crime, snakes in a bar, funerals, karaoke, you name it, Laurenston is not afraid to throw in yet another bonkers plot twist in yet another unexpected setting. Just buckle up and enjoy the ride!
—Jenn
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
The multi-year buzz around this title kept me away until this summer. Also, Russia plus novels does not equate to easy summer reads in my experience. I know that Amor Towles is not a Russian novelist and this is not a Russian novel, but the associations from the setting largely shaped my bias. That the protagonist, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, is a walking Schott’s Original Miscellany drew me in immediately. Tried by the Bolsheviks and sentenced to house arrest for life at the Hotel Metropol Moscow, the worldly Count Rostov becomes hyperlocal. Towles captures this in the Count’s community that is built as a result of the permanence of the Count and those whom he befriends over days, months, and years as a matter of repetition, not pursuit. Historical but not commentary of a long ago time, A Gentleman in Moscow is a reminder that despite societal upheaval and differing opinions, long-term community shared by diverse members contributes to a flourishing life while exposing the banality of today’s nomadic individualism.
—Clinton
Psych Odyssey by Double Fine Productions
Ever wonder what it’s like behind the scenes of a modern game studio? Never one to shy away from documenting their own game production, Double Fine more than doubles down on their promise of pointing the cameras inside the studio, capturing all the candid moments of game development unlike anything before. Filmed daily over a period of 7 years of making Psychonauts 2 and presented as 20+ hour 32-episode series, Double Fine's Psych Odyssey provides a fascinating look behind the curtain. A brilliant and diverse team beset by clashing egos, publisher woes, studio acquisition, pandemic effects, and so much more are on display here in a compelling documentary. The entire series is available for free on Youtube for streaming.
—Alex
Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes
Every time I go to recommend this book, I start with “Cubans and cats! in space!” This super fun space opera is a romp from start to finish. Captain Eva Innocente and the crew of La Sirena Negra spend their days cruise the galaxy delivering small cargo for cash and are barely getting by. Then Eva’s sister Mari is kidnapped by The Fridge, a shifty syndicate that holds people hostage in cryostasis. To get Mari back, Eva agrees to complete a series of dangerous missions for The Fridge to pay the ransom (like kidnapping and venturing to cannibal planets. You know, basic stuff). So her sister’s in trouble, she’s risking her life and her crew’s lives, she’s not being 100% honest with said crew about the details of the whole situation, and also an emperor she once rejected kinda wants her dead. The cherry on top: the ship is full of psychic space cats.
If you love the space gatos, the delightfully foul-mouthed protagonist, and overall ridiculousness of this book like I did, you can move on to Prime Deceptions and Fault Tolerance.
—Vanessa