As the year winds down and the weather cools, staying cozy inside with a good book is undeniably appealing. Not sure what to read next? Xtra has covered great books all year long. And as a bonus, our editors and contributors have shared even more of their favourites from the past year here.
Evenings and Weekends by Oisín McKenna
What happens when the club music ends, the lights come on and you wake up in a new phase of life? That’s the central question of Oisín McKenna’s dynamic debut, Evening and Weekends. The Dublin-born and London-based writer spotlights a multigenerational cast at their own personal influx points—with particular focus on three central figures. There’s the artistically minded Maggie, forced to sacrifice her London flat and party lifestyle now that she’s pregnant. There’s her best friend Phil, a gay man figuring out how to insert himself into his roommate’s open relationship. And there’s Maggie’s boyfriend and baby-daddy, who continues to hide his trysts with Phil from Maggie.
If it all sounds a bit melodramatic, that’s because it is. After all, what’s messier than the period in your life when your twenties end and suddenly you’re forced to make big life decisions? Evenings and Weekends lives in the space where beers, bumps and bathroom makeouts just don’t hit the same, and you suddenly have to answer the questions you’ve been avoiding your entire adulthood. Particular kudos goes to McKenna for exploring the not-oft-discussed role of a new entry in an open relationship. There’s no dearth of novels about the “other woman” (or in this case, man), but it felt current to read Phil’s incongruous yet amicable thoughts on his lover’s fiancé. A new read for all the polycules out there.
—Kevin Hurren, contributor
I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together by Maurice Vellekoop
It’s not often that I cry while reading a book, but this sprawling graphic memoir made me misty-eyed at several turns. I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together follows its author and illustrator on a 500-page journey, as he survives a strict Christian upbringing in 1970s Toronto and grapples with overcoming the shame that upbringing leaves him with—all before having his queer coming of age in the shadow of the AIDS crisis. That the end result is a book that feels operatic is fitting—the graphic novel is packed with cultural references, to everything from fashion to punk bands to opera.
I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together is beautiful visually, of course, but emotionally too. Vellekoop deftly juggles the complications that come with writing about friends, family and lovers—managing to portray others in a way that feels both compassionate and honest. Vellekoops turns that same eye on himself, and lets the reader come along on a journey that is at turns heartbreaking, hilarious, messy, deeply sweet and fun.
—Ziya Jones, senior editor
How to Fuck Like a Girl by Vera Blossom
Vera Blossom has a blog called How to Fuck Like a Girl. As of this month, she also has a book with the same name, and it includes the same level of brilliance. A late contender in 2024, HTFLAG came out with author and poet Michelle Tea’s new press, Dopamine Books/Semiotext(e) on Dec. 3.
Blossom’s how-to guide covers everything from hookup apps to living within capitalism. In it, the transfemme Filipina writer writes about “failing at boyhood,” cruising in gay male spaces in a past iteration of her life and building new worlds. She writes about transition in a complex and sure way, about a lack of desire to pass as cis, about not just the art of femininity but femmes as walking art.
Blossom writes about the ways we shape ourselves beyond gender identity, outward presentation, sexual orientation or desire. She writes about casting herself as a “monster” or “freak” in ways that shun the derogatory connotations. And she writes, often, about being tall. “It’s pretty much impossible to tell the difference between someone who’s staring at you because you look like a freak and someone who’s staring at you because you look like a six-foot-tall goddess,” Blossom writes, in the perfect “Why not both?” moment.
—Tara-Michelle Ziniuk, managing editor
The Sparkle Club by Max Emerson
The debut novel of gay model and social media influencer Max Emerson tells the story of Mark, a YouTuber and influencer (better known by his online name “Mark Sparkle), whose response to a homophobic slur from an adolescent fan against his non-binary best friend and co-creator, Fleek, ends in tragedy. In the fallout of his “cancellation,” Mark is forced to spend the summer with the family of that fan in rural Ohio, in the hopes of a redemptive journey. The book is told from the perspectives of Mark, the sister of the fan and the journalist covering the story, and is at times endearing. Emerson’s novel provides some insight into the precarious world of online influencers, and the kinds of hoops they need to jump through to maintain relevance in a world where the algorithm is the master. It’s a cautionary tale for the online world we live in, where no matter how well-meaning you might have been, the consequences for your actions can be deadly.
—Dale Smith, contributor
Boy Island by Leo Fox
When I’m looking for an escape from the darkness of the queer news cycle, I often turn to comics. But U.K.-based cartoonist Leo Fox’s Boy Island is less of an escape and more of a deeply cathartic reminder that we will always be freaks—and that that’s okay (or even great). Boy Island (incidentally, one of two entries on this list published by Silver Sprocket, my absolute favourite comics shop/indie comics publisher) follows Lucille, our shirtless, hooded protagonist, as he attempts the treacherous journey from “girl island” to “boy island.” Along the way, he is accompanied by a star-headed ferryman, haunted by the spirit of perversion and encounters the spirits of trans ancestors who lost their lives in the sea between the islands of gender.
Fox’s “modern transgender fable” comes at a moment when systemic anti-trans sentiment feels like it’s at an all-time high, particularly in the U.S. and the U.K. In my more hopeless moments, Boy Island reminded me that we can make the world our own, if we’re willing to try. If we’re willing to tear it down with our bare hands.
—Oliver Haug, contributing editor
Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar
Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! starts off with its protagonist, Cyrus Shams, drunk and high, asking God to speak to him. The lights flash briefly, or so he thinks, and something changes for Cyrus. A decision needs to be made. Sobriety?
But this novel isn’t a straightforward sobriety story—it also deeply explores the idea of martyrdom, in a way that surpasses Western understandings of what sacrifice can mean. Cyrus begins an obsessive research into different martyrs, and becomes fixated on wondering what worth it might give his life to become a martyr himself. In the process, he discovers more about his past and himself than he expected.
During a year and a half of witnessing Palestinian martyrdom on such a grand scale, the novel feels somewhat timely in its release, reminding us that in many communities, cultures and religions in the East, including Islam, martyrdom is received as a badge of honour, a sacrifice for the greater good—one that often surpasses Western understandings of care and community, in our society that values individualism so highly.
This novel was funny, morbid, surprising and a delight to read. Akbar writes about so many intersecting subjects so adeptly, including sobriety and addiction, Islam and religion, family, Western imperialism, queerness and complicated queer relationships with depth and complexity that stick.
—Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch, contributor
Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin
Gretchen Felker-Martin’s follow-up to her acclaimed novel, Manhunt, sees the trans author further burnishing her reputation as a pre-eminent creator of literary queer horror. In her latest novel, it’s the 1990s, and queer and trans teens are being shipped off to a creepy conversion camp in the middle of the Utah desert—but very quickly it becomes evident that there’s a lot more afoot there than just praying the gay away.
Felker-Martin brilliantly conjures the ’90s era while vividly depicting the abjection of being a queer teen surrounded by hateful adults—although the realm is fantasy, the self-serving, guilt-tripping rationales for sending sons and daughters off to be turned into more suitable children is torn from the reality of many ’90s youths who were shipped away to just such places. With Cuckoo, Felker-Martin has established herself as a master of twisting time-honoured queer tropes in fresh ways, placing them into parallel worlds touched by sci-fi and horror, as well as healthy doses of suspense and grotesquerie.
—Veronica Esposito, contributor
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
For any queer Brontë fans out there who always wished that Jane or Cathy would indulge a Sapphic side, I can’t recommend Yael van der Wouden’s debut novel The Safekeep enough. Set in the early ’60s in the Netherlands, the story follows Isabel as she lives in her late mother’s home, painstakingly taking care of it—and keeping it as close to her haunted childhood memories as she can. When her brother Louis invites his new girlfriend, Eva, to stay in the house as a guest while he’s away, Isabel’s loathing of her becomes obsessive—especially as she notices items in the home going missing. The two are polar opposites—Isabel controlled and Eva messy—and their forced cohabitation makes both women consider the other. Their relationship morphes into something complicated, filled with mistrust, intimacy and eventually, utter passion.
As Isabel’s life and viewpoint changes, she’s shown the cracks that can exist in our family histories. The Safekeep is a novel about the tragedy and freedom found in the unravelling of oneself, of morphing into something new.
—Kerensa Cadenas, contributor
In Tongues by Thomas Grattan
Thomas Grattan’s second novel, In Tongues, is a bildungsroman of a classically all-American form: a young man flees small-town life for the Big Apple, where he struggles to establish a sustainable way to live while existentially wrestling with his own place in the world. This hero’s journey in red, white and blue might be tired coming from another author’s pen—but under Grattan’s stewardship, the form is given a fiery liveliness that makes In Tongues a heart-wrenching, tear-jerking page-turner. The astuteness with which Grattan writes his characters—who are sometimes rude and thoughtless, often thirsting for power, love or money, but always written compassionately—is what ties the novel together.
The anxious quest for belonging (and, hopefully, some money) undertaken by the protagonist, twenty-four-year-old Gordon, unexpectedly brings him into a West Village world of rich art gays. This is a world in which he doesn’t exactly fit, given his youth, impoverished background and lack of worldliness. The grief and self-conscious insecurity of a young person desperately trying to find their way in a confusing and sometimes hostile world is presented in a way that always feels honest rather than tropey. There’s certainly angst and sullenness and cringey missteps, but Grattan’s writing has a genuineness that brings Gordon and the other characters to life by treating them with sympathy and generosity—even the story’s most unapologetically bitchy queens.
—Nour Abi-Nakhoul, contributor
Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions by Nalo Hopkinson
Any new release from speculative fiction and fantasy author Nalo Hopkinson always feels thrilling! Imagine my delight to find out that Hopkinson would release two books in 2024: Blackheart Man and Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions. The latter drew my attention because it’s a collection of short stories. As a busy activist, professor and parent, short stories are more manageable for my overrun brain. Plus, I have loved her short stories for decades, and couldn’t wait to dig into this new offering.
Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions is particularly exciting because Hopkinson gives background and context for her stories within the text: she reflects on the writing, content and whether she feels the piece “works.” It’s a beautiful and pedagogical moment to get to witness the making behind the stories. Hopkinson has crafted a series of worlds for us that are familiar, like the Desmond Dekker lyrics and rich visualizations of Carribean futurities and fantasy. As Hopkinson writes:
“The lovely thing about the fiction of the fantastic is that through it, we can imagine the realities we want to see in the world. We can imagine pathways to getting there. So reality be damned.”
Hopkinson offers us powerful imaginings of the kinds of worlds we are trying to build together: where Black, trans, disabled life is supported and affirmed as inherently valuable.
—Syrus Marcus Ware, contributor
Wild Faith by Talia Lavin
One of the guiding credos of the feminist movement is “the personal is political.” After reading Talia Lavin’s latest deep-dive into the American far-right, I’m convinced it’s Christian nationalists who have put that idea into practice more stringently than any other movement in modern America. In Wild Faith, Lavin uses primary sources to investigate the last seventy years of the the Christian Right, revealing the deep relationships between the evangelical backlash to school desegregation, Christian apocalypticism, “purity politics” of the ’90s and 2000s, anti-abortion terrorism, bathroom bills, “parental rights” and tradwives.
Lavin’s work also draws on more than 100 interviews with ex-evangelicals who share their experiences in Christian nationalist families and churches, describing what it’s like to grow up under the thumb of parents encouraged to beat obedience—to the family patriarch and to the Lord—into their children. Lavin deftly weaves these intimate experiences with the logic and cruelty of Christian nationalism as a political movement, which seeks control above all else: of women, children and anyone who deviates from the white, straight, cis, obedient ideal. Lavin’s prose is beautiful, her wit adding levity in dealing with a topic that can be, frankly, extremely dark, and she handles the often heartbreaking stories shared by ex-evangelicals with the care and sensitivity they deserve. Maybe most importantly, Lavin refuses to condescend to the Christian Right, taking their words and actions seriously, and encouraging readers to do the same.
—Emma Arkell, contributor
Belly Full of Heart by Madeline Mouse
The broad news cycle and general state of the world has myself—and likely many queers—drawing inward. When so much feels in flux and out of our control out there in the big, wide world, I’ve found solace in the small reminders of love and joy in my life—toes in the sand at the beach, a ripe piece of fruit, a tender embrace of a lover.
A longtime fixture of Vancouver’s indie comics scene, Madeline Mouse has crafted a distinct voice and ability to capture those tiny intimate moments of queer and trans existence. Over the years, I’ve accumulated a fair share of prints of their work from various zine fairs and comic fests to adorn my apartment walls—as well as their previous book, Madeline’s Good Dirt and Junk Collection, published by Vancouver’s own Cloudscape Comics—and I’m so delighted to see them publishing longer work with California-based indie comics darling Silver Sprocket.
Belly Full of Heart, out this month, bills itself as an “ode to ooey-gooey homosexual lovers of the past, present and future,” using a series of poetic visual vignettes to draw the reader into the most intimate moments of queer and trans love. From washing each other’s butts to staying over at someone’s place night after night, Belly Full of Heart captures that feeling of loving someone so much you can’t even say it. The art is beautiful and intimate, sprawling across coloured pages like an organism-filled pond overflowing its banks.
Their sparse use of text is directly integrated with each scene’s visual narrative—a style that will stretch any comic skeptic’s idea of what words and pictures brought together can accomplish. At only $14.95 and 40 pages, Belly Full of Heart is an ideal quick read for an exhausted mind looking to get back to the small joys of life, in a moment where they might be hard to find.
—Mel Woods, senior editor, audience engagement
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