A journey into the lesbian archives makes a modern declaration of love to queer folks throughout time.
Bringing the often-hidden history of lesbians into the open.
“The serious hurdle about trying to figure out who you are—or even just who you fancy—is that you only have yourself to go on,” writes Lovatt of her challenges questioning her sexuality in her late 20s. She had dated men, but never been in love. She felt attracted to women, but did she want to be them or be with them? How to parse through these questions? Well, in the late 20th century, a phone service known as the “Lesbian Line” existed. Founded in the 1970s and thriving into the early internet era, this line and others like it emerged in Britain to deal with questions like these. The volunteers handled everything from young girls kicked out of their parents’ homes to women in heterosexual marriages suspecting they might be in love with their best friends. Lovatt builds a chosen family from this archive, sorting through decades of phone logs to report their stories. Due to repression, much of lesbian history is hidden history, and Lovatt writes that she felt like “an amateur lesbian sleuth” uncovering the queer past. Interspersed is Lovatt’s own coming out journey, plus research on lesbian pop culture in the time of the phone lines. Though the book is at times disappointingly introductory, scraping the surface of intersectionality without adding new depth, it strives to be as inclusive as possible in all definitions of “lesbian.” Summarizing the still-poignant ideas of key thinkers like Audre Lorde and bell hooks as well as a wlw—women loving women—TikTok feed, it covers a lot of ground. Even if some readers may wish for more radical thought or thorough research, the book nonetheless does admirable work for lesbian history and will nourish many young lesbians as well as those seeking to learn more about the community.
A journey into the lesbian archives makes a modern declaration of love to queer folks throughout time.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781538774496
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Legacy Lit/Hachette
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
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