COMICS
LAURA
DEAN
KEEPS
BREAKING
UP WITH
ME
Mariko Tamaki,
Rosemary
Valero- O’Connell
Mariko Tamaki is at her storytelling
best when she captures the vulnerable
intricacies of being a misfit teenager. In
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me,
protagonist Freddy Riley is the sometimes
girlfriend of Laura Dean and the unreliable
best friend of Doodle. Freddy’s redeeming
quality, though, is that she knows things
aren’t quite right and wants to make it
better, including seeking the advice of an
agony aunt. Visually, Rosemary Valero-
O’Connell’s illustrations are clean black,
white, and rose pink drawings that give
vitality to Freddy’s mishaps. Overall, this
is an endearing and tender graphic novel
about choosing who you want to be.
First Second, £13.99FICTION
CRIMSON
Niviaq
Korneliussen
Crimson, by Niviaq
Korneliussen,
unapologetically
relates the lives of
five people in the
interconnected
queer community of Greenland’s capital
of Nuuk. Young twentysomethings – Fia,
Inuk, Arnaq, Ivik and Sara – fumble their
way through their relationships and their
understandings of themselves, sometimes
hurting each other along the way, in order
to claim the love, identity or freedom they
didn’t yet know was possible. The novel
was translated from Greenlandic in 2018
and Korneliussen, a debut author and the
first to be featured in our Emerging Voices
section, is definitely one to watch.
Virago, £8.99BY ERICA GILLINGHAM
B
O
O
K
S
SHORT FICTION
SALT SLOW
Julia Armfield
Julia Armfield’s debut short story collection, Salt Slow, is entic-
ing and engaging from start to finish. Her stories are alternately
feminist, misandrist and queer, with one about an enrapturing
all-female band brazenly epitomising all of the above. Other
stories explore thought experiments, such as “What if we lost
the ability to sleep?”, with a refreshing approach and clarity.
Similar to Carmen Maria Machado, there are flashes of the
monstrous and the grotesque in Armfield’s tales, but she is
in no way derivative, reaching out, “tentacularly”, into the
recesses of her reader’s subconscious to find new places to
inhabit. A singular voice that we look forward to reading
more of in the future.
Picador, £12.99Book of the Month
ERICA GILLINGHAM
is a queer poet, writer,
and bookseller with
a PhD in lesbian love
stories and kissing.
@ericareadsqueerGIRLS OF PAPER AND FIRE
Natasha Ngan
Girls Of Paper And Fire by Natasha Ngan is the story of Lei, a young
woman who works in her father’s herb shop until she is forced to
become a Paper Girl, one of the concubines to the Demon King. She
endures her palace duties in the hope of finding her mother, who was
similarly taken, and with the blossoming of a forbidden love. In these
circumstances, she also discovers a fire within her that could change
everything – even who sits on the throne. Ngan’s writing is rich and
vivid, and this story will not only shock and console you, but find a
place in your heart as quickly as you’ll want to finish it.
Hodder & Stoughton, £7.99Each issue we invite a queer guest reviewer to share their book of the month. This time it’s Chloe Smith,
a disabled and autistic writer, poet, and reader of LGBTQI young adult fiction.E
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64 SEPTEMBER 2019
CULTURE | BOOKS