LGBTQIA+ Archives - Made of Stardust and Stubbornness

“The House of Frank” Review

Posted on July 18, 2025July 22, 2025 by Jen

“House of Frank” by Kay Synclaire

Powerless witch Saika is ready to enact her sister’s final request: to plant her remains at the famed Ash Gardens. When Saika arrives at the always-stormy sanctuary, she is welcomed by its owner, an enormous, knit-cardiganed mythical beast named Frank, who offers her a role as one of the estate’s caretakers.

Overcome with grief, Saika accepts, desperate to put off her final farewell to her sister. But the work requires a witch with intrinsic power, and Saika’s been disconnected from her magic since her sister’s death two years prior. Saika gets by at the sanctuary using a fragment of a fallen star to cast enchantments – while hiding the embarrassing truth about herself.

As Saika works harder in avoidance of her pain, she learns more about Frank, the decaying house at Ash Gardens, and the lives of the motley staff, including bickering twin cherubs, a mute ghost, a cantankerous elf, and an irritating half witch, among others. Over time, she rediscovers what it means to love and be wholly loved and how to allow her joy and grief to coexist. Warm and inventive, House of Frank is a stirring portrait of the ache of loss and the healing embrace of love.

Review

This was a really good book about grief and found family. I really enjoyed reading it. The world building and the characters were all interesting. There admittedly were a couple places where I got annoyed with the main character for taking so long to tell the full story but it made sense why she didn’t. I thought the ending was great and I liked the way things were resolved. All of the characters are carrying their one grief and needed to work through it. Without spoiling too much it felt like things had to play out the way it did in order for everyone, not just Saika, to move on and grow as individuals and together as a family.

Warnings and additional reviews can be found on the StoryGraph page for “House of Frank”.

Book Details

The cover of the house of Frank depicts a skinny multi-story house with a red front door in the middle of a field with a glass arboretum in the back of it under a night sky with a shooting star over it. The title of the book looks like it is on the ground in front of the house with the author's name in front of it.

Author’s Website: Kay Synclaire (Instagram)
Publisher / Date: Ezeekat Press, Bindery Books, October 2024
Genre: Fantasy
Page Count: 352
Completion Date: July 18, 2025

“The Deep” Review

Posted on July 18, 2025July 22, 2025 by Jen

“The Deep” by Rivers Solomon with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes

Yetu holds the memories for her people—water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners—who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one—the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu.

Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface, escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities—and discovers a world her people left behind long ago. Yetu will learn more than she ever expected to about her own past—and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity—and own who they really are.

Inspired by a song produced by the rap group Clipping for the This American Life episode “We Are In The Future,” The Deep is vividly original and uniquely affecting.

Review

I really enjoyed this story. Despite being short there is a lot going on and takes some careful reading. I really liked the way everything was described and the way Yetu figures out what she needs to do. I enjoyed reading the different parts of the story that were in the past and how they related to the present time. Especially how it involved the person Yetu meets during the course of the story. The resolution of all the various problems Yetu had handling the memories worked out well and I’m glad she was able to be happy with everything. The history is terrible and tragic but the future is hopeful.

Warnings and additional reviews can be found on the StoryGraph page for “The Deep”.

Book Details

The Deep book cover depicts a dark skinned mermaid faced away floating in the water vertically with her long hair flowing around her head. There are several whales in the water around her as well. The title is at the top of the cover and the authors names at the bottom.

Author’s Website: Rivers Solomon
Publisher / Date: Gallery/Saga Press, November 2019
Genre: Science Fiction, Alternate History
Page Count: 176
Completion Date: July 15, 2025

“An Unkindness of Ghosts” Review

Posted on June 21, 2025June 21, 2025 by Jen

“An Unkindness of Ghosts” by Rivers Solomon

Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She’s used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, she’d be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remains of her world.

Aster lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship’s leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer, Aster learns there may be a way to improve her lot–if she’s willing to sow the seeds of civil war.

Review

I’ve been meaning to re-read all of Rivers’ earlier books so that I could review them for my blog. This is Rivers’ first and I really enjoyed it. It’s not entirely clear when the ship left Earth or how it ended up the way it did. But it’s also clear that a lot of information has been lost due to time and how bad things have gotten on the ship. The ship is set up so that those who live on the upper decks are white, rich and living comfortably; while everyone in the lower decks who are darker skinned suffers in poverty and near freezing temperatures. It’s a dark and sad story but it does a good job exploring various themes relating to how things were in times of slavery. I also felt like the book did a great job exploring the themes of neurodivergence and gender identity. It may be set in the future but it’s a reminder of how little things change relating to how badly people treat each other. It’s also a story about how people will do whatever it takes to live or die on their own terms.

Along side all this Aster has been attempting to find out more about her mother who she originally believed died at childbirth. Through journals she discovers there is a lot more to the story. I liked the way Aster kept trying to figure everything out despite everything that was happening. While I did feel like the ending chapters were a bit rushed and the ending abrupt, I have to admit it works for the way things played out.

Warnings and additional reviews can be found on the StoryGraph page for “An Unkindness of Ghosts”

Book Details

The cover is a pale field of stars with grays and light blues and in the stars is the face of a young person looking towards the left with their head slightly turned forward and eyes looking forwards too. The face takes up most of the book and the title is written over their forehead and the author's name at the bottom.

Author’s Website: Rivers Solomon
Publisher / Date: Akashic Books / October 2017
Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopian
Page Count: 349
Completion Date: June 20, 2025

“Hijab Butch Blues” Review

Posted on June 18, 2025 by Jen

“Hijab Butch Blues” by Lamya H

When fourteen-year-old Lamya H realizes she has a crush on her teacher—her female teacher—she covers up her attraction, an attraction she can’t yet name, by playing up her roles as overachiever and class clown. Born in South Asia, she moved to the Middle East at a young age and has spent years feeling out of place, like her own desires and dreams don’t matter, and it’s easier to hide in plain sight. To disappear. But one day in Quran class, she reads a passage about Maryam that changes everything: When Maryam learned that she was pregnant, she insisted no man had touched her. Could Maryam, uninterested in men, be . . . like Lamya?

From that moment on, Lamya makes sense of her struggles and triumphs by comparing her experiences with some of the most famous stories in the Quran. She juxtaposes her coming out with Musa liberating his people from the pharoah; asks if Allah, who is neither male nor female, might instead be nonbinary; and, drawing on the faith and hope Nuh needed to construct his ark, begins to build a life of her own—ultimately finding that the answer to her lifelong quest for community and belonging lies in owning her identity as a queer, devout Muslim immigrant.

Review

I really enjoyed reading this memoir. I think the way Lamya uses stories from the Quran to make sense of her own story was interesting. I feel like I learned things from both her explanations of the stories in the Quran and her own life. I felt reading the memoir made me curious to hear other Muslim stories and experiences. I wish the author hadn’t had to write this anonymously but I understand why it had to be. Being anonymous actually gave the author more freedom to tell her own story and be unapologetically queer and Muslim.

In the version of the ebook I read there is an edited transcript of selected portions of an interview between Lamya H and Roxane Gay for the Audacious Book Club from March 30, 2023. I highly recommend reading that interview after reading the memoir as it provides some additional context and explanations.

Book Details

The background of the cover has verious streaks of color - blue, orange red, green and darker green from top to bottom in broad strokes. Over those colors is the profile of a woman in a Hijab turned towards the left with only a small part of her face visible. The title is written near the top with the authors name at the bottom.

Author’s Website: Lamya H
Publisher / Date: The Dial Press, February 2023
Genre: Memoir
Page Count: 284
Completion Date: June 17, 2025

“Interstellar MegaChef” Review

Posted on May 26, 2025June 5, 2025 by Jen

“Interstellar MegaChef” (Flavour Hacker No. 1) by Lavanya Lakshminarayan

Stepping off a long-haul star freighter with one bag of clothes, her little flying robot Kili and the forged documents she used to flee Earth, Saraswati Kaveri is ready to take on the world. Primus, the oldest and most powerful colony in the United Human Cooperative, is the heart of all art and culture. Primian food is the highest and most sophisticated cuisine in the galaxy. And Interstellar MegaChef, now in its twenty-fifth year of broadcasting, is the showcase and standard of that cuisine. And this year—no matter what obstacles Primus throws in her way, whatever prejudices she encounters, however they sneer on her “Earthling” tastes and methods—Saraswati’s going to win it.

Review

This book was a bit complicated and I’m not entirely sold on any of the characters. It’s described in some places as satire so that explains why things seem to be exaggerated (while also realistic in some ways). That said it’s a fun book and many of the characters were interesting. It’s just that the main characters weren’t the most likable. I did like the fact that there was some character development towards the end but I felt like some realizations came a little too late. Food was obviously a big theme of the book and I really enjoyed all the ways it was described. The central conflict between the way Primian food has been developed and Saraswati’s food knowledge from Earth was well done. I also liked what the book had to say about racism and xenophobia. While the ending isn’t exactly a cliffhanger there were a few important plot lines left unresolved, however this is meant to be the first book in a series and I’m interested in seeing how things progress.

Additional reviews and warnings can be found on the StoryGraph page for “Interstellar MegaChef”

Book Details

Author’s Website: Lavanya Lakshminarayan (BlueSky)
Publisher / Date: Rebellion, November 2024
Genre: Science Fiction
Page Count: 415
Completion Date: May 25, 2025

“Lone Women” Review

Posted on May 4, 2025May 26, 2025 by Jen

“Lone Women” by Victor LaValle

Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.

The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.

Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it.

Review

This book was interesting to read and in some ways both simple and a lot more complicated than it initially seems. There are multiple themes going on throughout the book such as racism, sexism and ableism. The reality of Adelaide’s secret is hard to explain without spoiling the whole thing but there are parallels to various issues around disability and responsibilities. I had a few moments where I was concerned about how the book was going to handle those issues, but the ending resolved most of my concerns.

There are multiple plot threads going on through out the book and I liked the way the characters interacted and the various relationships that were shown. There were a couple things that didn’t get explained as well as I’d have liked (as an example it’s not clear how Adelaide and everyone actually survived on their own as they didn’t seem to have access to supplies). I liked all the characters Adelaide ends up being friends with and the way the ending was described. Though I did end up wishing more was said about the future of one character who ended up being my favorite.

Additional reviews and warnings can be found on the StoryGraph page for “Lone Women”

Book Details

Author’s Website: Victor LaValle
Publisher / Date: One World, March 2023
Genre: Horror, Historical Fiction
Page Count: 320
Completion Date: May 3, 2025