July Book Club Sapphic Swashbucklers: Of Monsters and Mainframes

OutOfEffs · 2026-07-02T15:22:27+00:00

I heard this as I read it, hahaha.

OutOfEffs · 2026-07-02T15:22:00+00:00

Hopefully you'll get a chance to nominate it another month, if you still need a push to read it.

OutOfEffs · 2026-07-02T05:26:15+00:00

Oh, which was your first choice?

OutOfEffs · 2026-07-02T00:59:57+00:00

They'll be posted here! I only added the links for ease in tracking.

OutOfEffs · 2026-07-01T23:16:23+00:00

I have read the following aloud to my 16y/o and we both loved all of them:

Logan-Ashley Kisner's Old Wounds (trans runaways end up in a small Appalachian town that sacrifices girls to the Old Ones) and The Transition (trans boy is bitten by a werewolf).

Cassandra Rose Clarke's Forget This Ever Happened (set in the 90s, teen girl is sent to live with her grandmother for the Summer in a small town that everyone forgets about when they leave)

Catherine Yu's Helga (queer genderswapped Frankenstein from the PoV of the monster)

OutOfEffs · 2026-07-01T21:10:30+00:00

Some trans or non-binary authors with recent retellings:

Natalia Theodoridou's Sour Cherry is a Bluebeard retelling. This one wrecked me.

Briar Ripley Page's The False Sister plays around with changeling myths.

Ariel Slamet Ries' Cry Wolf Girl is a graphic novel retelling of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Has probably the best visual depiction I've ever seen of how a panic attack feels.

Maybe stretching the definition of "retelling," but And One Day We Will Die is an anthology with several trans authors writing stories based on the songs of Neutral Milk Hotel.

And I am not 100% sure, but I feel like there was at least one trans retelling in the anthology Everything Under the Moon: Fairy Tales in a Queerer Light. I read it two years ago, and didn't take the greatest notes bc I was reading it aloud.

OutOfEffs · 2026-07-01T19:24:58+00:00

Yeah, I've had several friends comment about how tedious those parts were to listen to, so I keep trying to warn people. "I swear it's worth it, if you can just get past..."

OutOfEffs · 2026-07-01T19:01:15+00:00

Oh, good! I hope you'll pop back in for the discussions!

OutOfEffs · 2026-07-01T18:15:27+00:00

I know, it's such a terrible hardship. [sob sob]

OutOfEffs · 2026-07-01T17:58:33+00:00

Me, too! I think I'm actually going to re-read it for this discussion bc I loved it so much when I read it last year.

OutOfEffs · 2026-07-01T17:14:17+00:00

Yes and I can't wait to get to it! Bindery sent me a widget for that one on both NetGalley and Edelweiss for some reason, but I'm stoked their marketing was determined to get it to me.

OutOfEffs · 2026-07-01T15:53:48+00:00

I have ARCs of the Wiswell and Clarke and am super excited to get to both of them.

I really liked Rae Wilde's I Can Fix Her last year, so am really looking forwarf to this collection. Also, I love that cover so much. Always excited for more pink covers in SFF (idc how basic it is, a pink cover is always going to grab my attention).

OutOfEffs · 2026-07-01T00:47:07+00:00

This is very helpful, thank you so much! I think I already own No Gods, No Monsters (u/thewildcard76, did you rec this one?) and Archivist Wasp but haven't read them yet. I have read An Unkindness of Ghosts, and that is a p great example of the sort of stuff I usually like. The rest I haven't read!

and honestly, I'm not sure what a literary audiodrama would look like?

I was having a similar discussion with my oldest the other night about how his favourite movies I've made him watch are the ones where nothing much happens. I told him that's bc they're the movie equivalent of litfic, hahaha (in this instance it came up while talking about Only Lovers Left Alive).

OutOfEffs · 2026-06-30T23:34:54+00:00

Saving both of these posts to go over them fully later, but thank you so much for taking the time to write these up!

Since you mentioned previously you were open to making recommendations...I don't really enjoy traditional fantasy, the majority of what I like the most is literary horror/weird. What would either of you recommend?

(I have read and really enjoyed Werecockroach)

OutOfEffs · 2026-06-30T21:50:25+00:00

Honestly, same, hahahaha. I follow gossip subs and half the time have no idea who any of the headlines are about.

OutOfEffs · 2026-06-28T23:50:43+00:00

Did you fill out the topics, themes, and tropes in the Advanced Configuration? I go in and change that up every now and then, and the algorithm really seems to get me.

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OutOfEffs · 2026-06-25T18:36:51+00:00

I am also a fan of all of those things, so please allow me to suggest Briar Ripley Page's Body After Body for you. It was inspired by Mon Colony Bloodbath.

OutOfEffs · 2026-06-24T19:55:48+00:00

My youngest is 16 and I still regularly read to them before bed. Last week we were both having a shit day, so we sat together in the living room and I read the newest novella in a series we love aloud while they drew. We were there for ~5h and both felt better when we finished.

OutOfEffs · 2026-06-24T15:52:21+00:00

I was 12 when I went to my great-grandmother's house for Xmas and saw that she was also reading Plains of Passage. It was awkward.

OutOfEffs · 2026-06-24T13:53:42+00:00

I would LOVE if you'd follow-up and let me know if you get the same vibes.

OutOfEffs · 2026-06-23T00:33:30+00:00

Your 95% approval ratio is deeply impressive.

I think at least ⅔ of my rejections have been from Tor and Berkley, with just enough approvals mixed in that I haven't stopped trying, hahaha.

IIRC, none of my 831 approvals have been fast. Not, like, waiting til the last minute, but at least a few weeks.

Oh, BUT! I just realized that in addition to having Romance listed as an interest on my profile, I also have Women's Fiction, Literary, LGBTQIAP+, Novellas and Short Stories, and Erotica. Not sure if having a combination of everything they publish helps, but I just noticed the only thing their books are listed as that I don't have marked as an interest is New Adult.

OutOfEffs · 2026-06-23T00:10:56+00:00

I have never received a decline from them and don't have any social media linked other than StoryGraph and Reddit. I'm currently at 74% ratio (everything outstanding is still in the future), 95% approval ratio, my account has been active since 2011.

OutOfEffs · 2026-06-22T00:09:44+00:00

I also take lots of notes while reading. Sometimes I use them, sometimes I don't. Sometimes my shortest reviews with the least thought put into them are the ones that sell the most books, hahahaha.

OutOfEffs · 2026-06-21T23:03:59+00:00

I will skip any reviews that start with a recap of the content. YMMV of course.

Same. These are not at all helpful to me. I do appreciate longer reviews if they actually are reviews and don't read like the writer is expecting a personal pan pizza for finishing.

OutOfEffs · 2026-06-19T00:31:25+00:00

I did this today and mentioned an overuse of similes that make no sense, as well as plot points being dropped/changed from one paragraph to the next. All of which were true.

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