Representation of women of color in happy, healthy relationships with other women of color is sadly lacking in our world, but here’s four books to at least start you off!
Once Ghosted, Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole : Last time Likotsi was in New York City, a relationship that was intended to be a quick fling ended up breaking her heart. Now she’s back with a mission to forget Fabiola, a plan that goes haywire when, of all the subway cars in the city, Fabiola walks into her’s. For a book that’s only barely over 100 pages, the chemistry between Likotsi and Fab unfolds so naturally. I feel like I watched a full-length romcom rather than read a quick novella. Unlike a lot of romcoms, however, this book isn’t shy about planting itself fully in 2019. I think it’s the only book I’ve read with two wlw who meet through a dating app. It also touches on the struggles of families who see the current political climate threatening their previously secure immigration status (although a happy end is reached). Lastly, if it’s been a while since you read a book with a snappy-dressing black butch lesbian for a main character, Likotsi may be the one for you.
The World Unseen by Shamim Sarif : I’ve heard people say that it’s unrealistic for books about lesbians in the 1950s to have happy endings, so they must be real mad about this book about two Indian women in 1950s South Africa. Miriam is a woman from a traditional Indian family. She moved to South Africa to do the marriage and babies thing, and now she struggles with controlling in-laws and boredom in the rural outskirts of Pretoria. That’s until she meets Amina, who chooses to defy her community by driving a taxi and running a cafe with a black man under strictly segmented Apartheid conditions. Jacob’s side plot involves a relationship with a white woman, and it’s quite heart breaking to have a side-by-side comparison of the many ways love has been criminalized throughout history. This is one of those books where you can track the characters’ growing confidence and feel like you’re about to cry when they finally learn to stop deferring to others and take a stand for themselves.
Final Draft by Riley Redgate : It’s college decision season right now, so this book might hit a little closer to home than usual. Laila wants to be a writer, and thankfully she’s quite good at it - or so her high school English teacher says, anyway. But with only three months left before Laila leaves high school forever her teacher is replaced by a Pulitzer Prize winning author, a woman who has nothing but criticism for Laila’s stories. She’s facing a sudden crisis of doubt about where her talents and interests lie, right as she’s supposed to be making one of the most major decisions of her life thus far. And also, she might just be falling for her best friend. I remember the stress and panic of having to decide the course of the next four years (minimum) of my life even as I was questioning the major I had declared on the Common App so I can say this book absolutely nails that sense of turmoil. It’s also a nice step away from a lot of the standard YA literature about senior year; I think I can count the number of books I know with a biracial, pansexual, plus-size lead on exactly one finger. It’s a great book with advice on expanding beyond your standard range of experience that I think most of us, writers or not, could take advantage of.
Under the Udala Treesby Chinelo Okparanta : This is one of my favorite books and easily one of the most satisfying endings I’ve read, but I will preface it by saying there is a good amount of very violent homophobia throughout that makes it a difficult read. Beginning with the Nigerian Civil War, Ijeoma is sent away to live with another family where she falls in love with another girl. This book stands as a testament to the futility of trying to change sexuality, set in a country that criminalizes same-sex love. Ijeoma is faced with so much pressure to continue to be a societal success story, even as it’s clear she’s incapable of being fully happy with the man she’s married. It’s also a rarity to see a character come from religious-based disgust of homosexuality to acceptance of a loved one, and it’s part of what made the end of this book so deeply satisfying. Be warned that it doesn’t shy away from the ugly and violent end of homophobia, but it’s a book with a happy ending in an era and region where lesbians often find those hard to come by.
Let us not forget the greatest real-life bard of all time.
Reblogging this because people need to know about the original Badass Bisexual
She did that. She was also so extra she had to be pardoned by the King of France… twice. -The first time it was because of the aforementioned “breaking and entering a convent to flee with a novice while also putting a dead nun in her bed [that she had previously dug up from the nearby cemetery] and setting fire to the convent just in case”. -The second time it was because she went to a Royal Ball and spent so much time flirting with a high society girl so overtly that three of her suitors challenged her to a duel. She fought the three of them at once and then went back in to continue flirting with the girl. She apparently hadn’t considered the small fact that duels were outlawed, and that maybe having three duels on the Royal Palace gardens wasn’t the best idea ever? Luckily for her Louis XIV found her hilarious and he pardoned her a second time. -She also gained her living for a while by doing ‘singing and dueling demonstrations’. As in dueling and singing mocking songs about the guys she was dueling at the same time. - Apparently, during her time at the Opera, she challenged to duels all the nobles who tried to molest the chorus girls. When she realized they went around saying “they had been mugged by a gang” to cover for the fact that they had been crushed by an opera singer, she started taking small objects from them and returning them in front of everyone, “you forgot this when I beat you up” style. - When the woman she loved the most in her life died, she apparently retired from public life… to a convent. She died at 33 (37 according to other sources).
If you want more details about Julie d’Aubigny, aka Madame de Maupin, and you speak Spanish, there is this twitter thread that gives all the information above and more. Warning, though, it uses quite a lot of slang.
