Krystal A. Smith has done something amazing with her debut story collection. The Black lesbians in Two Moons find love in orbit, birth goddesses among tree roots, and turn death into life. This was perhaps the first time I’ve ever seen so much Black lesbian joy — hell, any real depth of Black lesbian emotional identity — in speculative fiction.
Read MorePerhaps the most remarkable thing about this book is its capacity to love with a fierceness that seems too great for its size. Every single person inside holds so much love for the ones around them, for dogs adopted at the refugee camp in Thailand, for spring flowers drawn in window fog in the middle of winter.
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As much about Indigenous joy as it is about Indigenous pain, this book is a moving and tender portrait of the living effects of the residential schools. It provides a gentle resistance to the whitewashing of history and ongoing struggle to return the remains of Indigenous children to their tribes.
Read MoreAfaf’s life is recounted through flashbacks, while in the present she comes face-to-face with a gunman in the Muslim all-girls school where she is principal. Mustafah reveals a face of the immigrant experience that I feel is often overlooked: the healing power of religion.
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