Alrighty, let’s make like a banana and split. On this week’s Rainbow Reading, we’ve got:

Shelf Care: Reviews, Essays, and other Things of Note

• OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA IS HERE AND IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M GONNA SAY BY NOW, I CANNOT HELP YOU
• New Becky Chambers, too! A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is out this week, and I cannot wait to attend Becky’s Portland reading — if you’re going to be there on Friday, come say hi!
• Gay Vampire Summer? Sure seems that way!
  • Baby Teeth by Meg Grehan — vampires in verse! Remember when YA novels-in-verse had that whole moment back in the 00s? I hope that’s coming back…
  • Youngblood by Sasha Laurens —vampire dark academia! This one’s out next week, and gets this week’s Trashwina Banter Blurb Award: “This is the lesbian vampire boarding school story I’ve always needed, but it’s smarter, nastier, and more fun than I ever could have dreamed,” according to Kylie Schachte
• Yashwina Canter Plays The Long Game: Jeremy Atherton Lin, author of NBCC-Award-winning Gay Bar, just sold his next book: a novel about gay marriage, gay partnership, and the ways that queer people have built lives and pursued stability both within and without legal structures. Sign me tf up.
• Lots of fun gay food romance happening now too — first there was Love and Other Disasters, and now there is The Romance Recipe!
• LOTE is out in the U.S. at long last, and I’m consumed with envy that I won’t be in NYC to attend this event next week. You lucky shits! I hope you all go and I hope you all have the best time and make me fantastically jealous, because that is the best way by far to celebrate the arrival of Shola’s brilliant bubble of a book.

• Ever since Kayla told me about this one last week, I’ve been smitten from afar — Sirens and Muses by Antonia Angress is an art school riff on Trust Fall, The Secret History, and Writers and Lovers, a social and creative coming-of-age story set in 2011 against the backdrop of #Occupy, economic turmoil, and more.
• My friend Ahna has been live-texting me her read of the latest K-Ming Chang, and Gods of Want sounds breathtaking! (Plus, if you haven’t read Bestiary yet, you’re in for a treat.
• I’ve been yelling at everyone in earshot about how much fun I had reading Body Grammar, and it seems like a nice time to revisit Jules’ interview with Angel Olsen from a few weeks ago or her list of books about queer selfhood from Electric Lit!
• I keep hearing excellent things about Louis Bayard’s book Jackie and Me, which I mentioned a few weeks ago! (I do stand by my Jackie x Marilyn stance, however.)
• Technicolor Space Opera? Oh hell yes! August Kitko and the Mechas from Space came out last week and has one of the most delightfully bonkers sci-fi premises I’ve seen in a minute. I’m excited about this one!
• What’s the word on The Work Wife? The blurbs on this one are very impressive: power, ambition, and sacrifice collide amidst Hollywood glamour!
• I was so delighted to discover more desi queer lit in the last installment of RR, and it’s led me to this fantastic list from bookstagrammer Maya of @mnmbooks!

• Beloved paranormal mystery webcomic Blackwater makes its graphic novel debut next week too — preorder this one here!
• Revised, reissued, and coming this fall: TikTok sensation Piper CJ’s The Night and Its Moon!
• Are we staring down the barrel of Hot Memoir Fall? Be honest.
  • Chelsea Manning’s long-anticipated memoir README.txt has such a perfect title.
  • Autostraddle Beloved Jeanna Kadlec’s memoir Heretic comes out the following week; it’s going to be a very good October!
• CHAOS MILF ROMANCE: Also this October, Mistakes Were Made is a cheeky, playful, and sweet age-gap romance!
• Queer Nature: A Poetry Anthology came out a couple months ago, but I think I might be drifting into another one of my poetry moods, and this one sounds perfect for reading outside while making the most of the summer…

“Armfield has written a novel so chock-full of stunning sentences that that urge to scream needled its way into me throughout my firstandsecond reads of the book. The language inOur Wives Under The Seais like a fork’s tines moving through perfectly cooked fish: grotesque and lovely all at once, flesh and skin pulled from bone.“

—Kayla is, as ever, right about Our Wives Under the Sea

Autocorrect: Books content from the last couple weeks at Autostraddle!

Another couple of banger weeks for books coverage!

• Kayla reviewed Our Wives Under the Sea!
• Casey reviewed one of my all-time favs, Like Other Girls!
• Drew interviewed Chris Belcher about Pretty Baby!
• Sarah rounded up 12 self-published LGBTQ+ beach reads and shared how self-publishing taught her to rethink success!
• Casey gathered 49 more queer books coming out this summer to look forward to!
• Kayla reviewed the conclusion of the Vera Kelly trilogy!
• Ashni reviewed Queerly Beloved!
• Lily reviewed I Feel Love: Notes On Queer Joy!
• Antonia Angress, author of Sirens and Muses, wrote an ode to disaster bisexuals!
• Vanessa gathered 30 Books That Are Still Gay Even Though Pride Month Is Over!
• and don’t f*ckin forget there’s an A+ Book Club!!!!

That’s all she wrote, folks! If you’re a queer writer, particularly an early-career queer writer: I’d love to hear about the cool things you’re up to so that I can share links to your published essays, book reviews, short stories, poems, and longform features on LGBTQ+ topics! Please email me links for consideration at [email protected] with the subject line “Rainbow Reading Submission” — I’m an avid browser-tab-collector, and I especially want to hear from you if you’ve just landed your first publication or first major byline.