Recent Reads #43 | I read a bunch of sapphic books and it healed me

Sapphic fiction became a kind of emotional reset for ShaelinWrites, and the reading streak in “Recent Reads #43” is less about plot mechanics than about what these books do to inner life—tenderness, desire, shame, and selfhood—often against surreal or quietly brutal backdrops. The through-line is that many of these stories feel “healing” not because they’re uniformly happy, but because they render queer experience with specificity: what gets said, what gets withheld, and how a single early rupture can echo for years.

The strongest early anchor is Kaming Chang’s short story collection “Gods of Want,” praised for inventive prose and surreal settings where the characters’ conflicts stay deeply human. Chang’s worlds are imaginative to the point that even when longer pieces share structural similarities, the line-by-line originality keeps readers invested. The collection also lands humor alongside tenderness, including a highlighted exchange about rejecting the “male gaze” and being “literally being seen,” which captures the book’s blend of wit and emotional clarity.

Kyung-suk Shin’s “Violets” (translated by Anton) shifts to a quieter, more enigmatic tone. A childhood kiss triggers Namay’s rejection, and the adult San’s life in Seoul—music, a flower shop romance, and moving in quickly—plays like a surface calm over repressed pain. The writing is straightforward, but the emotional core is never fully spoken; daily details (what she eats, when she wakes) become a way to show what the story won’t name. As events accumulate, the internal pressure rises until San begins to “fall apart at the seams,” making the early chapter feel like the key that unlocks the rest.

Antonia Angress’s “Sirens and Muses” brings campus intensity and art-world questions into the mix, set against Occupy Wall Street. The novel’s appeal is its balance of artistic ambition and personal sacrifice, plus a romance/love-triangle dynamic among students Louisa, Katrina, and Preston. The prose is described as compulsively readable, and the author’s credibility is tested by the sheer number of art exhibits referenced—so much so that the reader was surprised to learn Angress isn’t an artist.

Barbara Borland’s “The Force of Such Beauty” stands out for its fairy-tale premise: an Olympic marathon runner, Caroline, sets a world record, then is sidelined by injury and arthritis. Recovery leads to meeting the prince of a fictional European micronation and marrying into monarchy, turning body autonomy into a central tension—especially when athletic identity is tied to being “the best ever.” The book is likened to Netflix/Hallmark “royal” fantasies, but praised for nuance in how it treats control, identity, and psychological fallout.

Other picks widen the emotional palette. Michelle Hart’s “What We Do in the Dark” is a spare, fast novel about a college freshman’s first queer affair with a professor and the loneliness it leaves behind. Nivea Corneliusin’s “Crimson” is propulsive and structurally playful—five queer friends in Greenland over a weekend—but the reader notes occasional melodrama and a few unrealistic turns. Bonnie Hui’s “Notes of a Crocodile” is described as nuanced and quotable, yet more abstract than expected, with dialogue often summarizing rather than dramatizing.

Poetry and youth fiction deepen the mood. Sophia El Hilo’s “Girls That Never Die” is celebrated for immersive poems about girlhood, shame, rebellion, and tenderness after violence. Andrea Abreu’s “Dogs of Summer” (translated by Julia Sanchez) is praised for sound-driven, visceral language and hazy atmospheric youth—though the handling of a sexual assault that isn’t revisited afterward is flagged as devastating and destabilizing.

Finally, Nell Stephen’s “Briefly a Delicious Life” blends historical fiction with a ghost narrator: Blanca, a ghost from Mallorca, becomes entangled with George Sand and Frederick Chopin. The sensory, tactile narration is credited with making the story feel fresh rather than gimmicky, even if the multi-layered narrative momentum stalls mid-book. Across the stack, the common payoff is clear: these books make queer interiority feel specific, lived-in, and—at least in this reader’s experience—repairing.