An Alternative Valentine's Day Reading List
Last night, while reading An Apartment on Uranus for Book Club, I came across the essay Valentine’s Day is Crap and it is a sentiment I agreed with, despite being in a loving relationship. Depictions of love often look through a narrow, predominantly hetero-normative lens, thus completely ignoring a large portion of people.
At The FBC Paris, we love celebrating love in all of its glorious ways, which is why we came up with this alternative reading list for the 14th February. The aim is to continue diversifying the reading choices that we make and celebrate the wide scope of love that is actually out there.
Bluets by Maggie Nelson (Non-Fiction)
In which the writer recounts her love obsession with the colour blue, linking to famous figures such as Billie Holiday and Joni Mitchell, and putting her electrifying touch on depression, divinity and desire.
Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman (YA Fiction Series)
Sephy is a Cross: dark-skinned and beautiful. Callum is a nought: pale-skinned and poor. Theirs is a forbidden love but one that they want to fight for. Will they make it?
If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha (Fiction)
This impressive debut novel - to be released in April 2020 - highlight the struggles of four women struggling to get by in modern-day Seoul, where plastic surgery is the norm, there’s K-Pop obsession, financial worries and ruthless social hierarchies. How the women’s lives eventually come together is beautiful, making for a touching portrait on female friendship.
Out of the Blue by Sophie Cameron (YA Fiction)
Recommended to us by the wonderful Erica from Gay’s The Word Bookshop, OOTB introduces us to teenage protagonist Jaya, who has very recently lost her mum and her ex-girlfriend has disappeared off the face of the earth. Sophie Cameron nails diversity and representation in this quick and easy read.
Sula by Toni Morrison (Fiction)
Two childhood friends grow up into very different women: Nel Wright chooses to stay in their small hometown and Sula Peace moves away for college and a less sheltered life. When Sula returns home, her way of life gets her labelled a witch and seductress, showing a well-rounded portrait of the cost of being a sexually-liberated black woman in America. (Features some sex scenes that may get you a little hot under the collar.)
What My Mother And I Don’t Talk About (Essays)
This recent anthology features essays from writers who try and understand their relationships with their mothers. Some are estranged while others are incredibly close. Hilarious at times, philosophical at others, this is a no-holds-barred account of a relationship dynamic that we rarely get to see.
The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar (YA Fiction)
When Nishat comes out to her parents, they say she can be anyone she wants—as long as she isn’t herself. Because Muslim girls aren’t lesbians. The problem is that Nishat has already fallen for the charismatic Flávia. But when a school competition invites students to create their own businesses, both Flávia and Nishat choose to do henna, even though Flávia is appropriating Nishat’s culture…
In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (Memoir)
This is a wildly innovative account of a lesbian relationship that turns very sour - it is a powerful and painful account that completely transforms our ideas of what a memoir can and should be like. The author cleverly weaves in details of legal frameworks, Disney villains, as well as key queer works of art or literature with humour and honesty.
The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy (Essay)
An essential guide for singles and couples who want to explore polyamory in ways that are ethically and emotionally sustainable.
Our Lady of the Flowers / Notre Dame des Fleurs by Jean Genet (Fiction)
This poetic novel is Jean Genet’s debut novel, written while in prison for “lewd acts”. This is a mostly autobiographical account of a man's journey through the Parisian underworld. The characters are drawn on people the author knew, most of whom are queer individuals living on the fringes of society.
The Lesbian Body / Le corps lesbien by Monique Wittig (Poetry)
On a fictional Sapphic island, with only women inhabitants, our narrator-protagonist, in a series of invocations to her lover and descriptions of the island's life, celebrates the contours, contents, and satisfactions of the lesbian body.
Cover image: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash