Jae

Sapphic Slow-burn romances

queer books

disguised or living as a man

Disguised or living as a man (Sapphic Reading Challenge #33)

This week’s category of the Sapphic Reading Challenge features books about main characters who are either women who disguise themselves as men out of necessity or genderqueer people who were assigned female at birth but might identify as nonbinary or as trans men (even though the book might not use those terms since most books on this list are historical romances).   Read up on the rules of the Sapphic Reading Challenge If you are only discovering the Sapphic Reading Challenge now, the good news is you can still join! It’s a year-long challenge, so it runs until December 31, …

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body-positive book

Sapphic body-positive books (Sapphic Reading Challenge #32)

This week’s Sapphic Reading Challenge category features body-positive books that celebrate women of all sizes and shapes, e.g., a plus-sized protagonist.

The romance novel industry has a reputation for abiding by Hollywood’s standard of beauty. It’s rare to find plus-size characters in f/f romance novels (or any romance, for that matter). Most of the main characters are portrayed as slim, with perfectly sized breasts, and if they are a bit chubby, their goal in the story is probably to lose weight.

So let’s break with that tradition and search out diversity when it comes to how the main characters look. 

By the way, body positivity includes not just fat or plus-sized characters; it also refers to characters who are skinny or flat-chested such as Eliza from Wrong Number, Right Woman or who otherwise deviate from society’s beauty standards.

I hope that going forward, there’ll be more body positivity in romance novels and that women of all shapes and sizes will find themselves represented in a positive way.

book recommended by a friend

Sapphic book recommended by a friend (Sapphic Reading Challenge #23)

This week’s category of the Sapphic Reading Challenge is a little different from the others. Instead of reading a book from a list I put together, I want you to read a WLW or lesbian book that was recommended to you by a friend. (And we’ll interpret the term “friend” very loosely here—any acquaintances you made on social media count as a friend as far as this category is concerned!)

So, if you have friends who are also avid readers of WLW & lesbian fiction, go ask one of them for a recommendation. If none of your friends read books about women-loving women, feel free to let us know what kind of books you enjoy and ask for a recommendation in the comments or drop by my Facebook group for readers and ask for a book recommendation there.