Tag: alok vaid-menon

Whatcha Reading, Geekly: July 8, 2026

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Happy Wednesday, Geekly Gang! Today, our writers share what they’ve been reading over the past month. Feel free to share what you’ve been reading over the past month, because we’re all part of the Geekly Gang. I’ll get things started with what I’ve been reading this past month.

Kyra’s Fiction

I’m still on my DC Compact Comics kick. I love this series. So many of my collected graphic novels take up too much space on my bookshelf. As the name suggests, these versions do reduce the amount of space a graphic novel will take on your shelf. My only gripe is that I’m more likely to have pages with text that falls inside the crease. It’s a minor issue. By now, I’ve read five or six of these graphic novels. Overall, great series.

Alright, pitch over for the DC Compact Comics series. I had never read Batman: Hush before this month. Gasp! How could I have gone this long before reading one of the better Batman stories of this millennium? I’m joking…slightly. Batman: Hush is one of the more popular Batman stories since 2000, and it deserves that distinction. I don’t want to give too much away. After all, Batman: Hush is a mystery. By the way, I just realized DC Compact Comics has a genre notification in the top right corner. What?

I don’t want to spoil too much in Batman: Hush. The mystery did string me along. That’s good. The reader had to figure out who Hush was. Harvey Dent was a red herring. Sorry. I spoiled it. But Dent does reveal himself as “Hush” midway through the story. Classic red herring. I didn’t believe it for one minute. Honestly, I didn’t want Hush to be who he was. I shouldn’t say anything else. If you haven’t yet read Batman: Hush, you should give it a read. It deserves the praise it gets. Jeph Loeb knows how to spin a good Batman yarn, and some of the splash pages by Jim Lee are iconic.

I had never read a Green Arrow solo comic book before picking up Green Arrow: Year One. Sure, I’ve read plenty of Green Arrow/Green Lantern, and I’ve read Green Arrow in Justice League and other team-up books, but never a solo comic book. Green Arrow: Year One is a great place to start. It’s the basis for the Arrow television show, the island portion at least. And Arrow takes plenty of liberties with the source material, but still. I got plenty of Arrow vibes while reading Green Arrow: Year One.

Green Arrow: Year One has a brisk pace. Great for an adventure story. I was surprised that writer Andy Diggle was English. He sold Oliver Queen’s West Coast voice well. And Jock’s artwork at times cleanly conveyed action and at other times dipped into Ollie’s emotional state. Green Arrow: Year One features a section where Ollie detoxes from opium addiction. I don’t want to spoil too much.

I’m loving this new DC Compact Comics Series. Uh oh! The pitch is back. While I could’ve picked up Green Arrow: Year One in a single, standard-sized volume, I chose to pick it up in the DC Compact Comics Series. At $9.99, the books in this series are half the price of typical trades. I’m down for more books at the same price.

The House in the Cerulean Sea Book Cover

This month was a month for finishing novels for me. I start so many novels at once, reading several at the same time, and occasionally forget to finish one or two or all of them. The House in the Cerulean Sea is a fantastic novel to finish during Pride month. I have a poetry collection for this month as well; more on that in a minute. I’d classify The House in the Cerulean Sea as a romantasy. In fact, I appreciate that The House in the Cerulean Sea can be viewed through this lens. It’s cozy. It even qualifies as cottagecore. It’s not overly sexual. Throw in some comedic moments, usually revolving around a ragtag team of magical children, and The House in the Cerulean Sea sings.

I love The House in the Cerulean Sea’s message. Magical children and beings are a stand-in for LGBTQ+ people. While T.J. Klune does get on his soapbox at times (one time, protagonist Linus Baker literally stands on something akin to a soapbox), The House in the Cerulean Sea tells an adorable, heart-warming story that just happens to contain a strong message. Works like The House in the Cerulean Sea can speak to the LGBTQ+ community while still delivering a story that non-community members can enjoy. I still like the blurb on The House in the Cerulean Sea’s cover. It is like being wrapped up in a big gay blanket. Ah! And that blanket feels so warm and comforting.

Kyra’s Poetry

I covered Alok Vaid-Menon’s Beyond the Gender Binary in a previous Whatcha Reading. I highly recommend reading Beyond the Gender Binary. It’s so good. This past month, I read Alok Vaid-Menon’s poetry collection your wound / my garden. There is some striking imagery in your wound / my garden, especially in the poems near the beginning of this collection. “what lives in death” is a fantastic opening poem. Here’s a taste at some of Vaid-Menon’s images:

“i’m all the packages no one claimed at the post office.”

“if you want to know how people live, spend some quality time with their trash.”

“the discarded do not die, they go somewhere else.”

I like a lot of Vaid-Menon’s imagery in your wound / my garden. There are a few standout poems in the middle of the collection, like “pronouns” and “disassociation,” but I found myself editing some of the poetry in my head. I haven’t edited poetry in years, but some of the enjambment could’ve used work. your wound / my garden featured a lot of repetition. Some repetition was used to great effect, like “the dead, the dead speak over the living.” Other moments of repetition felt like Vaid-Menon repeating themselves without purpose. And inchoate is too conspicuous a word to use in more than one poem. After the second occurrence of inchoate, I literally thought, this poetry collection is brought to you by the word inchoate.

Still, I love your wound / my garden’s message. This collection takes the reader on a journey of self-exploration and acceptance. It’s a great collection to read for Pride, and that’s what I did. I do love a lot of Alok Vaid-Menon’s imagery. “dying is the longest verb” hits hard.

That’s what I read over the past month. Let’s see what Season and Skye have been reading.

The House in the Cerulean Sea Book Cover

Season’s Fiction

I also read T.J. Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea. The characters were adorable. I loved all of the kids, the two main characters, and some of the townsfolk. The plot moves at a decent pace and the setup is straightforward. Linus gets assigned as a caseworker to Arthur’s orphanage and gets way more involved than he’s supposed to by company rules. Who cares about rules anyway? I highly recommend The House in the Cerulean Sea if you’re looking for a cozy read with civil rights elements. If you aren’t, you may or may not get brained.

There’s a second book in The Spellshop universe, and you bet I read it. The Enchanted Greenhouse features different characters (Terlu and Yarrow) from The Spellshop. I enjoyed The Enchanted Greenhouse, but the plot followed similarly to The Spellshop. Without giving too much away, Terlu starts a new life on the Isle of Belde, far away from the capital (Alyssium), without the government or her family knowing where she is. Like The Spellshop, The Enchanted Greenhouse has stakes that feel more severe than they are. Terlu’s goal is to restore magic to the greenhouse because the magical greenhouse’s rooms keep failing. That’s good to have, but the rate at which Terlu learns spell casting and how to experiment with spells feels a bit unbelievable. She’s not trained. At all. Also, the story takes place over a few months.

The Enchanted Greenhouse was still fun to read, and I recommend it if you’re looking for something cute and cozy. I believe there’s a third book in The Spellshop series that I plan on reading. You know, for research.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here again. Those are the books our writers have been reading this past month. What’ve you been reading? Let us know in the comments. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

Whatcha Reading, Geekly? July 2025

Published on by Kyra1 Comment

Happy Wednesday, Geekly Gang! For this week’s Whatcha series, our writers will share which books they’ve been reading over the past month. Yes. It’s Whatcha Reading, Geekly? for July 2025. Wait. I checked with Season and Skye, and they don’t have any selections for this month. Uh oh! Looks like I’m flying solo this week. I’m sure our other writers will have plenty to share in August. Let’s get to our list.

Kyra’s Non-Fiction Books

Beyond the Gender Binary is a reread for me this past month, but I’m still counting it as a book I read. I attended Alok Vaid-Menon’s Omaha show (June 24, 2025) during their Hairy Situation Tour, and they signed my well-worn copy of Beyond the Gender Binary. Yay! This book is a short read, like a really short read, at about 50 pages. Beyond the Gender Binary is small enough to fit inside your pocket; this is the hook of every book within the Pocket Change Collective.

Alok fills the pages of this book with a new perspective on the gender binary and what lies beyond it. Beyond the Gender Binary is a hug for anyone questioning their gender identity. Their personal stories speak to me. I’ve loaned my copy of Beyond the Gender Binary to many people who wanted to learn more about individuals who identify as non-binary, gender queer, and/or gender fluid. I may need to purchase a second copy after Alok signed my current copy of Beyond the Gender Binary. No book–no matter how big or small–can capture every aspect of gender non-conforming people, but despite its small size, Beyond the Gender Binary serves as a fantastic introduction.

I love the Pocket Change Collective. I’ve read at least half of the books pictured above, and I may have to hunt for the ones I have yet to read. I highly recommend this book series. It’s easy to read in one sitting, and each one in the series may broaden your perspective.

Speaking of broadening one’s perspective, I’ve been reading The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures, making note of mythical creatures that interest me and ones I’d like to research further. I like the magical creatures that haven’t been done to death (in fantasy stories), and love the ones from cultures I know less about. What started as research on fantasy creatures has morphed into a cultural study. What’s not to love?

Kyra’s Poetry

A writer’s history shouldn’t factor into their work, but Arthur Rimbaud may be one of the few exceptions. He rose to prominence quickly. Illuminations, Rimbaud’s poetry collection I read this past month, was his last major poetic work, written when he was twenty years old. After he finished–or rather abandoned–this poetry collection, Rimbaud traveled the world, taking odd jobs, and never wrote again. Over the years, Rimbaud deserted his Dutch military post in Java (Indonesia) and sneaked back to France, ultimately spending the majority of his remaining days in Ethiopia. He died at 37 of bone cancer. Illuminations was published in 1886 without Rimbaud’s knowledge. The publishers referred to him as the late, great Rimbaud, even though he hadn’t yet died.

Illuminations has inspired many artists (Jim Morrison of The Doors, Bob Dylan, and Patty Smith, to name a few) as well as artistic movements like Dadaism and Surrealism. We don’t know which order these dozens of prose poems are supposed to have gone in because Rimbaud had abandoned the project before their publication. The poems range in topic. They’re a window into Rimbaud’s struggles to find steady employment in the United Kingdom and later Germany, while living with Paul Verlaine. The couple often fought. Their breakup may have prompted Rimbaud to travel the world.

As a result of these influences, Illuminations mingles gorgeous images with dread and the unknown. Check out this paragraph from “Mystical”: The flowery sweetness of stars and sky and the rest descends opposite the embankment, like a basket, against our face, and creates the flowering and blue abyss down there.

Illuminations will follow up an awe-inspiring pastoral scene with a garotte around your neck. It’s a mind-bending, singular work of poetry deserving of its cult-like following. Illuminations is one of those poetry collections you could read and reread dozens of times and find something new and exciting. I read the John Ashbery translation (pictured above this segment). It stays faithful to the original text and even provides the original French beside its English translation.

Kyra’s Fiction Books

Eric Raglin is yet another queer author to make my reading list this past month. It’s like June was Pride month or something. Kidding aside, I had to include a local (Nebraska) writer in this month’s mix. Raglin’s Nightmare Yearnings is a phenomenal horror short story collection with only a few hints of queerness thrown in for good measure, and I love the variety in this collection. While each story is bizarre and tackles some darker truth of the human condition, the stories serve as a horror anthology like The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror.

I love how “Under the Roof, Upon the Horns” explores toxic masculinity. This story boils down to a son attempting to please his father and shows how men are the only ones who care how masculine other men behave. Masculinity is a trap. Resist! Nightmare Yearnings also includes goofy stories like “Top 5 Ghosts Caught on Camera” to prevent it from getting too preachy. But one of my favorite stories in this collection is “My Better Half.” It’s a body horror short story where a woman splits her bisexual man lover into two halves: the gay and the straight side. The gay half ends up in the closet. Ugh! This is such a good story, and it speaks to me as someone who’s pansexual. I could discuss more of Nightmare Yearnings’ offerings–there are plenty of fantastic stories in this collection–but I’ll leave the rest for you to discover.

Nightmare Yearnings includes author notes. These notes provide a little insight into what Eric Raglin was thinking while writing each short story. This is also a great way to pick and choose stories. It’s a preview of what to expect or a little peek behind the veil after you’ve read a story. I wish more short story collections included author notes by the author.

That’s all I have for this month’s Whatcha Reading. What did you read this past month? Let us know in the comments. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.