xiaomianyang's 3 favorite reads in 2025

Queer rights in the United States are fragile at best. The Lavender Scare is still within living memory. Our elders who survived the AIDS crisis remember so many youths who never got to grow old. Obergefell v. Hodges is but a decade on the books. Trans rights are constantly under attack.

Small wonder, then, that a certain pressure exists within the queer community to not air our own dirty laundry. When it feels like we are under fire from all sides, any amount of scandal or internal dissent seems like it could doom us all.

A relationship between two women can be a beautiful life-long partnership. And it can, just like any heterosexual relationship, turn into an ugly saga of abuse, gaslighting, and infidelity.

We have all heard stories about, for, and by battered women. The concept of a controlling, or even abusive, girlfriend or wife is terribly cliché.

We do not often hear about an abusive romantic relationship between two women.

Into this void bursts Carmen Maria Machado with her masterpiece. In between walking us through her own story in some of the most gorgeous prose, she creates something of a seminal literature review of what scant materials have previously been published on the topic.

Earnest, vulnerable, and heartrending without veering into the maudlin, In the Dream House paints her agony in every shade of grief. As a speed-demon reader, I rarely take more than one or two sittings to finish a book. But this one demanded several crying breaks and a couple of extended sessions of sitting down and staring into space.

In life, I have found that the process of healing my trauma has started with acknowledging the fact of my trauma. Machado has given us in the queer community an enormous gift—a way to start talking about the reality of abuse in lesbian and sapphic relationships.

As for me, I needed this book. I read it five months ago, after a friend recommended it to me for the second time, and I haven't quite stopped thinking about it since. It hurt to read. It awoke an old wound I hadn't fully recovered from and had stopped thinking of as an injury. The healing is slow. This time I won't forget.

More than any other book I read this year, What My Bones Know gave me hope. Complex PTSD is a difficult diagnosis, and so little literature exists, especially from the perspective of a survivor. Stephanie Foo gave me hope that recovery might be possible.

Also, I cried about this book for a week straight.

Alison Bechdel is now in her 60s and somehow more relatable than ever. Her biting wit, incisive social commentary, and signature irreverence made for a delightful afternoon read. And the addition of color is such a visual treat.

Oh, and that little off-screen quartet of polyamorous asexual nonbinary college kids? Hilarious!