Book description
Dept. of Speculation meets Black Mirror in this lyrical, speculative debut about a queer mother raising her daughter in an unjust surveillance state
In a United States not so unlike our own, the Department of Balance has adopted a radical new form of law enforcement: rather than incarceration, wrongdoers are…
Why read it?
1 author picked I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
The premise of this speculative fiction is simple but wild: in the near future, “criminals” are given an extra shadow that follows them wherever they go, rain or shine. The narrator, a Shadester named Kris, is a new mother whose wife Beau has died in childbirth, earning their daughter her very own automatic shadow assignment.
The story is told in gorgeous experimental prose, a mix of letters to Beau, pop quizzes, shopping lists, and short vignettes that trace the contours of queer love, parenting, shame, and resistance. As the “squish-faced kid” butterflies into a fiery teen, she and Kris find…
If you love I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself...
December on 5C4
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Want books like I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 91 books like I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself.
Share your top 3 reads of 2025!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,298
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself, you might also like...
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman
Kate from Jules et Jim meets I Love Dick.
A young woman filmmaker’s journey of self-discovery, set against a backdrop of the sexual liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, we follow Ana Fried as she faces the ultimate…
Dark Fae Outcast
Trapped in our world, the fae are dying from drugs, contaminants, and hopelessness. Kicked out of the dark fae court for tainting his body and magic, Riasg only wants one thing: to die a bit faster. It’s already the end of his world, after all.
But while scoring his last…
