Dec 01 2025
translated from the original Czech by Martha Kuhlman. Part of the problem with preferring to go in blind to books after I initially say yes to them (usually months and months ago) as a professional book critic is that I’m sometimes blindsided by topics that I didn’t think a book would cover to the extent …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/01/heartcore-by-stepanka-jislova/
Jul 29 2025
We have a timely treat for you today, readers, with an excerpt from Jacqueline Friedland’s Counting Backwards. Told in two alternating narratives bound together by a shocking parallel of issues — including reproductive rights and society’s expectations of women and mothers — this novel is a compelling reminder that progress is rarely a straight line …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/07/29/counting-backwards-by-jacqueline-friedland-excerpt/
May 14 2025
Despite having one of my least favorite shared universe names, A G Slatter’s dark fantasy novels are one of my few can’t-miss series! And nowhere was I happier to have read almost all of the books in it than here in this latest installment, The Crimson Road. As the novel opens, heiress Violet Zennor is …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/05/14/the-crimson-road-by-a-g-slatter/
Aug 26 2024
Being a complicated woman who tries to deal with myself honestly, it wasn’t a surprise to me that a lot of what Charlotte Shane has to say in her memoir about sex work is stuff I’ve already thought about. Honestly, it’s stuff that most, if not all, thoughtful non-sex-worker-exclusionary feminists have grappled with too. At …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/08/26/an-honest-woman-a-memoir-of-love-and-sex-work-by-charlotte-shane/
Jul 08 2024
Every so often, the publicist Alex Kelleher-Nagorski (hi, Alex!) sends me a book and starts firmly (but gently) persuading me to read it. This is one of those books. I was genuinely afraid that I wouldn’t have time to get into it but Alex assured me that it would be totally worth my time. After …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/08/unbecoming-by-seema-yasmin/
Jun 15 2024
How much fury fits into 142 pages? Monika Maron tells her readers from the very first sentence that Herbert Beerenbaum dies, so a good bit of Stille Zeile Sechs (Silent Close Number Six — “Close” in the sense of a small cul-de-sac street, with six as the house number) is finding out who he his, how …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/06/15/stille-zeile-sechs-by-monika-maron/
May 10 2024
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is an absolutely furious short novel about sexism in South Korea, and while its incidents and statistics are specific to that country, it can stand in for how badly half of the world’s human population commonly treats the other half, often without even noticing. The book opens with what appears to …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/05/10/kim-jiyoung-born-1982-by-cho-nam-joo/
Apr 10 2024
One of the best things about my favorite local bookstore is the way they host so many cool events and book clubs, and offer the book club selections at 15% off for the month. I’d previously been to an excellent non-fiction gathering to discuss Britney Spears’ The Woman In Me last January, but hadn’t really …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/04/10/bitch-planet-vol-1-extraordinary-machine-by-kelly-sue-deconnick-valentine-de-landro/
Mar 25 2024
Abioye is only eight years old when her father, the king, suddenly dies. As per Yoruba tradition, if the king dies without a son to take his place, his daughter will rule as regent for three months, until the village chiefs can select three men to nominate for kinghood. The villagers will vote on these …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/03/25/the-little-regent-by-yewande-daniel-ayoade-ken-daley/
Mar 11 2024
A Wave Blue World goes from strength to strength with this, their latest comics anthology focusing on women, blades and sapphic love. As with any anthology, there’s a broad range of subject and subjective quality, meant to appeal to all tastes while still revolving around the central theme. More importantly, Sharp Wit And The Company …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/03/11/sharp-wit-and-the-company-of-women-edited-by-michele-abounader/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire