Chicago Review of Books

It is easy to be judgmental of 15-year-old girls, to act as if they—and by extension, the things they care about—are vapid and unserious. When I talk about my fifteen-year-old self, it is with a healthy dose of disdain for her chronic need to be perceived as interesting, pretty, and loved. Reading

“I am Gender Affirming Care looking to affirm my gender anywhere,” writes self-described “present-tense reactionary writer” J. Brooke. Their debut collection, I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side is out now from Driftwood Press. ...

It’s not exactly a mystery why the word “enshittification” has recently entered the lexicon. These days, everything is 40% more expensive and 20% worse. With no end in sight to runaway capitalism, shrinkflation, profiteering, and habitat destruction, Courtney Maum’s latest novel,

I admittedly don’t read many YA novels, but I had to make an exception for a Jen St. Jude book. They were our Managing Director and continue to be part of the CHIRB lifeblood. For proof of the latter, check out

No God but Us tells the dual narrative story of Mansur and Delbar, two gay Afghan men who find themselves stumbling through the global metropolis of Istanbul under the intensely difficult circumstances of their queer existences. Delbar, an aspiring drag...