Hi friends, happy Monday! This week was very sports-y for me. My beloved Mystics got eliminated from the WNBA playoffs, but so did the Fever, so I feel like that kind of cosmically balances out in the end. I think I'm rooting for Atlanta now, but I'm open to other arguments. There's more sportsball below in the One Good Thing section, so it's not all the agony of defeat here. Okay, I know most of you aren't here for the sports, so on to the books! Here's what I read last week. Books marked with a * were gifted to me and books marked with a ^ I was paid to read.

The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman by Deesha Philyaw* - Philyaw cements herself as queen of writing about Black southern church ladies. This novel is a lot wilder and funnier than most of the stories in her debut collection, but the thoughtfulness and deep emotions are still there. I do think this could have been MUCH shorter. It started off strong and then the middle meandered around for way too long. Like, things were happening but nothing was moving forward. It took the main character much too long to realize things were not going to work out the way she wanted. It also felt to me like the love interest twist came out of nowhere and the story would have been fine (maybe even stronger) without it. All that said, very much enjoyed this look under the hood of an insular culture that we don't often see depicted in mainstream novels.

What You Learn Learning Music by Mike Shaw and Kevin Bales^ - This book is a conversation between two jazz musicians about their careers and jazz culture as a whole. I know nothing about jazz and found their stories pretty entertaining, though I would say this book is definitely aimed at people who want to break into becoming full time musicians. I appreciated that they were very aware that they were two white men discussing and working in a music style that comes from Black American culture.

Lost Boi by Sassafras Lowrey - This is a queer kink retelling of Peter Pan, in which Pan leads a group of unhoused trans youth in a full time D/s relationship and brings in Wendi to be their Mommy. The story really barely needed any rejiggering to fit it into this context, though the bit kind of wore out after awhile. It's grim and at times uncomfortable, but I was always eager to pick it back up and see where things went.

City Of Others by Jared Poon* - I love a story that bends reality, and CITY OF OTHERS had that sort of gleeful "wrap your head around THIS" vibe that I find so fun. There was so much going on here that when I think back through the plot it's hard to believe it all happened in one book. Unfortunately, I didn't really buy the romantic relationship. How well they knew each other seemed to fluctuate, and there wasn't much tension between them except when someone would drop a random dick joke, which was also kind of out of step with the tone of the book overall.

One Good Thing - As an early birthday gift to myself, I bought us tickets to see University of Maryland v Nebraska volleyball. Now, UMD is...fine. Nebraska, on the other hand, is a dynasty when it comes to college volleyball, and this was my first time getting to see them play. What a treat! They announced at the game that it was UMD’s highest ever attendance for a volleyball game, with roughly 15,000 people there. Everyone watches women’s sports! (Also, sorry again for getting all my sports into your book content!)

That's all for now. Here's your weekly cat photo, Teddy does not understand personal space edition. Onward!

Teddy the black cat lays on my chest with his face smooshed against my face.

Hello friends, and happy October! I hope your weekend has been gentle so far and the Sunday scaries aren't lingering for you. I wanted to write to you today to discuss our Quarter 4 Book Club Pick and share with you the chapter break down for the entire quarter - if you aren't on the Not A Phase Books Discord server, you may have missed the discussion we had yesterday. If you're nosey like I am (lol) head on over there to join in on the discussions in real time.

I proposed several options for a loose reading guide and we all decided that breaking the book up into chapters for each week of Quarter 4 was easier. I will share the graphic of the chapter breakdown here:

I made the background color of the graphic to match the cover of To Our Untamed Core, but if you need the background white so it's easier to read the text, please let me know, and I will also create one of those, too! Please feel free to save this graphic for your own usage if you would like to keep up. We will be using spoiler free chats in the Discord channel throughout the duration of Quarter 4, and the last week of December, we'll have a spoilery chat recap!

In addition to this breakdown, we will also be speaking with Sonido Reyes Friday November 6th, from 6-7pm CST. Details are here:

You don't need to be a paid subscriber to attend these zooms, you just need to be a Not A Phase Books subscriber. I will post the event details in Discord, and share the zoom information here as well once we get a little closer to the date of the chat. If you'd like me to ask Sonido any questions, please feel free to hop into Discord in the Q4 channel and let me know, OR, let me know down below in a comment.

I'm also looking ahead to 2027 Beyond The Rainbow chats and our Quarterly Book Club Reads!! (I'm a planner, and need to know things.) Are there any LGBTQIA+ authors you'd like me to host next year? Any books you'd like us to prioritize for book club picks? Also feel free to hop into Discord and let me know, or in the comments below!

I hope you all have such an amazing week ahead!

Collaborators - I will see you Tuesday for our Exclusive newsletter! Everyone, I will see you Thursday for Trans Joy Thursday!

With all my trans joy,

Sawyer Cole