With the kind of May we just had, summer in Montreal announces itself to be the frizzy-haired,  turn-your-brain-off type of hot–but that doesn’t stop the page-turners. Buzzy, electrifying, pop-rockets kind of books; that’s what I’ve been on the hunt for, and what I’ll be turning to when I’m canal-side, park-bound, or dreading when my fan gives out.

This sweaty, adrenaline-filled exploration of the teen girl boxer psyche was a blast. The cast of the “Daughters Of America'' boxing tournament are brilliant and biting. Bulwinkell’s euphemisms and metaphors–the boxers all strive to “touch their fist to another girl’s body”–are deeply precise; like her characters, they’re both unique and ruthless. 

If there’s a theme in my latest favorite reads, it’s “nameless middle-aged women have weird relationships with their bodies and sex.” My reading experience for these two books was Mutsuki Mockett: shot; Miranda July: chaser.

Thirty minutes into the cross-country drive that’s supposed to change her life, a semi-famous artist pulls off the highway and slowly–then enthusiastically, and with great tenacity–throws her life off the rails. Reading Miranda July is a ravenous exercise: every chapter makes me want to dig and scratch and stuff my nose in dirt, scarf down another worm. ALL FOURS is the you-should-read-this summer book; exhilarating and horny and delicious. 

While staring down my sprouts and chasing off squirrels, this collection of essays, prose and poetry is where I’ll find solace. Edited and introduced by Jamaica Kincaid, this anthology ranges the garden bed from beans to roses, root to tip. Green thumbs, plant lovers, and poets at heart; enjoy a walk through the flower bed with “writers who garden and gardeners who write.”

As for the comics on this list, how can I not start off with what might be my all-time favorite? Freddy Carrasco is an absolute powerhouse of cartooning, and has the kind of masterful use of negative space that should be taught in schools. The scrappy cyberpunk world of GLEEM is so damn fun and stylish and imaginative; stunning and energetic from start to finish.

Fox’s last book, PROKARYOTE SEASON, was an immediate, unanimous staff fave, so nothing’s got me more excited than knowing two new titles are on the horizon. These two transmasc fables on belonging and the (dis)connection between body and mind ooze with Fox’s signature style.

I always have a soft spot for stories about people trying very hard. Whether it’s the effort to do the good thing or the selfish thing, it’s that recognition of I’m trying that never fails to get me. Protagonist Ingken’s efforts–to find a place within their body, to put words and actions to their discomfort–though arduous, vibrate with life and resilience in a difficult, chaotic world. FIREBUGS is quintessentially, contemporarily queer, and the utterly lovely art is cartoonish and expressive in a way that never undercuts the complexity of the topics addressed.