Multiple goals were reached this week - between hitting my sweat goal and finishing 6 books in total this month, I'm on a roll! A History Of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt is a haunting, poetically written memoir. Beautiful, philosophical, brilliant. Mentions of utopia as a process always hit in the best ways so I was sold from the get go. The only thing keeping this from 5 stars is that it didn't make me cry, got very close and had me staring at the wall a few times though. Highly, highly recommend. Murder in the Dressing Room - Holly Stars is a ?cosy? mystery. I hesitate to actually call it cosy because people are dead, is that just what the genre is like? (yes) What a ride. A lovable cast of character, absolute chaos, incompetent law enforcement, a catburgler and poisoner brought to justice. Mystery might not be my favourite genre but I enjoyed the ride.

"At age 30, Shou Arai came to a realization; they had no gender. Now they were faced with a question they'd never really considered: how to age in a society where everything is so strongly segregated between two genders? This autobiographical manga explores Japanese culture surrounding gender, transgender issues, and the day to day obstacles faced by gender minorities and members of the LGBTQIA+ community with a lighthearted, comedic attitude." Yesterday I finished reading "At 30, I Realised I had no Gender" and the fact that I started reading it in March should have predicted how I'd feel about it overall. It provided a great peak into life as an intersex person raised and living in Japan but it was paced in a way that didn't draw me in (being a kind of question and answer per page structure that didn't have much flow between sections) and gave me the classic "Gen Z has a problem with age gap relationships" ick. It really didn't help that multiple times he would comment on how young his partner looks and acts and the partner referred to himself as 18 (and/or 18 and several years worth of months) On a happier note, I also recently finished "Stop Me if You've Heard This One" by Kristen Arnett and absolutely loved it. "Cherry Hendricks might be down on her luck, but she can write the book on what makes something funny: she’s a professional clown who creates raucous, zany fun at gigs all over Orlando. Between her clowning and her shifts at an aquarium store for extra cash, she’s always hustling. Not to mention balancing her judgmental mother, her messy love life, and her equally messy community of fellow performers. Things start looking up when Cherry meets Margot the Magnificent—a much older lesbian magician—who seems to have worked out the lines between art, business, and life, and has a slick, successful career to prove it. With Margot’s mentorship and industry connections, Cherry is sure to take her art to the next level. Plus, Margot is sexy as hell. It’s not long before Cherry must decide how much she’s willing to risk for Margot and for her own explosive new act—and what kind of clown she wants to be under her suit. Equal parts bravado, tenderness, and humor, and bursting with misfits, magicians, musicians, and mimes, Stop Me If You've Heard This One is a masterpiece of comedic fiction that asks big questions about art and performance, friendship and community, and the importance of timing in jokes and in life." This book had so much audacity from the jump and I loved every moment of it. It's fun, it's fresh, I love clowns anyway so of course I was going to be hooked from the start but it could have gone so sour and didn't. One of the few romances I've read that wasn't full of awkward writing, errors and general jank (maybe because it's not really a romance but yknow). 5/5, best thing I've read this year so far.