Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
Set in the United States during 1993, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl tells the story of Paul Polydoris, a 23-year-old bartender with the unique ability to alter his physical form, shapeshifting into a girl whenever he pleases. Introduced as a film student working at a gay bar in Iowa city, the narrative swiftly transforms as we witness Paul embark on an exuberant adventure across nineties America, exploring the country’s rich queer subcultures in his wake. From Michigan to Provincetown, the novel blends magical realism with the emboldened ethos of social movements like Riot Grrrl and ACT UP, offering readers with a camp and vibrant read from the perspective of an unapologetically queer protagonist.
Hijab Butch Blues
Inspired by the lesbian cult classic Stone Butch Blues, Hijab Butch Blues offers an alternative Sapphic memoir from the perspective of a gender non-conforming Muslim. Published in 2023 and written by pseudonymous author Lamya H, the novel centres around Lamya’s experiences navigating the world as a hijabi lesbian. Initially set within an unnamed country in the Middle East, the novel eventually moves to New York, the city where the author immigrated at the age of seventeen. After resonating with the Quranic story of Maryam, we learn that Islam enabled Lamya to recognise their own queerness as a child. Suffused with tender possibility, Hijab Butch Blues deftly explores the complicated intersections of race, religion, sexuality, and gender, showing how one’s queerness and faith can co-exist in harmony despite feelings of inner conflict.
The South
After inheriting a patch of farmland in rural Malaysia, a family make a journey south to visit their humble new estate – a slowly dying fruit orchard surrounded by tropical forest and half-built luxury homes abandoned by wealthy Singaporean developers. Spending the summer living alongside the resident farmer, an unlikely relationship begins to blossom between the two sons of each family. While Jay, a middle-class teenager from Kuala Lumpur, spends his days exploring the new land that his family has inherited, Chuan picks up shifts at the local 7/11 between supporting his father with the farm’s continually failing yields. Yet, in spite of their stark differences, love blossoms between them amidst the decay of disease-afflicted crops and rising domestic tensions. Calling to question the nuanced intricacies of class, queerness, and familial divisions, framed within a beautifully crafted narrative that throbs with emotion, it comes as no surprise that Tash Aw’s latest novel has rightfully found its place within the 2025 Booker Prize longlist.
Bellies
Winner of the 2024 Polari Prize, Nicola Dinan’s novel Bellies centres around dual protagonists Ming and Tom. After meeting at a university party, romance quickly develops between the two characters following a one-night stand. Throughout the course of the novel we come to witness the trajectory of their post-graduate lives together, right through to the gradual breakdown of their relationship following Ming’s decision to live as a woman. Exploring the emotional complexities that come with transitioning, Dinan’s witty yet deeply moving narration radiates with vulnerability and fervour in equal measure, illustrating both the beauty and challenges of contemporary trans life.
Shuggie Bain
The debut novel by Scottish-American author Douglas Stuart traverses the life of a young working-class boy set within the backdrop of post-industrial Glasgow. Introduced living alone in a youth boarding house at the age of fifteen, the novel quickly flashes back to Shuggie’s turbulent childhood spent with his older siblings and alcoholic mother – a woman whose addiction is founded on her desperation to escape poverty and domestic violence. After living a life shaped by abusive male partners, AA meetings and unforeseen relapses, Agnes Bain’s children are eventually forced to carve out their own futures within the hostile landscape of 1980s Scotland – a country on the brink of economic collapse in the wake of the mass coal mine closure at the hands of Margaret Thatcher. In equal parts tender and harrowing, Shuggie Bain is a bildungsroman about a young boy’s ability to find love amid a childhood punctuated by neglect and tragedy.
Written by Harvey Eaton