Some Desperate Glory

Recommended by Chelcie Juliet Rowell, associate head of digital collections discovery at Harvard Library

I cried both times that I read this book, once with my eyes and once with my ears, but they weren’t wretched tears. Rather, I felt like I was coming apart and being put back together in a different configuration. It’s a space opera with complicated timelines, but don’t be put off if you’re not a regular science fiction reader. It’s a story of deradicalization, and healing from religious trauma, and embracing your unrecognized queerness, and coming to fiercely believe in a different social contract based on community care, rather than the social contract of individual might you were raised to enforce.