#The Skin and Its Girl

[gennsoup]

Nothing happens in a straight line, not life or love or even time.

Sarah Cypher, The Skin and its Girl

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Skin and Its Girl

literary fiction with a little magical realism

follows a queer Palestinian American woman born with blue skin, recounting her childhood, to the great-aunt who helped raise her, and piecing together her great-aunt’s secrets

family, identity, and stories

[qbdatabase]

The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher In a Pacific Northwest hospital far from the Rummani family’s ancestral home in Palestine, the heart of a stillborn baby begins to beat and her skin turns a vibrant, permanent cobalt blue. On the same day, the Rummanis’ centuries-old soap factory in Nablus is destroyed in an air strike. View the full summary and rep info on wordpress or check it out for free from the Queer Liberation Library!

[giosele]

2023 Favorite Reads

Now that 2023 is coming to a close, I wanted to share my 5 favorite reads of this year

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell - This book has easily become an all time favorite. Since I've read it, it's been my go-to when people ask for book recommendations.

No idea how Mitchell turned the tale of a Dutch trader making his fortune in 1799 Dejima into a horror story, but here we are, and we are blessed for it. Please read this book. Don't look up any spoilers and enjoy the dawdling first act where our protagonist simps after the daughter of a samurai and struggles to understand Japanese society and colonial corruption. When you hit The Mountain Fastness, all the clues and major players come into play, and you will not be able to put this book down.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante - I slept on Ferrante until January of this year. Despite many recommendations, I was not into the premise of two young girls growing up in the Italian countryside.

Under any other author, this book would've been boring, but Ferrante's prose is one of a kind. She perfectly captures the spirit of being a woman whose future is dictated by a society that expects girls to fit into a certain mold. I highly recommend this book. The writing is so great, you'll be deeply invested in whether young Lila can enroll in middle school after 40 pages.

(The only downside is the unintended (?) queer-baiting!!! The exquisite relationship between two girls that love each other more than life itself is explored in depth and is what makes this book so magical. The author depicts them hetero-coded, but still. STILL. It was cruel to sprinkle in declarations of love and nude scenes then marry them off to men!)

A Country You Can Leave by Asale Angel-Ajani - A coming-of-age story that spotlights the hopelessness and humor that comes with growing up in the impoverished, neglected patches of America. 

The book is nonchalant in its depictions of the horrors - which is a nod to how casually we dismiss the needs and struggles of our countrymen. It feels authentic, like it's written from someone that sees our failures, knows how shit it all is, and is trying anyway. Everyone can enjoy this, and anyone that is part of a diaspora within a neoliberal, multiracial society will be able to relate deeply to this book.

The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher - Eugenides' Middlesex but if Cal were a queer Palestinian woman with royal blue skin. It seems like a strange hook, but our protagonist is 'The Girl' in The Skin and Its Girl. Or is she?

The entire book is setting up for the twist, which is somehow unexpected (impressive considering how in-your-face the hints are!), satisfying, and wonderfully poetic.

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer - This book is a masterclass in horror writing and story pacing. Every scene and sentence felt deliberately crafted to evoke a particular feeling, or to pay homage to a specific trope in horror writing. The book smoothly bounces from thriller, psychological horror, mystery, and whatever the hell is going on in Call of Cthulhu. Also, is there a word for the enjoyment of being gaslit? At some point, I was questioning my understanding of book's reality, and I was loving it.

[queerbookdirectory]

NEW BOOK SUBMISSION

THE SKIN AND ITS GIRL || SARAH CYPHER

the QBD gave me: The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher!!

I'm actually currently reading this book right now and I really like it! It's also the first queer Palestinian book I've gotten up on the QBD, which you will be able to find using the brand new Palestinian sorter in the filters!! I can't wait to get more up, I've just been a bit under the weather and haven't had the chance yet!

The Skin and Its Girl is a striking tale of identity told through the eyes of a Palestinian-American as she decides whether she should follow her heart and perpetuate her family's cycle of exile, or whether she shouldn't. As she decides, she comes across her aunt's journal and learns about what it took for her family to get where they are.

I can't wait to finish this book and I hope y'all give it a try too!

SUMMARY

In a Pacific Northwest hospital far from the Rummani family’s ancestral home in Palestine, the heart of a stillborn baby begins to beat and her skin turns vibrantly, permanently cobalt blue. On the same day, the Rummanis’ centuries-old soap factory in Nablus is destroyed in an air strike. The family matriarch and keeper of their lore, Aunt Nuha, believes that the blue girl embodies their sacred history, harkening back to a time when the Rummanis were among the wealthiest soap-makers and their blue soap was a symbol of a legendary love.

Decades later, Betty returns to Aunt Nuha’s gravestone, faced with a difficult decision: Should she stay in the only country she’s ever known, or should she follow her heart and the woman she loves, perpetuating her family’s cycle of exile? Betty finds her answer in partially translated notebooks that reveal her aunt’s complex life and struggle with her own sexuality, which Nuha hid to help the family immigrate to the United States. But, as Betty soon discovers, her aunt hid much more than that.

The Skin and Its Girl is a searing, poetic tale about desire and identity, and a provocative exploration of how we let stories divide, unite, and define us—and wield even the power to restore a broken family. Sarah Cypher is that rare debut novelist who writes with the mastery and flair of a seasoned storyteller. 

CONTENT WARNINGS

suicidal ideation, attempted suicide (off page), depression, miscarriage, racism, homophobia

REPRESENTATION

Palestinian American lesbian mc, Palestinian lesbian mc, Palestinian gay side characters

GOODREADS LINK LINK TO PURCHASE THE BOOK

[lgbtqreads]

Happy Arab American Heritage Month 2023!

It’s Arab American Heritage Month, and as always, we’re celebrating with books starring Arab American protagonists! Please note that this post only includes books that haven’t been included in previous years, so for even more recs, click here! Man O’War by Cory McCarthy The jellyfish commonly known as a Portuguese man o’ war is neither Portuguese, nor a jellyfish, nor a man, nor even a singular…

[queer-book-society]

Despite working at a bookstore I always support my local library, here's an amazing find from today!

Title: The Skin and Its Girl

Author(s): Sarah Cypher

Description: In a Pacific Northwest hospital far from the Rummani family’s ancestral home in Palestine, the heart of a stillborn baby begins to beat and her skin turns a vibrant, permanent cobalt blue. On the same day, the Rummanis’ centuries-old soap factory in Nablus is destroyed in an air strike. The family matriarch and keeper of all Rummani lore, Aunt Nuha, believes that the blue girl embodies their sacred history, harkening to a time when the Rummanis were among the wealthiest soap-makers and their blue soap was a symbol of a legendary love. Decades later, Betty returns to her Aunt Nuha’s gravestone, faced with a difficult decision: Should she stay in the only country she’s every known or should she follow her heart for the woman she loves, perpetuating her family’s cycle of exile? Betty finds her answer in partially translated notebooks that reveal her aunt’s complex life and struggle with her own sexuality, which Nuha hid to help the family emigrate to the U.S. But as Betty soon discovers, her aunt hid much more than that.

[wreckitremy]

"They say that every human being on earth carries one molecule of Julius Caeser's dying breath in their lungs. It's like that"

The Skin and Its Girl, Sarah Cypher

[ladespeinada]

“All the old stories talk about the Road of No Return, the Road of Good Fortune, and the Road of this or that, but I’m seeing that a woman is not fully in possession of herself until there is no road at all, and she must make her own way. That is the problem. I was born roadless, heavy and blue and happiest in one place—content to let you tell me how the world is, and to retreat from any further, disappointing discoveries of my own. But love is nothing if not a catastrophe, one that makes me second-guess gravity, history, and the limits of my own person. Love is, might be, feels like, a kind of fairy tale too—one that can begin only once the story we thought we knew blows apart.” 

The Skin and Its Girl · Sarah Cypher

[judgingbooksbycovers]

​The Skin and Its Girl: A Novel

By Sarah Cypher.

Design by Holly Ovenden.

[haunted-xander]

That's a roundabout way of asking "is it okay to be trans" Xion

[gennsoup]

Love is nothing if not a catastrophe, one that makes me second-guess gravity, history, the limits of my own person. Love is, might be, feels like, a kind of fairy tale too--one that can begin only once the story we thought we knew blows apart.

Sarah Cypher, The Skin and Its Girl

[v7n5]

Trying out acrylic markers. Interesting choices were made...

I think this medium is convenient when you can't be arsed to mix a bunch of colors, but the limited pallette can and will wreck you no prep no lube. It helps if you like semi-opaque coverage and colors that burn you retina though.

[thana-topsy]

A short comic based on the ACTUAL in-game dialogue between Colette and Urag that was so cringe I had to get it out of my brain. Thanks to @kookaburra1701 for pointing it out and cursing me with this.

Featuring Enthir being a menace.

[giosele]

tw: suicide attempts

I picture my mother like this whenever I need to feel more tender toward her: a scrawny girl, bare calves with a fuzz of dark hair, crouched in a skeletal house with the mice and scorpions, astonished by a ghostly chorus. That night outside Houston, she'd scrambled to the top floor, wondering whether the drop to the foundation was enough to crack open her head and let the voices out. A few years later in boarding school, she'd try a whole bottle of Tylenol. And in college on the California coast, she'd wonder, What about a gun? In Portland, she'd imagine the sound of a single shot from that revolver softened by miles of pine forest. None of it would ever stop the phenomenon and its fixations. From that earthy Texas night onward, as nostalgia preoccupies the exile, death played in my mother's thoughts like the promise of homecoming.

The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher

[blkkizzat]

random, and i don't know who needs to hear this, but black girls can visibly blush too. -signed a black girl who can visibly blush and who gets a big fat blochy red mark on her face when she cries. 😘