Gay Girl Prayers by Emily R. Austin

Genre: Poetry

Release date: 3/1/24

Format: Digital ARC

5/5 stars!

Gay Girl Prayers is a collection of poetry that focuses on queer themes and religious references (specifically, Catholicism). Though the title focuses on sapphics, the poems within this work include mentions of queer people of all sexualities and genders. I think it’s impressive that Emily R Austin even includes demisexual and intersex folks, who often get left out of LGBTQ works. I love books that illustrate the way different identities intersect with one another (rather than focusing on one identity in a vacuum) and this is definitely one of those titles.  

One part that stood out to me in Gay Girl Prayers discusses an experience that I have personally dealt with as a sapphic woman. Emily R Austin writes about the confusion that hotel employees often show when two women check into a room and ask for one bed. This truly happens quite frequently to queer women, since we (in the US) live in a heterocentric society. Knowing the author and I have a shared experience made me smile when I got to this part in the book. While I was reading Gay Girl Prayers, it felt like Emily R Austin was speaking directly to me about life as a sapphic woman, which was really cool.

As many of you know, I am a huge advocate for diverse books and #OwnVoices in literature and non-fiction. I loved reading through Gay Girl Prayers and appreciate the intersectionality and different identities it mentions in each poem. Emily R Austin did an excellent job insuring queer people of a variety of sexualities and genders could see themselves in her poetry.

Thank you to Brick Books for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. This is my first 5 star read of the year!