Book Recs: Books for fans of Mary Oliver’s poetry

It’s a companion post of sorts to one of my previous rec lists, where I recommended people books based on their favourite Richard Siken quotes. This time the quotes are lesbian, though.

The idea is very simple: I asked our followers on twitter to choose their most beloved quote by Mary Oliver (which isn’t easy, I know!) & then tried to figure out what book does it remind me of. Sometimes based on vibes alone, sometimes based more on the plot. So let’s go.

You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence,
serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but
I’ll take it.

Sweet & Bitter Magic
Adrienne Tooley
Goodreads
Rep: bi/pan mc, lesbian mc

How Is it Similar?

I wrote in my review that it’s a story about love, and where is grace more present than in a full heart? Things don’t happen for no reason here – the plot only moves forward because the girls love other people, love their families. It’s a very warm kind of a magical tale where anything is possible, where any curse can be broken, if you just love hard enough.

In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be.

Tipping the Velvet
Sarah Waters
Goodreads
Rep: sapphic mc, sapphic characters

How Is it Similar?

This was a very obvious choice for me. The whole book is literally about Nan discovering every possible shade of her sexuality; she truly does hear and react to everything the world has to offer before she finally finds peace and happiness, and love. It’s a beautiful journey of self-discovery, even if somewhat dramatic at times.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

Burning Roses
S.L. Huang
Goodreads
Rep: Latina lesbian mc, Chinese sapphic trans mc
TW: death, past abuse

How Is it Similar?

It’s one of those quotes that I have simply burned in my brain and think about all the time. And there are a lot of ways to look at it, but I decided to settle on a book about redemption. Not so much wishing you didn’t make the mistakes of your past, some bad choices, but rather: it’s about how even with that exact past, you still deserve love.

it is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world

Weak Heart
Ban Gilmartin
Goodreads
Rep: achillean mc with anxiety, Filipino achillean li, sapphic mc, Black lesbian li, nonbinary side character
TW: magic requiring self-harm, gore, blood, drowning

How Is it Similar?

It’s a very quiet kind of book, which isn’t to say that nothing happens there, just that it all feels like a story someone tells you while you sit in a comfortable chair by the fire & the rain is pouring. There are curses and black magic, and mystic creatures, but still at its core it’s just a story about living a simple life with someone you love.

As for myself, I swung the door open. And there was
the wordless, singing world. And I ran for my life.

Like Water
Rebecca Podos
Goodreads
Rep: bi Latina mc, genderqueer lesbian li

How Is it Similar?

Savannah wants things and she’s not afraid to take them for herself. She never chooses the easy path, instead actively fighting for what she wants. She’s not perfect, not even close, but there’s strength in her as a person and in the way she loves people around her. In the way she takes on the world.

and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine

Two Boys Kissing
David Levithan
Goodreads
Rep: gay mcs

How Is it Similar?

This might not be an obvious choice. It’s a tribute to the gay men who lost their lives to AIDS and as such it absolutely will rip your heart out. But there’s also something about those men turned martyrs paving the way for next generations to, well, have it easy in life. I like to think they would be happy to see two boys breaking the world’s record for the longest kiss, to see two gay boys shine like that.

God, or the gods, are invisible, quite
understandable. But holiness is visible,
entirely.

Sistersong
Lucy Holland
Goodreads
Rep: trans mc, genderfluid side character
TW: misgendering, transphobia, violence

How Is it Similar?

What better choice here than a book about religion. About the holiness that lives in all people, no matter their faith. One that is gentle, despite telling a story of violent religious conflicts.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this
world

The Weight of the Stars
K. Ancrum
Goodreads
Rep: lesbian mc, mixed-race Black lesbian li, side achillean relationship, side interracial polyam relationship

How Is it Similar?

If we measure a person’s worth by their achievements, by their career – both of those beautiful lesbians end up being the most successful. But then, that’s not really it, is it? The real value is in the love one has for other people, and with that the girls are even more overflowing. Not just their romantic love for each other, but the familial kind for their friends as well. They leave a mark by loving others.

Maybe the desire to make something beautiful
is the piece of God that is inside each of us.

A Curse of Roses
Diana Pinguicha
Goodreads
Rep: mostly Portuguese cast & setting, lesbian mc, lesbian Muslim li, lesbian side characters
TW: religion-based self harm, homophobia, internalised homophobia, blood, murder, body horror

How Is it Similar?

This one is literal in the sense that Yzabel turns food into flowers (something beautiful) by simply touching it, and she believes that to be a gift/curse from God. It also makes sense, though, as a metaphor for how loving someone turns everything beautiful. And Yzabel learns to allow herself to love freely, to bask in the beauty of it all.

To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

The Bedlam Stacks
Natasha Pulley
Goodreads
Rep: achillean physically disabled mc, Peruvian achillean li

How Is it Similar?

Yes, you absolutely do have my permission to come yell at me after you finish reading this book. That being said, the quote works for both Merrick and Raphael, and frankly I can’t tell which perspective makes it more tragic. It’s very much a story about the heights to which love can push a person (pun not intended, for those who know), the magic woven carefully into every sentence and into everything that happens. It’s delicate and heartbreaking in the way only the most beautiful of fairy tales can be.

What’s your favourite Mary Oliver quote?

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