Recently Read: DaySpring by Anthony Oliveira (2024)

For this ecstatic, euphoric, and elegiac edition of Recently Read I will be convincing you to read one of the best books I’ve picked up in recent times. Now fair warning, I like to read weird things and there is a sizeable amount of weirdness in this one so take that for what it is. It also features a queer Jesus so if that’s going to deeply bother you maybe move along. This is a Canadian –authored (I should be getting government funding for this blog with my commitment to following CanCon standards) retelling of the life of Jesus Christ through a series of poetic conversations with one of His disciples. Its an absolutely beautiful and extremely human portrait of Jesus that you do not need to be religious to fall in love with. Its part coming of age story, part love story, part commentary on the oft-overlooked political dimensions of the life of Jesus Christ, and part celebration of young, queer, joy. Its painful, its beautiful, its irreverent and hilarious, and the whole intoxicating cocktail is finished with perfectly crafted language. Delicious.

 For: queer kids who grew up catholic, poetry nerds, biblical scholars in search of an alternate perspective, CanCon adherents, those who need to be reminded that the body is never the index of sin