On Sale: June 18th 2026
Publisher: Quirk Books
Length: 320 pages
ISBN13: 9781683695004
I have absolutely hideous flu at the moment, which to make my life even more super fun, has led to a return of a chronic ear infection, and as I’m sure you can imagine I am currently a bear of little brain and much grump. To keep myself occupied, while I’ve been tucked up in bed, coughing and sneezing and generally feeling sorry for myself I have been using my waking hours to read a lot, including the rather fabulous You Pierce My Soul by Jessica Mary Best. This little gem popped up in my library app while I was browsing the other day so I thought I’d give it a shot.
The immediate highlights – sapphic romance, YA (so, no spice) and, intriguely, our story is based in a dystopian separatist colony where daily life is basically ruled by a series of algorithims – in the era where “AI” is being used by an alarming number of humans to replace thinking and decision making, this does land a little differently. It’s a bit on the nose, really.
This book is a relatively fast read, but it’s one I’d encourage you to put on your reading lists and share with any young adult/ older teens in your life who enjoy dystopian fiction. Jessica Mary Best has done an outstanding job of creating an effortlessly inclusive society, which is not always the case for fictional authoritatian dystopias! Non-binary and queer people explicitly exist in the story without their gender or sexuality being their main characteristic, and the romance we experience with the two protagonists is a recognisably queer one, including about a third of the book where it’s clear one of our dashing duo hasn’t quite grasped that she is in fact queer or twigged that she does have the agency to choose the relationship she’s been avoiding for a year. It’s delightful. Also there are lesbian (secular) nuns, and I love a fictional monastic order even if they aren’t following The Rule of St Bernard**.
Now, this not a flawless 5 Shield read in my opinion – the story is a little slow to get started, some of the descriptive writing is a a bit clunky in places which I found jarring, and I’d like to have spent more time in the world of New Ionia, but those are some fairly subjective criticisms, and your mileage may vary. None of these are significant enough to tip the rating down to 3 Shields (average) or the dreaded 2 Shields (bad), the book just isn’t ‘almost flawless’!
All in all You Pierce My Soul was a really nice read, and I’ll be looking out for more books by this author in future.
Rating (out of 5): 🛡️🛡️🛡️🛡️
Do expect: Hi-jinks, shenanigans, a dystopian society and speedlimit violating lesbian nuns
Don’t expect: Any spice, lots of descriptive world building
**Sorry not sorry – I’m an unrepentant Church Gremlin out to cause theological chaos
Books and Bothies 