Tag Archives: GLBT

Book Review: Autoboyography

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autoboyographyAutoboyography
by Christina Lauren
YA LGBT Romance
416 pages
Published 2017

This book was EXCELLENT. I read this last minute, because the author tweeted that it was free to read on an online platform through the end of the month. It is absolutely adorable.

Autoboyography is the the story of Sebastian and Tanner falling in love, told mostly from Tanner’s point of view. He meets Sebastian in a class at school about writing a book, and the book we’re reading is supposedly the result. Tanner is a half-Jewish, bisexual kid moved from California to Utah, because his mother got a job offer she couldn’t refuse. He is surrounded by Mormons, whose religion doesn’t allow homosexuality. And Sebastian is Mormon.

The book unpacks so much, from stereotypes of bisexuality (and I LOVED the recognition that there are bisexuals who won’t be satisfied with one gender, and bisexuals who will, it’s an individual thing just like sexuality) to religious upbringing and the constraints that brings when someone is different, to unrequited love from a best friend, to how you can inadvertently let your other relationships suffer when falling in love.

The adorably sweet romance was a wonderful escape from current events, even with the hostility aimed at LGBT people by some of the characters. It was wonderfully done; enough to affect the characters and the plot, but not enough to spoil the uplifting, otherwise sweet nature of the novel.

I was slightly disturbed by an incident between Tanner and his best friend, Autumn. While they both seemed to take it in stride and move past it, it was a pretty shitty move on Autumn’s part, and could easily have gone very, VERY badly.

I really, really loved this book, and it’s going on my Favorites of 2018 list. I might need to buy my own copy. This is my last post for Pride Month, though definitely not my last book featuring LGBT characters! You can find all my Pride Month reads here.

From the cover of Autoboyography:

Three years ago, Tanner Scott’s family relocated from California to Utah, a move that nudged the bisexual teen temporarily back into the closet. Now, with one semester of high school to go, and no obstacles between him and out-of-state college freedom, Tanner plans to coast through his remaining classes and clear out of Utah.

But when his best friend Autumn dares him to take Provo High’s prestigious Seminar—where honor roll students diligently toil to draft a book in a semester—Tanner can’t resist going against his better judgment and having a go, if only to prove to Autumn how silly the whole thing is. Writing a book in four months sounds simple. Four months is an eternity.

It turns out, Tanner is only partly right: four months is a long time. After all, it takes only one second for him to notice Sebastian Brother, the Mormon prodigy who sold his own Seminar novel the year before and who now mentors the class. And it takes less than a month for Tanner to fall completely in love with him.

Book Review: As The Crow Flies

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as the crow fliesAs The Crow Flies
by Melanie Gillman
Graphic Novel
272 pages
Published November 2017

This book is GORGEOUS, y’all. It started as a webcomic about Charlie’s experience at a Christian backpacking youth camp. The book covers the first three days of camp, and the webcomic is currently on Day 4. I actually didn’t know it was a webcomic until I hit the end of the book, went “Wait, what?!” and started poking the internet to see if there was a Volume 2. I did find part of Day 4 posted on the webcomic site, but the last comic was posted in June of 2017. I found statements that there is a Volume 2 planned on her Tumblr and elsewhere on the Internet, though.

The main character, Charlie, is a queer black girl who’s gone to a Christian summer camp. When she walks in, she discovers EVERYONE else is white, except one half-Native American counselor. She’s immediately got her guard up, and when another counselor mentions “whitening their souls” as a metaphor for purification, her guard goes up further. I loved how her friendship developed with Sydney, another camper, and their conversations are HILARIOUS. They plan to disrupt the mysterious “ceremony” planned for when they reach the peak of the mountain, but they keep coming up with outlandish ideas like summoning pterodactyls or raccoons with palanquins and little driver hats. (You know those crazy conversations you come up with when you’re exhausted!)

Some of the Christian rhetoric in the book annoyed me, but it annoys Charlie, too, so I guess that’s okay, or even intentional. There’s a lot of White Feminism on display in the book; the tradition the camp follows relied on black women not participating and keeping homes running (read: being slaves) while the white women went off to their women’s retreat. Charlie is understandably pissed about how nonchalant the head counselor is about that, too.

The head counselor actually seriously rubs me the wrong way; at one point she tells one of the girls, who had sprained her ankle, that she only has enough supplies for one ankle injury, so if she uses it now, she won’t have it for anyone else. Lady, if you only brought enough supplies for one sprained ankle, for like ten people on a week-long hike? That is YOUR problem, not the fault of the poor 13-year-old in pain in front of you. You should have planned better. The same thing with not having enough painkillers to spare for the poor girl who starts her period. I’m not sure if the head counselor is supposed to be an antagonist or not, but she sure seems that way.

I really love Charlie and Sydney, and I really really want to see what the ceremony is and how they decide to disrupt it, so I will be keeping an eye out for the webcomic to start posting again, or for news of a Volume 2. And the art is, again, absolutely GORGEOUS. I will probably be looking for more of the author’s work – she calls herself a “queertoonist” which is great! She’s queer and nonbinary, by her Twitter bio. Which makes this an #ownvoices book as well, and perfect for Pride Month. You can find the rest of my Pride Month reads listed here.

From the cover of As The Crow Flies:

Charlie Lamonte is thirteen years old, queer, black, and questioning what was once a firm belief in God. So naturally, she’s spending a week of her summer vacation stuck at an all-white Christian youth backpacking camp. As the journey wears on and the rhetoric wears thin, she can’t help but poke holes in the pious obliviousness of this storied sanctuary with little regard for people like herself . . . or her fellow camper, Sydney.

Book Review: Seriously…I’m Kidding

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seriously i'm kiddingSeriously…I’m Kidding
by Ellen DeGeneres
Memoir/Comedy
241 pages
Published 2011

As part of Pride Month, I’m spotlighting books by or about GLBTQIA+ people. Ellen is one of the most prominent lesbians here in the US, between coming out on a sitcom, having her own daytime talk show, and her judging stint on American Idol. This is her third book, but the first one I’ve read. If the other two are like this one, I need to read them!

Seriously…I’m Kidding is a really funny book. It reads a little bit like an ADHD squirrel, but that’s part of its charm. I read the print version, but this is one book I might have to get the audio version of, mostly because of the one chapter she wrote specifically for the audio version:

“Anyway, since you have the benefit of being able to hear this, I thought I would include some bonus material of me making strange noises. For those of you who are reading this the old-fashioned way and can’t hear me, I’ve printed the noises below and I encourage you to use your imagination to think of what they might sound like coming out of my mouth.

Meeeeee
Faaaaaa
Cooooo
Gooooood Morning
Bowwwww
Babowwwww
Yelowwwww
(more strange noises listed)”

The book covers a lot of ground, from producing her show to judging on American Idol to coming out as lesbian to hosting dinner parties. It also varies wildly chapter to chapter, from brief short stories (less than a page) to haiku, to coloring book pages of odd things like toasters, to prose, wandering chapters that are an interesting look at Ellen’s thought process.

I really enjoyed this book, and it’s definitely worth reading because it’s just FUN.

You can find all my Pride Month reads listed here.

From the cover of Seriously…I’m Kidding:

Welcome to my third book. Inside this book you will find an assortment of wonderful things – words, pictures, advice, tidbits, morsels, shenanigans, and in some copies, four hundred dollars cash. So you might want to buy a few.

I’m so happy you’re holding this book in your hands right now and reading its jacket or flap or whatever you want to call this little extra part of the book. Jackap or Flacket or Flapjacket. Whatever, really.

I don’t have enough room on this flapjacket to tell you all the reasons why you should buy this book, but I can tell you this and it’s a guarantee: If you buy it, you will feel better, look better, be happier, grow taller, lose weight, get a promotion at work, have shinier hair, and fall madly, deeply in love.

And as an added bonus feature I’d like to point out that this flapjacket doubles as a bookmark. So you’re paying for a book and you’re getting a bookmark absolutely free. Where else are you going to find that kind of deal?

Now, before you begin reading, if you’d like to learn more about me please turn to the back flap. (Back flap sounds weird, doesn’t it? The more you say it the more it sounds like something you try to get rid of through exercise and eating right. Anyway, please read on.)

Book Review: When Katie Met Cassidy

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when katie met cassidyWhen Katie Met Cassidy
by Camille Perri
Contemporary Romance
262 pages
Releases June 19, 2018

This was one of my Book of the Month picks this month, so I got it a little early. It’s a very quick read, and a sweet story. Basically, it’s lesbian romance fluff. We need more fluff with non-heterosexual romances, so this is great stuff!

The book touches on gender issues – Cassidy is a woman, and seems happy to be so, but abhors feminine clothing and instead dresses solely in men’s suits. (The scene with her fabulously gay tailor was an absolute delight!) She flashes back a little onto her childhood when she wasn’t allowed to wear the clothing she felt best in. She also has a few conversations with Katie about gender roles. Katie is much more traditionally feminine, wearing dresses and heels and long hair.

I’m a little torn on whether I dislike the use of the trope “straight woman turned gay after breakup” or like the point that Katie isn’t sure she likes women, but she knows she likes Cassidy. Cassidy’s gender is secondary to her personality. And it’s not like Katie decided to go hit on women after her fiance cheated on her; she got practically dragged to the lesbian bar by Cassidy, who saw how much she was hurting and decided to help her.

I enjoyed seeing that Cassidy has casual sex partners, many of them former sex partners, who are still good friends with her. Granted, she has lots of one-night stands who are upset with her since she’s quite the player, but there are several women who she’s been involved with before the book opens, who are close friends of hers and care about her future. I wish we saw more relationships like this in heterosexual romantic fiction instead of only in GLBT fiction! These kinds of relationships do exist in heterosexual groups, but it seems like romantic fiction is always divided between “heterosexual monogamy” and “everything else.” I did read an exception in Next Year, For Sure, but I greatly disliked the ending.

I really loved this book. It was sweet, and light-hearted, and a pleasant breath of fresh air from a lot of what I’ve been reading recently!

You can find a list of all of my Pride Month reads here.

From the cover of When Katie Met Cassidy:

When it comes to Cassidy, Katie can’t think straight.

Katie Daniels, a twenty-eight-year-old Kentucky transplant with a strong set of traditional values, has just been dumped by her fiance when she finds herself seated across a negotiating table from native New Yorker Cassidy Price, a sexy, self-assured woman wearing a man’s suit. While at first Katie doesn’t know what to think, a chance meeting on a West Village street later that night leads them both to the Metropolis, a dimly lit lesbian dive bar that serves as Cassidy’s second home.

The night offers straightlaced Katie a glimpse into a wild yet fiercely tight-knit community, one in which barrooms may as well be bedrooms, and loyal friends fill in the spaces absent families leave behind. And in Katie, Cassidy finds a chance to open her heart in new ways. Soon their undeniable connection will bring into question everything each of them thought they knew about sex and love.

From the acclaimed author of The Assistants comes another gutsy book about the importance of women taking the reins – this time, when it comes to love, sex, and self-acceptance. Written with Camille Perri’s signature wry writ and charm, When Katie Met Cassidy is a fun, fast-paced romantic comedy about gender and sexuality, and the importance of figuring out who we are in order to go after what we truly want.

Book Review: The Animators

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animatorsThe Animators
by Kayla Rae Whitaker
Contemporary Fiction
386 pages
Published 2017

I hadn’t actually intended this to be one of my Pride Month reads, but Mel, the main character’s best friend and business partner, is lesbian, so it turns out that it counts! I read this book as part of Litsy’s “Buddy Reads” program, where everyone participating reads the same section of the book and discusses it before moving on to the next section. So I’ve been slowly reading this one over the past month. I’m not sure I would have read this if not for the Buddy Read.

This book surprised me! I enjoyed it, and I wasn’t sure I would. Mel and Sharon have been friends since college, spurring each other to greater artistry in their chosen field of adult cartooning. (Not porn, just not childish themes.) They work well together, with Mel coming up with most of the beginning ideas and Sharon hammering them into a shape that will work and keeping them on track through projects. But Mel has a drug and alcohol problem, and Sharon has a stroke, and working through all of those things are really what the book deals with.

The two go back to visit Sharon’s hometown in Kentucky at one point, and the way Sharon describes the town, and how surreal it is and how she never felt like she belonged, even when she lived there – that was a really hard-hitting passage for me. I went back to my own hometown last Christmas, and I felt the same feelings Sharon has in the book. Seeing those feelings actually put into words was….strange.

I honestly didn’t like either Mel or Sharon for the first few chapters, but as the story unfolds, they begin to open up. The book is about growing up in some ways; the two of them, though advancing in their careers, haven’t had to do a lot of maturing emotionally until the events of the book. I thought they both become much more likable as that happened.

The writing was excellent in this book, the character development outstanding, and the plot heartbreaking in places. Even though it’s not my typical reading fare, I really liked it.

You can find all my Pride Month reads listed here.

From the cover of The Animators:

She was the first person to see me as I had always wanted to be seen. It was enough to indebt me to her forever.

In the male-dominated field of animation, Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses are a dynamic duo, the friction of their differences driving them: Sharon, quietly ambitious but self-doubting; Mel, brash and unapologetic, always the life of the party. Best friends and artistic partners since the first week of college, where they bonded over their working-class roots and obvious talent, they spent their twenties ensconced in a gritty Brooklyn studio. Working, drinking, laughing. Drawing: Mel, to understand her tumultuous past, and Sharon, to lose herself altogether.

Now, after a decade of striving, the two are finally celebrating the release of their first full-length feature, which transforms Mel’s difficult childhood into a provocative and visually daring work of art. The toast of the indie film scene, they stand at the cusp of making it big. But with their success come doubt and destruction, cracks in their relationship threatening the delicate balance of their partnership. Sharon begins to feel expendable, suspecting that the ever-more raucous Mel is the real artist. During a trip to Sharon’s home state of Kentucky, the only other partner she has ever truly known—her troubled, charismatic childhood best friend, Teddy—reenters her life, and long-buried resentments rise to the surface, hastening a reckoning no one sees coming.

A funny, heartbreaking novel of friendship, art, and trauma, The Animators is about the secrets we keep and the burdens we shed on the road to adulthood.

Friday 56 – Seriously…I’m Kidding

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seriously i'm kidding

The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

Today’s quote is from Seriously…I’m Kidding by Ellen DeGeneres. This book is hysterical and random!

I once went into work and showed some producers a little bruise I got. The next thing I knew it was like Girls Gone Wild in my office. People were lifting up their shirts, rolling up their pants. Socks were coming off. “you think that’s bad – I walked into a tree yesterday!” “I banged my hip on a car door!” “I sat on a fork!” Don’t need to see it.

This is one of my reads for Pride Month, and the review should be up in a few days!