Long story short that book ruined me and I am going to let it ruin me few more times in this personal timeline of mine.
The pining, the self-discovery,Long story short that book ruined me and I am going to let it ruin me few more times in this personal timeline of mine.
The pining, the self-discovery, the flirting, the doubts... all of it got me back so many years ago when I was 17, and in love, and absolutely lost and under the control of someone who wasn't ready to be out and to claim me the hers.
Gosh, I barely read that book, and I already feel like rereading it....more
What if you are not alone in your hardest moment? What if there is someone to share it with you? What if the crash comes but this time there's someoneWhat if you are not alone in your hardest moment? What if there is someone to share it with you? What if the crash comes but this time there's someone to catch you?
You don't know me and probably will not be able to comprehend what that means but I was being late for a music festival in the middle of the summer in one of the sunniest cities in Europe so I can finish reading this bloody book (for the first time). And there are very few books capable of making me almost miss Foo Fighters' live a good 1000 km away from my home.
What happened you ask? Well, literally every character in this book is so well written you will want to hug them at some point of the book. I mean, I even wanted to hug that plum-color-dressed side character and tell her all will be fine and there's nothing to worry about. Not to mention Jaya with her quiet exploration of her own mourning, Rani with her fixation over angels so she can find something to cling to when everything else seems to be falling apart, their father who seems to be too tired of questioning life, death, and God on every step so he can prove his family he's worth it so they know not all is lost. And there are Alli and Calum with their own fight with life and love-and-hate relationship only siblings have.
OUT OF THE BLUE is a book about loss and healing and you deserve it in your life. There's this one particular paragraph about loss that I can't get out of my head and the Universe is my witness when I say I hope I made it justice translating it.
If you're into numbers and not that much into words: OUT OF THE BLUE has a disabled bi MC and POC lesbian MC falling in love during times of falling angels. Since I do not want to spoil, I will tell nothing more.
Now that's out of the way, we can proceed to why OUT OF THE BLUE is such a great book besides being cutely gay and almost too sugary(they do, indeed, consume like their own weight in sweets). The book is a perfect "show, not tell" example and even every effin' chapter ends with a cliff-hanger! I hated it! AND I LOVED IT!
OUT OF THE BLUE is a really nice example of showing a story from many sides and exploring the motivation that leads to characters' (wrong)doings. Because, well, everyone is right from their point of view and wrong from others' points of view.
Sophie Cameron unfolds such a beautiful story in these 200 pages that I already want to read a sequel or at least to own a physical copy of the book. I cannot wait for the book to be officially out so you can all love it as much as I already do.
OK, hear me out. To be honest, the first thing that got me was the cover of the book - come on, it's a Jewish guy riding a dragon! B**read on NetGalley
OK, hear me out. To be honest, the first thing that got me was the cover of the book - come on, it's a Jewish guy riding a dragon! But what kept me reading was Ken Schneck's funniness and pleasant determination to finish any crazy act he agreed upon doing, be it go to Africa, ride the wildest of rides on a bike or even finding himself after a heavy heartbreak. Ken, you own your sh*t and I like you!
Reading the book you'll find that it's: * a rough travel for him in any way you can imagine. I mean, you kinda expect it for a person who grew up spoiled and suddenly decides to go see the world outside his safety net, but anyway. Africa? Lead the way! (he's so surprised by doing what he's doing, he never really stops repeating he's in Africa)
* finding yourself is never easy. Who could've expected it? Ken did and was still surprised. But Ken grew up quite a lot during all the time(s) he was left to himself - for self-care, wounds licking or just writing and being a Jewish gay man with a snarky inside voice.
* like a TED talk in a book form This book can show you at least a small part of your privilege, of the world outside of your comfy bubble. I loved the diary type-ish way the book is written and how honest Ken Schneck is being all the time - crying, pedaling, talking, touching, being anxious or just tired.
One thing you should never forget while reading - Ken always and ever watches the world through the eyes of a teacher. He will always try to teach you something new, to give you an experience you might not have or just point out something you might have missed.
By the end of the book, I realized I'd love to hear a stand-up written by Ken Schneck....more
the Nice gay - check ☑ the Bad gay - check ☑ the Smarty pants str8 gal - check ☑ the Robot killers - check ☑
If you think a sum-up like the abo[image]
the Nice gay - check ☑ the Bad gay - check ☑ the Smarty pants str8 gal - check ☑ the Robot killers - check ☑
If you think a sum-up like the above is enough to summarize you the book, you're making a big mistake. It's a great book for self-discovery, friendship, and love. Mostly friendship, actually, and that's what makes it so special.
YA as a genre is full of clichéd love stories - whether f/m or not. And that's the sweetest part in "The Love Interest" - it explores it in a way I haven't seen recently even in "grown-ups" books. Let's be real for a moment and admit almost any m/m or f/f relationship is written better than your regular f/m one. There are many reasons for that but mostly because LGBTQ+ people ask themselves more questions and therefore need more answers - whether the other person is queer or not, whether they are out or even OK with themselves if they are queer, whether their friends are OK with it or they'll lose them…
On top of that add the knowledge that one of you will die no matter what and you got yourself the angstiest angst ever. Nice, huh? Or not Bad, if I may say?
There's the conspiracy theory, the puppets, the immediate danger and the ones ready to die for love. What else do you need, because that could totally be a James-Bond-like movie based on that book.
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And what I liked the most was the fact Cale Dietrich genuinely mocks the YA genre with a YA book and that's so so sweet....more
"If I Was Your Girl" actually follows all YA literature canons - teens, bullying at school, love dramas, a big revelation at the prom, etc. The quiet heroine Amanda could be hiding any other secret from her friends at school and her boyfriend. I this case the secret is that on her birth certificate is written "name: Andrew, sex: male".
Amanda passes for a girl without much effort. She had the chance to start hormone replacement therapy relatively early and to undergo a surgery immediately after turning the required 18 years. Amanda has parents who are trying to accept and understand her despite the fact that they have to forget about all the children pictures of their child; even though they need to get used to her new name, and mostly, even though they can not stop worrying about their kid. Especially after her suicide attempt.
If I'd had the strength to be normal, I thought, or at least the strength to die, then everyone would have been happy.
There is no way a book with such theme not to dwell in the painful fragility of the growing emotionally person. A person who fights every day with the fact that they do not fit in their surrounding normality. Frankly, I do not think we have a better way of books and their heroes to explain cis and/or heterosexual people this sense of non-belonging through which they pass others.
That was the kind of scenario that got girls like me killed. I had done the research. I knew how often things like that happened. I felt the scar over my ear and remembered that even now that I'd had my surgery, even now that nothing but some legal papers could reveal my past, I was never really safe.
The best thing about "If I Was Your Girl" is precisely the way it examines the relationship between the teen and her parents who would struggle with the same problems grow even if their child was not trans - boyfriends, problems at school and the simple awareness that your child will soon be an adult who does not really need you.
"Listen to me." Her hand squeezed my leg hard enough that the pain broke through the fog of my meds. When she spoke next, I listened. "Anything, anyone, is better than dead son."
But probably what caught me the most is the text below: (view spoiler)[
“I miss him,” Mom whispered, her eyes cast to the side. “Dad?” I said. “No,” Mom said, and I heard her throat clenching. A tear streaked down her cheek, but it wasn’t followed by any others. “No, I miss my son.” “Oh!” I said, dropping the page I was holding. “Oh.” “I’m sorry,” Mom said, shaking her head and swallowing. “I’m sorry, really. I thought you were asleep.” “I’m still me,” I said, trying to catch her eye again. “It ain’t that simple,” Mom said, opening her watery eyes and returning them to me. “I know I’m supposed to say it is, but it ain’t. You look different, you act different, you sound different, your hands feel different when I touch ’em. Hell, you even smell different. Do you know how important smell can be, how the way your baby smells when you hold him gets locked in your head?” I clenched my fingers. “Why didn’t you tell me?” “You tried to kill yourself,” she said, rolling her eyes up to heaven and biting her knuckle. “Andrew Hardy was gonna die one way or the other, and one of the choices gave me a daughter in exchange while the other left me with no one.” “I never thought of it that way,” I said. “I never thought about—” “It ain’t your responsibility to comfort your parents,” she said, shaking her head. “’Least, not until I start needin’ my diapers changed.” She started closing the albums again. “And anyway this ain’t the first time I mourned my baby.” She took a shuddering breath. “What do you mean?” I tried to help her stack the albums back up and put them away, but she slapped my hands and quickly did it herself. “No strenuous activity!” she said, and then she lowered herself into an overstuffed chair by the bookshelf and closed her eyes again. “When you were a year old I looked at your baby pictures and cried. When you were three I looked at the pictures from when you were one and cried. When you went to kindergarten I looked back and cried. Kids constantly grow and change, and every time you blink they turn into something different and the kid you thought you had is just a memory.” She rubbed her face and sighed. “Five years from now you’ll be a grown woman graduatin’ college and I’ll look at photos of you now and grieve my teenage daughter.” “So I shouldn’t feel guilty?” “’Course you should!” she said with a broad smile. “You got any idea what you’ve done to me? Between the labor pain and the stretch marks and the loans I had to take out for this surgery, you’ve bled me dry!”
The book is a wonderfully written example of YA literature - written almost lightly not to alienate the reader and at the same time not over simplifying the explored theme. The author deliberately does not go into details about the transition period of her character, she only mentions the empty year in which Amanda missed school and had to find hobbies to fill her time and mind during this period. The love story is also quite restrained and if leaving me with the feeling it's there simply because at age of 18 one can not not be in love.
I ought to admit that "If I Was Your Girl" is actually a light story. And, yes, it ends happily, with a stronger heroine. And, yes, we need that kind of books. The Universe is my witness that we have seen and read enough tragic queer stories. And when you are a transsexual teenager, you need to believe that not all stories end like that of Leelah Alcorn.
"If I Was Your Girl", in my opinion, deserves a place in school libraries. Books like this one make me happy with their existence and I sincerely hope for more young people to read it....more
If you don't like stories about superheroes, "Not Your Sidekick" is not your story. If you enjoy endlessly hopeless teen love stories - too.
But if you need a sweet story about bisexual and trans teenage superheroes in your life, "Not Your Sidekick" is just your story.
The book is great as it is - written for the young audience and without the unnecessary drama typical for YA literature. "Not Your Sidekick" is here only to tell in a proper and readable way the story of several teens and all the small and almost unnoticeable for grown-ups problems they face.
Story is: 17-year-old Jess struggles with the fact that she has not inherited any of her superparents' superpowers, permanently fails to meet the expectations of being first generation born on Collective territory by migrant parents, and on top of that, sports an enormous crush on a classmate, who happens to share the same internship.
I can not just ask Abby if she likes girls or not! What if she does not know? What if ... I ... Yeah. It's too much risk.
That said, you kinda already know where the book is going, right? The book is very light and perfect for relax between mandatory school readings.
And you know what? The book is needed precisely because of that. We need lighthearted and sweet stories in which none of the heroes and heroines die.
Will the book surprise you in any way? Probably no.
Will you know 70 pages into the book whose is a particular secret identity? Most probably yes.
Do you know from the beginning that no good is ultimately good and no bad - ultimately bad? Well, yes.
Should you read the book anyway? Hell yeah. And why not?
"Not Your Sidekick" is not as long, detailed or explicit in describing good/evil in the way "Calamity" series by Brandon Sanderson do(another superhero post-apocalyptic story).
The second part of the series - Not Your Villain - is about to be published until the end of the year and will present the history of Bells - one of Jess' best friends - a trans boy who maybe enjoys changing his hair a tad too much....more
I don’t need no Holden Caulfield. All I need is Juliet Palante!
And I honestly liked Juliet. Like a lot. What’s not to like in this *read on NetGalley*
I don’t need no Holden Caulfield. All I need is Juliet Palante!
And I honestly liked Juliet. Like a lot. What’s not to like in this Puerto-Rican baby-queer feminist badass kid with a big heart on her way to discover her place in this world? I liked the realness of Juliet’s emotions – she was confident and yet permanently trying to fit in any of the realms she existed in as a poc queer woman. Just like any young person would. This book has so much to give to the young (queer) people reading it. And all the wit and sass of the Latina girl and her brother Lil’ Melvin! Oh!
To be frank, I expected the book to be a quick read but I was surprised to realize it is not. Even though the action never stops, the characters fall into heavy discussions for feminisma and queer identity. If you expect this book to give you answers, stop. It asks more questions that it could answer, just like real life does. And yet, somehow Juliet manages to find her own voice, her own place in the world while educating herself on questions of sexuality, gender identity and intersectional feminism.
“Juliet takes a breath” is heartfelt, cute and sometimes a bit overwhelming read and you need to read it. Today. Especially if you’re an outsider of the poc queer world. I needed that peek from the inside. And for that, thank you, Gabby Rivera....more
I chose "A Safe Girl To Love" completely randomly from the list of books with queer authors I plan on reading in 2017 and suddenly I came across the stories of several transgender women trying to find their place in the world.
I use the clichéd expression above completely on purpouse trying to give meaning to the words below. It will probably be a bit easier if I copy a few quotes from the book:
She was lucky to have her at all. Who knew, Lizzy thought, the finite amount of nights in her life where she would sleep with her hand around a trusted body. That trusted hers. It would not be a lot, anyway, would it.
While you and I seek love, there are people who try to be satisfied with just a few nights spent in the company of someone they trust. With no beautiful words whispered in to the night and no promises of eternal love. All they need and look for is to feel they belong and they are safe.
I really am glad we talk now. It's just hard to forget it took a trip to the emergency room.
I can only try to understand how bad the situation is that a suicide attempt is needed for your family to understand they are about to lose you.
I am tired of this. I am not a fighter. I never wanted battles. ... Before I began to mortgage my liver and lungs, before I had friends afraid of cops and sidewalks, before I had dead friends, I just wanted to know what it was like to walk around with another girl and do that. I want to know what it's like to not be deathly worried about your friends. I'm so very tired of this. I can not stand it.
I'm not sure I can imagine what is it to be so tired of surviving and of daily struggle. To consider for exception a day that nobody threatened you or a friend of yours, a day in which you did not become a victim of violence and you could safely walk without name calling. Instead of such day being a routine one.
We are all looking for our place in the world but most of us do it in relative safety. Here, that's not the case.
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Do you notice how in the above in paragraph I keep using "trying to understand/imagine"? Because in our "normality" we allow ourselves to forget that the world is not as accepting as we want it to be. That is the reason the characters of the book live among people who can understand them - either among people in transition or people after sex reassignment surgery. That is why they are afraid for their friends - because they have personally experienced the negatives of identifying with a gender different from the one on their birth certificate.
Stylistically "A Safe Girl To Love" is not something special - the text is often too ragged and panting for my taste, but it certainly gives more authenticity to the characters. In these stories you can find topics that you might encounter in any other modern book - loss, sex, love and everything in between, but lined with violence, harassment and gender dysphoria.
Despite that, the heroines in the stories are like any other - happy or sad, sober or drunk, caring or forgetting to feed their cat. They are people who love and are looking for love. And probably this is the real message of the book - that even the most different among us are not that different at all....more
I read "Rubyfruit Jungle" almost 40 years after its first publication in 1980. And, nevertheless, the problems in the book are just as existing in the present as they were back then. We‘re still mostly silent about the glass ceiling and to be queer is often embarrassing for the family and often brings rejection.
The action of the book takes place in a time where to be openly gay takes its toll and the stereotypes are as present as ever.
“How do you know about a lesbian bar?” “I’m a lesbian.” “You—but you look like anyone else. Molly, don’t be silly; you can’t be a lesbian. You’re joking. I’d know if you were such a thing.” “Madam, I am a full-blooded, bona fide lesbian. As for the way I look, most lesbians I know look like any other woman. However, if you’re hot for a truck driver I know just the place.” I couldn’t resist giving her that little dig.
It seems nothing has changed during all these years. Each and every [outed] lesbian I know has heard the expression "you do not look like a lesbian" at least several times in her life. During pride parade, people are always amazed that gays and lesbians look like "normal people" instead of having the expected by the definition devil horns.
But I was speaking about the book. It‘s pretty nice story from first person POV, and at times it’s even extremely funny in the unpretentious way that describes the daily life of a brave girl from the southern states.
"Rubyfruit Jungle" is the story of all people(no matter of their sex) who find the standard chorus "I need to finish high school, to marry, to have children" for nothing more than chains; it‘s a book for all those who do not believe that life is limited to the aforementioned style and they want to change the universally accepted idea through their own stubborn example.
I can safely say that the book is more about the woman Molly than about Molly-the woman that loves women. In fact, "Rubyfruit Jungle" does not impress with the topics in it as it does by serving them appropriately - so that every woman can find herself in one of the battles for recognition, which she has fought at some point of her life.
This book is for every woman who earned her higher education while torn between lectures and work to pay for it; for every woman who had to show double the strength a man had to to deserve her position; for every woman who is tired of being asked if she‘s planning on having kids soon; for every woman who, in fact, has no intention to give birth.
But, just as Molly, we just should not give up, making the next difficult step.
To be honest, the very first thing that made me want to read that novella was its front cover. I saw it on twitter, I asked --> ревю на български <--
To be honest, the very first thing that made me want to read that novella was its front cover. I saw it on twitter, I asked if there was an e-book and not even 15 minutes later I was already going through it on my reader. /I was in a process of changing my payment card at that moment and I did not have any money in my paypal so I asked a friend lo lend me some bucks to get the book right now!/ That is what a good cover can do for a book.
Of course, a good book is made by good writing and that's the example we have here. To me "The Little Homo Sapiens Scientist" is not just a queer retelling of a well-known fairy tail, it's more of exploration of what defines being human and what the definition of true love should/could be.
It's a dark story and you need to now it if you've already read the original fairy tale. Could it be lighter? Of course. But it wouldn't be the same story and it wouldn't have the same impact it has now. So, if you want something light and optimistic as a Disney story don't bother starting it.
"The Little Homo Sapiens Scientist" strikes a chord somewhere deep asking you what are you ready to sacrifice for love? Or let's call it love for lack of better word for this sickening need to meet, feel and be with the other person once again.
But I can't seem to think clearly anymore. I'm hurtling toward this and it's the only thing that matters.
"If you knew you'd never find her, or that you'd find her only to be disappointed - would you still do it?". Yes. The answer was yes.
The fact that "The Little Homo Sapiens Scientist" is filled with queer characters and the main character is a lesbian does not define it but definitely helps with understanding the lengths she is going just for the opportunity to meet her love once again. I generally enjoyed a species not defined by two genders as humanity still is. (view spoiler)[And truly enjoyed the very idea of melding and becoming multiple beings in a single body leading to almost a hive mind. (hide spoiler)]
Truth be told, we have no idea what could be hiding in the depths of the ocean and the idea of alien-like species from human perspective is thrilling. I'd probably love to see Aíoëe's POV of the story but nevertheless "The Little Homo Sapiens Scientist" is a great story....more
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