reviews, releases and recommendations of LGBT media
In a shocking turn of events, both of us are reccing the same number of titles this year! And there was only one movie among Charlotte’s choices, that we actually both wanted to include. I hope we’re all proud of Charlotte for watching so much gay shit!
If you want to see what we loved in 2020, here’s that post. Otherwise, enjoy!
It’s 1st January, which means, firstly, HAPPY NEW YEAR! Secondly, here’s our best of summary of 2021, in typical expanding fashion (alright, so maybe a few books shorter than last year). If you want to have a look at the last few years of lists, you can find them here: from 2018, from 2019, and from 2020.
Once again, we have divided our list into 3 categories: backlist books, books released in 2021 & books to be released in 2022 (that we read ARCs of). Books of 2021 has a further category of ones we both loved (upped to six this year simply because we couldn’t keep it to five). However, on the whole we’ve tried to do that (except where Anna only read a handful of backlist books, so filled up their 10 with 7 releases from this year).
Before we start, though, I (Charlotte) would just like to note I found it incredibly hard to pick only 5 backlist books because there were so many I loved. So while this is technically our “best of” post, there’s still a lot that only just didn’t make it.
But anyway. Here’s our list of our favourite 36 books of the year!
It’s a new year and, since the number of book releases we know about per month is just tipping into unwieldy (June alone last year had 150 books to add to the post, not to mention the 50+ more we found later), we’ve decided to change up the way we’re doing releases posts. We started organising releases posts by genre around halfway through last year, so we’re sticking with that here. The major difference? Each genre gets its own post, which will eventually cover a period of 6 months. So, like with our various other releases posts (although those go up all at once, whereas here we’ll add each month), these are more easily edited and added to! Which means, even if we miss a book, we can better come back and add it to the post. A win for everyone!
In this post, you’ll find the collection of contemporary books that we know about from January to June of 2022!
Looking for the other posts?
Looking for July to December?
It’s a new year and, since the number of book releases we know about per month is just tipping into unwieldy (June alone last year had 150 books to add to the post, not to mention the 50+ more we found later), we’ve decided to change up the way we’re doing releases posts. We started organising releases posts by genre around halfway through last year, so we’re sticking with that here. The major difference? Each genre gets its own post, which will eventually cover a period of 6 months. So, like with our various other releases posts (although those go up all at once, whereas here we’ll add each month), these are more easily edited and added to! Which means, even if we miss a book, we can better come back and add it to the post. A win for everyone!
In this post, you’ll find the collection of historical books that we know about from January to June of 2022!
Looking for the other posts?
Looking for July to December?
It’s a new year and, since the number of book releases we know about per month is just tipping into unwieldy (June alone last year had 150 books to add to the post, not to mention the 50+ more we found later), we’ve decided to change up the way we’re doing releases posts. We started organising releases posts by genre around halfway through last year, so we’re sticking with that here. The major difference? Each genre gets its own post, which will eventually cover a period of 6 months. So, like with our various other releases posts (although those go up all at once, whereas here we’ll add each month), these are more easily edited and added to! Which means, even if we miss a book, we can better come back and add it to the post. A win for everyone!
In this post, you’ll find the collection of fantasy books that we know about from January to June of 2022!
Looking for the other posts?
Looking for July to December?
It’s a new year and, since the number of book releases we know about per month is just tipping into unwieldy (June alone last year had 150 books to add to the post, not to mention the 50+ more we found later), we’ve decided to change up the way we’re doing releases posts. We started organising releases posts by genre around halfway through last year, so we’re sticking with that here. The major difference? Each genre gets its own post, which will eventually cover a period of 6 months. So, like with our various other releases posts (although those go up all at once, whereas here we’ll add each month), these are more easily edited and added to! Which means, even if we miss a book, we can better come back and add it to the post. A win for everyone!
In this post, you’ll find the collection of mystery and thriller books that we know about from January to June of 2022!
Looking for the other posts?
Looking for July to December?
It’s a new year and, since the number of book releases we know about per month is just tipping into unwieldy (June alone last year had 150 books to add to the post, not to mention the 50+ more we found later), we’ve decided to change up the way we’re doing releases posts. We started organising releases posts by genre around halfway through last year, so we’re sticking with that here. The major difference? Each genre gets its own post, which will eventually cover a period of 6 months. So, like with our various other releases posts (although those go up all at once, whereas here we’ll add each month), these are more easily edited and added to! Which means, even if we miss a book, we can better come back and add it to the post. A win for everyone!
In this post, you’ll find the collection of nonfiction books that we know about from January to June of 2022!
Looking for the other posts?
Looking for July to December?
It’s a new year and, since the number of book releases we know about per month is just tipping into unwieldy (June alone last year had 150 books to add to the post, not to mention the 50+ more we found later), we’ve decided to change up the way we’re doing releases posts. We started organising releases posts by genre around halfway through last year, so we’re sticking with that here. The major difference? Each genre gets its own post, which will eventually cover a period of 6 months. So, like with our various other releases posts (although those go up all at once, whereas here we’ll add each month), these are more easily edited and added to! Which means, even if we miss a book, we can better come back and add it to the post. A win for everyone!
In this post, you’ll find the collection of paranormal/horror books that we know about from January to June of 2022!
Looking for the other posts?
Looking for July to December?
It’s a new year and, since the number of book releases we know about per month is just tipping into unwieldy (June alone last year had 150 books to add to the post, not to mention the 50+ more we found later), we’ve decided to change up the way we’re doing releases posts. We started organising releases posts by genre around halfway through last year, so we’re sticking with that here. The major difference? Each genre gets its own post, which will eventually cover a period of 6 months. So, like with our various other releases posts (although those go up all at once, whereas here we’ll add each month), these are more easily edited and added to! Which means, even if we miss a book, we can better come back and add it to the post. A win for everyone!
In this post, you’ll find the collection of poetry books that we know about from January to June of 2022!
Looking for the other posts?
Looking for July to December?
It’s a new year and, since the number of book releases we know about per month is just tipping into unwieldy (June alone last year had 150 books to add to the post, not to mention the 50+ more we found later), we’ve decided to change up the way we’re doing releases posts. We started organising releases posts by genre around halfway through last year, so we’re sticking with that here. The major difference? Each genre gets its own post, which will eventually cover a period of 6 months. So, like with our various other releases posts (although those go up all at once, whereas here we’ll add each month), these are more easily edited and added to! Which means, even if we miss a book, we can better come back and add it to the post. A win for everyone!
In this post, you’ll find the collection of science fiction books that we know about from January to June of 2022!
Looking for the other posts?
Looking for July to December?
It’s that horrible, horrible time of year again, when we look at what’s going to get published next year and make ourselves choose one (1) LGBT book per month that we’re most excited about. It’s not easy, it’s not pretty; sometimes we fight over books, sometimes we cry a little because we can’t decide on just one…
To make things marginally more manageable, like in previous years, we’re sticking only to books we haven’t read ARCs of yet. (So if there’s something huge and obvious missing here, that’s probably why!) Enjoy!
Every time we make a releases post, we know that we’ll find yet more books for it the moment we hit publish. Hence, this post! This is a collection of all the books we didn’t know about in time to put on our posts (for various reasons, like, simply, we didn’t hear about it, we didn’t realise it was gay until later because reviews mentioned nothing, or because a date change took it into an earlier month). There is a lot here: there are 499 501 books on this list alone, representing just under a third of all the books we knew about (1,715 1,717 at last count), in all genres and age groups.
This will be the final post of its kind though because, as of January, we’re going about our releases posts in a slightly different way (that’ll hopefully make it easier to update the posts themselves instead of a massive, and not very readable, post of everything we missed from the year).
But before we start, here’s a link to our list of 2021 releases:
P.S. a little note: where we write something like “bi mc, m/f” or “pan mc, f/m”, what we’re trying to get across is that the mc note refers to the first letter of that. So, in this case, the bi mc is a man and the pan mc is a woman. Similarly for trans mcs, or when one of the mc’s is nonbinary. I realised that, while this is clear to me, it’s not as clear to everyone else so. A little explanation!
Movies about gay teenagers just hit differently, don’t they? Which is why I am here with this list of ten coming of age movies where the main character is achillean. The list is a little bit chaotic, but I think that’s a good thing? It means you will find some more serious movies here, some more romance heavy, some with very little romance at all… A little bit for everyone!
After spending a few hours battling shoddy internet connectivity, finally, we’re here with another post! Today’s interview is with Adrienne Wilder, author of gay contemporary and speculative fiction. If you’re looking for a new author to get your teeth into, why not try his books? And, of course, read this interview!
Finally, don’t forget to follow him on twitter!
The last Tuesday of the year brings us some of the best gifts, actually. And by that we obviously mean what is probably one of the best books to read during those long winter evenings. To achieve the maximum of a Polish experience, maybe try some mead with it or at least mulled wine (not that we encourage drinking, of course!).
Anyway, lets us give you all the reasons why you should absolutely read The Midnight Girls, enjoy the playlist for it, full of Polish songs, and don’t forget to follow Alicia on twitter, if you’re not already!
It’s Karnawał season in the snow-cloaked Kingdom of Lechija, and from now until midnight when the church bells ring an end to Devil’s Tuesday time will be marked with wintry balls and glittery disguises, cavalcades of nightly torch-lit “kuligi” sleigh-parties.
Unbeknownst to the oblivious merrymakers, two monsters join the fun, descending upon the royal city of Warszów in the guise of two innocent girls. Newfound friends and polar opposites, Zosia and Marynka seem destined to have a friendship that’s stronger even than magic. But that’s put to the test when they realize they both have their sights set on Lechija’s pure-hearted prince. A pure heart contains immeasurable power and Marynka plans to bring the prince’s back to her grandmother in order to prove herself. While Zosia is determined to take his heart and its power for her own.
When neither will sacrifice their ambitions for the other, the festivities spiral into a wild contest with both girls vying to keep the hapless prince out of the other’s wicked grasp. But this isn’t some remote forest village, where a hint of stray magic might go unnoticed, Warszów is the icy capital of a kingdom that enjoys watching monsters burn, and if Zosia and Marynka’s innocent disguises continue to slip, their escalating rivalry might cost them not just the love they might have for each other, but both their lives.
Alicia Jasinska
Rep: Polish-coded cast & setting, lesbian mc, bi mc, lesbian character, gay character, bi male character
CWs: child abuse, blood, body horror (brief), death, murder
Release: 28th December 2021
