reviews, releases and recommendations of LGBT media
Yes, I was very serious when I said I plan on catching up with those posts in some reasonable, timely manner! And frankly, I’m just really excited about all my choices and want to share with you guys as soon as possible!
The ten songs I chose January are here!
So without a further ado, let’s go!
(And remember, there’s a Spotify playlist with all the February songs at the end of the post!)
Took us a hot second to write down the reviews, but come on guys, it just be like that sometimes… The important thing is that we’re here and we’re ready to talk about the book! Hopefully you have read it with us and we can actually have some fun chatting!
And don’t forget: for November we chose three novellas! They’re so short, you have no excuse not to read at least one of them!
I’m back with another f/f rec list today! This time, I’m reccing YA contemporary novels. Contemporary, because that’s what you voted for. YA because I decided (or rather, Anna told me) to split the rec lists by age (adult/NA/YA). And because I always* do what Anna says, that’s what’s happening.
(*this is not true.)
Because there is (comparably) a lot of f/f YA contemporary, I’m starting off part one of this lot of rec lists focusing on that which is less well-known (and maybe one or two five upcoming releases I’m incredibly excited for, just to whet your appetite). I’m also including ones which, while they do not have an f/f relationship, do have a sapphic mc.
As ever, all the previous posts are here.
As I’m sure you’re aware, the Annual Goodreads Choice Awards just started yesterday. And as you also probably already know, the list of official nominees isn’t the final list of nominees. But it is a start & it was put together just the way it was & as someone who co-runs an LGBT media blog, I wanna talk about it.
We have 20 categories and 15 books nominated in each. Some books are nominated in more than one category so it’s not actually 300 books, but it’s close enough. And how many of those 300 books do you think are LGBT ones? Before you start guessing, though, let me remind you that we have a list of all LGBT releases of the year that we could find & it’s currently over 560 books long.
Below you will find LGBT books from each category. (Not) Surprisingly there are a few with no LGBT nominees but I still numbered the categories as listed on Goodreads. (Also, if you notice I missed any books, please let me know so I can edit the post. I might know a lot but I surely don’t know everything!)
When I told Charlotte I want to write this post, it took her basically no time to decide that another thing we need are LGBT Alternative Choice Awards & she set hard to work to put them together. The categories are pretty much the same, but the nominees are – obviously – all LGBT.
Today’s interview is very special in the way that it get pretty personal at some point. We’re extremely grateful that Adrienne felt comfortable enough to be this honest with us. And with you, guys.
We’re also just ridiculously excited about her upcoming F/F fantasy book! It comes out in 2021 and y’all should be looking forward to that, too, if you’re not already.
So let’s just get to it!
October was not very good to us when it came to reading. Personally I was in a lowkey reading slump (yet again), but I don’t know what is Charlotte’s excuse for reading barely ten books… (edit: that’s a lie, I read only 10 LGBT books not 10 books total)
To be fair Charlotte made me watch 9-1-1 and we’ve both been thinking about little else since.
In any case! Here are the LGBT titles we consumed last month! And once again, the fire emoji indicates a reread/rewatch.
I wanted to make some kind of music rec list because despite claiming this is an LGBT media blog, we don’t really talk about much apart from books. And, in part thanks to a twitter poll I ran, I figured a “fav songs of the year” kind of post might be a good idea. But then I started listing songs and the number grew & grew & grew… Until I realised I have no choice but to make this “fav songs of a month” instead.
Yes, I’m aware it’s the end of October. But that just means I have some catching up to do! You can expect those posts every few weeks, until I get to the point where I can just make a rec list at the end of each month as it ends.
Anyway, important notes: all the songs I will list are by out LGBT artists, because this is the kind of blog we’re running here. And I’ll be linking them to YouTube and putting all songs together in a playlist on Spotify in case anyone wants to check them out that way. The playlist (with more songs!) is at the end of the post!
For November, we figured we would do something a little different (given that it’s currently book club 2 – 1 Anna). So instead of a picking a single book, we’ve picked three novellas, two at 20 pages and one at 60. I (Charlotte) will be trying to read them all (cannot speak for Anna, who has not yet even started the October read), but you’re welcome to pick and choose which to read or not. And because they’re novellas, they can hopefully be read in one sitting.
And, of course, each of the novellas contains a trans or nonbinary main character in a fantasy (or sci-fi) setting.
It’s almost the end of the year which means it’s almost (if you’re very prepared, unlike me) time to start thinking about Christmas presents, and what better gift is there than an LGBT book?
Luckily for you, there are over 30 such books coming out in November alone.
And, of course, we’ve covered over 400 other releases in our previous posts!
I didn’t originally plan this as a post for LGBT History Month. I actually only wanted to make this list because I read a book about gay teens set during the AIDS crisis that was written by a straight woman & that rubbed me the wrong way. But hey, what better time to publish it, right?
What this rec list won’t feature: books written by anyone but gay men.
What else this rec list won’t feature: non-fiction books. No memoirs, no biographies, no essays. Not because I don’t value those, it’s the exact opposite. But because I had a clear goal in mind and that goal was to show you what it looks like when gay men tell the stories and write the world as they remember it.
Also, I should come clean about a crucial fact… I’ve only read the first book on here, so really, this is a list for all of us. And it’s why I opted out of the “why should I read it?” section, given how my only argument would be the same for every book: it’s authentic.
You’ll notice that the iconic Angels in America by Tony Kushner & The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer are not on the list – I figured y’all already know about them (and I was right if you noticed the lack of them).
We’re back with another interview today, and this time it’s one of our favourite authors, Kelley York! If you haven’t read any of Kelley’s work before, then you should absolutely do so, particularly her most recent paranormal YA series (which is, of course, also gay).
And don’t forget to follow her on twitter too!
High fantasy’s all well and good, but sometimes you just want to read something that happens in a world you recognise. So that’s what’s happening in this rec list! Ten great urban fantasy novels (featuring LGBT characters, of course).
And just to make it that much better, I’ve tried to make this rec list as not-white as possible (though you’ll be able to tell where I failed in that), for whoever asked for this specifically (because I don’t remember, so I hope you see this!!).
So, let’s go!
See also: Urban LGBT Fantasy, part II.
In case you hadn’t realised, it’s LGBT History Month this month! (I know, I know, it looks a little like we hadn’t realised, but just wait til you see the doozy of a rec list Anna has for you later on.) This post was born after I finished a book, went to look it up on Google for whatever reason, and found that it had been turned into a film. But not only had it been turned into a film, it had been turned into a tragic film.
The book, by tragic gay ending standards, was relatively benign. Yes, it was bittersweet and the characters didn’t end up together, but they both survived. The film had obliterated that. So, of course, I got annoyed, said to Anna “hey how do you feel about this as a discussion post” and wrote about a third of it just for the catharsis.
The premise of this post is this: we have enough tragic stories as is without straight people taking what happy stories we’ve written for ourselves and making them tragic in the name of some bullshit historical accuracy. So. Enjoy.
(And don’t forget, we have various rec lists of nonfiction, historical fiction, period dramas and historical f/f!)
Part three of my retellings rec lists, as promised (ages ago)! If you haven’t seen it before, take a look at part one (all about LGBT retellings of fairy tales) & part two (LGBT mythology retellings).
Today we’re talking about new takes on classic books and when I say that, I mean books like Peter Pan or The Count of Monte Cristo. It’s interesting, actually, because there are a few books that seem extremely popular & have a lot of retellings (honestly, I could make a whole post just about Peter Pan…), but then there are some that hardly have any at all. I don’t know who decides which classics deserve to be retold in a gay way… (Whoever they are, they’re wrong, because clearly the answer is: all of them.)
Let’s get into it, though.
I’m here to bring you the rest of October’s LGBT releases! Part One covered the first eight days of the month and can be found here. There’s definitely a lot to look forward to! Especially if you’re an SFF fan who likes to read about girls falling in love…
And as always, in case you’re here for the first time:
