reviews, releases and recommendations of LGBT media
The summer ends slowly but the LGBT books never stop coming your way! Granted, this month we will share only 35 titles… And yes, I can use the word “only” because, as I’m sure you remember, there were months this year with way more than forty releases.
Feel free to check what you have missed, if you’re here for the first time:
And now, let’s just get into (gender politics) it, let’s see what gems August has in store!
It’s time to make this official on our blog!! The choice did take us a while, because honestly, we had a lot of good candidates… But guys, we know what book our book club will be reading in August!!
As per the poll on twitter, which you guys voted in for days, we chose a fantasy book. And as per our preferences & also a belief that a hype our books doesn’t just appear out of this air, it has to be created by readers – we chose to read an F/F book.
First, though, let me remind you guys how we plan on doing this. We have a twitter account that we encourage you all to follow – Reads Rainbow Book Club. We’ll be using that to chat about the book, adding the hashtag #readarainbow. (Get it? Because it’s gay? Yeah, you get it.) At the end of August, we will post our reviews of the book & tell you what we plan on reading in September.
This rec list comes from a request I got on twitter for LGBT books with neurodiverse characters. Obviously, neurodiversity covers an enormous spectrum, so I’m in no way attempting to cover all that (and if you look at the list, you can probably see where there are gaps, i.e. rep that isn’t anxiety, depression, PTSD, because sure those are the most common disorders but there’s a lot more out there).
What I’m attempting to give you here is a handful of recs (ownvoices where possible, elsewise covered respectfully) to start you off. And, as ever, I would happily take recs from you in return. (Also I have extended the rec list to feature 12 books instead of the usual 10 just so I can broaden the variety here.)
P.S. I’m only giving the rep for the neurodiverse LGBT character(s) in the book, even if there are more LGBT or neurodiverse characters in all. If that makes sense.
We’re so excited to be part of a blog tour for This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone! This beautiful little epistolary novel is out today, and is definitely one you’re going to want to pick up (like, now, please pick it up right now). If you’ve been looking for an f/f book with that kind of intense and all-consuming romance you only ever see with m/m or m/f couples? Well, how can you say no to this?
So, scroll down, read my review, and then head on over to the other blogs to see how they felt.
Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading.
And thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more.
Except discovery of their bond would be death for each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war. That’s how war works. Right?
Amal el-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
Rating: 5/5 🌈
Published: 18th July 2019
Goodreads
Rep: wlw mcs
But hunger is a many-splendoured thing: it needn’t be conceived in limbic terms, in biology. Hunger, Red – to sate a hunger or to stoke it, to feel hunger as a furnace, to trace its edges like teeth – is this a thing you, singly, know? Have you ever had a hunger that whetted itself on what you fed it, sharpened so keen and bright that it might split you open, break a new thing out?
Adiba is an author we were very excited to interview! Her upcoming book is basically the sapphic rom-com of our dreams. The Henna Wars is due to come out in next spring and y’all should be counting the days, as we are.
She’s also very active in the community (consider following her on twitter, if you aren’t already!) & genuinely such a gem. We couldn’t be more lucky that she agreed to answer our questions.
And a little side-note: now that Pride is over, we will be publishing two interviews each month, for as long as there will be authors willing to talk with us.
I mentioned on twitter the other day that I was thinking of making a post like this and everyone was very into the idea. I mean, what’s better than taking a classic story we all know & putting a gay spin on it, right?
I put a parenthesis in the title of this rec list and there’s a very simple reason for it: there are going to be two more in the “series”! One for classic books (think Peter Pan or Sherlock Holmes) and one for mythologies (in a very broad meaning of the word). So look out for those!
Before we start, let me make an honorary mention of Ash by Malinda Lo, the lesbian retelling of Cinderella. It’s not on the list itself because I can’t rec you a book you all already know, can I? But just in case you forgot for a second…
And now, let’s go boldly into the world of LGBT fairy tales!
The title says it’s part one & that makes it seem like what should follow is “of many”, but please don’t expect this to be like a regular series. It’s more that I couldn’t decide on just ten collections and then Charlotte made me realise: I don’t have to!
So there will be more parts to this, because poetry is most of what I’m reading these days. Just, it’s gonna take time.
Some of the collections I’m gonna rec are definitely obvious choices. If you know me at all, I’m sure you can guess at least one of them. But hey, we call books classics for a reason, right?
We talked about this on twitter already, but of course not all of you lovely people follow us there! (If you want to start, though, let me give you the links: Charlotte & Anna). So we need to talk about this idea on our blog, as well. Especially since it will be happening here! But what, you ask?
A book club!
We had an epic June (and Pride Month), so what better way to finish it off than to give you a wrap-up of all the amazing things that happened on this blog and others! So we thought, what better than to highlight some of the best (and gayest) books and posts of the month.
We’re starting with what each of us read and watched this month (even the stuff we hated, yes), complete with any reviews we wrote. And then we want to highlight some great posts from the community we read. Hopefully, this will become a more regular feature, but who knows.
Last day of Pride, but not the last interview!! We will be back with those in the weeks to come!
Today though, as always, we have an interview that both Charlotte and me are super excited about! We got a chance to talk with Julian just days before the first arcs of his upcoming book – How To Be Remy Cameron – became available for readers. (It comes out on September 10th & you definitely want to pre-order a copy already!)
We chatted about different ways of channeling your artistic energy, the spaces we still need to fill with LGBT characters, and how important it is to just be yourself.
Have fun reading!!
It’s here. Our last buddy read (for now at least). It is probably safe to say that neither me nor Anna have had a stellar time here. We were hugely disappointed by the first one, Anna couldn’t even finish the second, and I didn’t enjoy the third at all. So, a lot has been riding on this book to make up for all that.
Read on to find out if our high hopes were met!
After the massive months of releases that were April, May and June, July is a little more chill with all that. There are only (lol) 29 releases that we know about this month (but, undoubtedly, more we don’t know about. As much as we may like to pretend, we’re not omniscient). But they are 29 excellent releases!
Also, a little note before we continue: after the whole debacle earlier in the month with a certain book misgendering its mc in the blurb, we’ve decided we need a little policy in dealing with books that are, unfortunately, a mess (when we’ve heard something of course). Because we would rather warn you about some things than have you go in totally unawares, we’re still planning on including them in the list, but noting where we’ve seen or heard something less than great. On the off chance it’s a real shitshow, then we won’t include it, but may make a note so you know we’re aware of it and may yourself become aware also.
But anyway, on with the list!
We don’t talk about music a lot on our blog, but I guess when we do, it’s with a bang! Which is to say, I’m here today with a list of 60 LGBT artists. And yes, I say artists, not just songs – each and every one of them is an out member of our community. (Well, there are a few bands and some of them only have a lead singer who matches that description, but you know!)
I had to make some decisions regarding the way of presenting all this beauty to you. First of all, I divided those sixty artists into three groups of wlw, mlm & those who are not cis. (I was gonna go with “trans/nonbinary”, but there are also genderfluid, gender nonconforming artists, even a Two-Spirit one, so I figured I need a pretty broad umbrella term here). Obviously, there are some intersections within those groups, but I wanted even numbers… And lastly, I linked them all to my favourite album/single of theirs on Spotify, so I could put covers & make it all look pretty.
So! Take a quiz and figure out who should you listen to!* Or just scroll through them all.
*Charlotte made me specify that when I say “dancing alone in your room” in the quiz, what I mean is dancing slowly with your eyes closed, the sound of rain coming through the window & maybe by the end of it you won’t be as tired anymore.
Way back last December, we made a post of one book each we were excited for for every month from January to June (which you can find here). It’s now the end of June, we’re halfway through the year, and so here’s part two of that. One book from each of us for every month until the end of the year.
You have no idea how hard this was to do. Just one book? When there are so many amazing releases still to come? But we had to limit it that much because, like we said in the last post, there’s just so many exciting releases coming (no, really, on the year, our list is touching FOUR HUNDRED BOOKS).
As ever, we will be doing posts of releases per month, but here are twelve (very gay) books we just can’t wait for!
It’s time for another part of our new favourite series!
Kayla is a really good friend, but more importantly – one of my favourite authors in general & authors of LGBT books specifically. So obviously I jumped at the opportunity to have her take part in this project faster than Charlotte finished saying “interviews”.
Let’s just say, we’re very thankful to Kayla for finding a few free moments to email us her answers to our silly questions. And that also means a huge thanks for sharing some vague but hilarious and lowkey exclusive details about her upcoming books! You guys should be really excited about everything she has in store, just saying. 👀👀
Ready or not, let’s do this, guys!!
