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    Book Recs: Trans & Nonbinary Adult Fantasy

    The final part of my impromptu adult fantasy rec list series is upon us! This one was, compared to the rest, pretty difficult to put together, if only because I hamstrung myself by doing almost this same rec list earlier in the year, and didn’t want to copy too many from that to here (that post was gender in SFF). You can see where I succeeded and failed in that, but I still hope I’ve given you enough different recs here that you’ll find something new and exciting.

    And hey, a lot of those titles are available on Scribd, so if you want to check out that service but don’t have an account yet, use my invite code to get 2 months for free! (This also gives me one free month.)

    And if you want to check out the other posts in this series, you can find them below:

    Lesbian | Gay | Bi/Pan

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    Book Recs: Messy LGBT Teens

    The “messy” in the title is to be understood in a few different ways. You will find here teens who make mistakes, teens who do (& don’t regret) things society thinks they shouldn’t, teens who make questionable choices… Which is to say: teens who are only human.

    So for everyone who is tired of books trying to portray teenagers as perfect (since no one in the world is), enjoy! And don’t judge.

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    Book Recs: Bi/Pan Adult Fantasy

    The other day, I did part two of this adult fantasy series, with books featuring gay mcs. Today, I’m back for part three: bi/pan mcs. I say bi/pan, because often it’s hard to tell, since this is fantasy and mostly labels are not in use. But these are ten recs for you, in which the mc is definitively attracted to more than one gender.

    And hey, a lot of those titles are available on Scribd, so if you want to check out that service but don’t have an account yet, use my invite code to get 2 months for free! (This also gives me one free month.)

    And if you want to check out the other posts in this series, you can find them below:

    Lesbian | Gay | Trans

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    Book Recs: Gay Adult Fantasy

    During Lesbian Visibility Week earlier this year, I made a whole rec list of adult fantasy books featuring lesbian rep. And I left it at that. But then, while thinking of possible further rec lists to post on the blog, I went back to it and thought: what if I made this a series, with one rec list for every letter of the LGBT acronym? And hence, this rec list (and two future ones) was born.

    I admit, this one was a little tricky to do: turns out I know a lot more achillean adult fantasy books with bi mcs than gay mcs (this may be a pattern? Much like there seems to be more sapphic than achillean high fantasy, at least right now. Both may also just be confirmation bias of some sort), but we got there! Ten adult fantasy recs are ready and waiting for you just below.

    And hey, a lot of those titles are available on Scribd, so if you want to check out that service but don’t have an account yet, use my invite code to get 2 months for free! (This also gives me one free month.)

    And if you want to check out the other posts in this series:

    Lesbian | Bi/Pan | Trans

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    Book Recs: LGBT Retellings

    There are already 3 posts about LGBT retellings on the blog: for fairy tales, for mythology and for classic books. They’re all a few years old, though, so it was a high time for an update. So I asked on twitter what kind of retellings y’all would want to see the most and the answer was “a little bit of everything”

    And that’s exactly what I’m bringing you today. I divided my recs into four categories, for ease of browsing. There is, of course, some overlap, because books aren’t always clean cut & they might fit into more than one category, but there needs to be some kind of logic to the chaos. So let’s go! Choose what you’re interested in the most (or simply browse all the recs):

    folklorefairy talesclassic bookshistorical figures

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    Book Recs: Get Your Spook On

    It’s October, it’s autumn, it’s spooky season, so what better rec list today than a BUMPER rec list of books to read when you want to feel extra spooky! You can even pick your reads based on the emojis below, depending on what you feel like. It’s a win-win situation, I’m sure.

    And if you want yet more recs, here’s the list I made last year.

    Pick your spooky season emoji of choice!

    🧙🏼‍♀️👻🎃🐺🧛🏼‍♂️🧟

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    Book Recs: Adult Fantasy (II)

    By happy coincidence (or not, you decide), our rec list today comes on the heels of some twitter discourse stemming from an opinion that is—how to put this politely—really fucking stupid. And because of that opinion, in addition to making sure that each of these books is gay, today I’ve challenged* myself to not include a single cis white man!

    *It’s not really a challenge.

    You can also find part one of this list here. And, handily, you can find a massive thread of recs here!

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    Book Recs: LGBT Sports Lit

    I think we can all agree that books including sports in any way, be it a romance between two teammates or the main character running marathons, just somehow hit harder. Sometimes they’re truly all you need in life! Which is why I’m here with ten sports books.

    Anyway, I hope no one is surprised that more than half of this list are YA books…

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    Book Recs: Books for fans of Mary Oliver’s poetry

    It’s a companion post of sorts to one of my previous rec lists, where I recommended people books based on their favourite Richard Siken quotes. This time the quotes are lesbian, though.

    The idea is very simple: I asked our followers on twitter to choose their most beloved quote by Mary Oliver (which isn’t easy, I know!) & then tried to figure out what book does it remind me of. Sometimes based on vibes alone, sometimes based more on the plot. So let’s go.

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    Book Recs: Historical Romances

    There’s something about a good histrom that just perfectly scratches a certain itch for me. And once I find an author whose books I enjoy, I will binge their entire backlist. That being said, it’s still an area where, at least in tradpub, it’s very cishet and white. So, here I’ve done my utmost to find you 10 recs that are very much not cishet (although they do remain quite white, so if anyone has recs of their own, please do drop them in the comments!). For that time when you just need a good histrom.

  • All Recommended,  Film & TV Recs,  Film & TV Shows

    Film & TV Recs: Crime Dramas

    In a shocking move, Anna is not the one behind today’s film & tv rec list. Namely because Anna does not watch crime dramas, but I do, and I have been craving gay crime dramas above all. So, here are the fruits of my research, to share with you. A little confession though: I haven’t really…finished all of these shows, so some of the CWs may be lacking (I’ll come back to update when I do, for now I’ve made notes of when they cover up to, episode-wise. The number episode will be the last I watched), because apparently I have such little staying power even for shows I’m really enjoying… Who knew.

    Before we get into the rec list proper though, I do want to note that there is a sad lack of trans rep in it. That’s because I had three (apparently insurmountable) standards for reccing trans rep in crime dramas: 1) that the actor is also trans, 2) that the trans character is not a murder victim and/or does not die horribly, and 3) the trans character is not the murderer and/or a psychopath. Maybe I should lower my standards next time.

    However, I did come across a couple that fitted some of those categories, which I’ll share with you here if you really want to watch them: Bellevue (trans character played by a trans actor, but is the murder victim—although she is properly developed as a character and is given screentime, if that decides you) and Big Sky (trans side character played by a nonbinary actor, but seems minor).

    And finally, because it’s just occurred to me, a note on CWs: I’ve tried to add all I’ve noticed while watching, but I feel there also needs to be a general one here, for the types of things you generally see in crime dramas (i.e. dead bodies, gore, autopsies).

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    Book Recs: Books with Ace Protagonists

    Taking a break from making very niche rec lists for a super specific trope used in an even more specific genre! So instead, I’m here today with books from various genres, featuring an even bigger array of tropes, but all of them sharing a specific representation. And yeah, the title gives it away, I know; it’s not a surprise all the books listed below have main characters who are on the asexuality spectrum. Hopefully, the selection is broad enough that everyone finds something for themself!

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    Book Recs: Zodiac Signs as LGBT Books

    This idea is sort of born of this thread (which was a great thread, if I do say so myself, so there’s a little bit of overlap in some signs…but I’ve mostly tried to add new books), but I decided I wanted to turn it into a blog post featuring all LGBT books, instead of solely sapphic ones. And here we are! This post contains thirty six books, one for the sun, moon & rising for each sign. So, if you’re looking for a way to create a little fun TBR, look no further!

    Of course, I couldn’t start this post without having mentioned Anaïs, who is vastly more knowledgeable of astrology than me, and who helped a lot with fitting the right books in.

    Want to skip to your sign?

    Aquarius | Pisces | Aries | Taurus | Gemini | Cancer | Leo | Virgo | Libra | Scorpio | Sagittarius | Capricorn
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    Book Recs: 100+ Books by Trans & Non-Binary Authors

    Today’s post is a collaboration with a group of bloggers. The idea came from Mols and she reached out to a number of trans and nonbinary bloggers, in hopes of creating a truly giant rec list of books. So here we are, with over 100 titles!

    To see the full list, though, and not just my contribution, you have to check out everyone’s posts! So head over to those lovely people: Mols @ Mols by Moonlight, Artie @ ArtieCarden, Ocean @ Oceans of Novels, Anniek @ Anniek’s Library, Bertie @ Luminosity Library, Andee @ Mouse Reads, Danni @ The Rush of a Book, Vee @ Vee_Bookish!

    Please keep in mind, all the books are written by trans and/or nonbinary authors, but not every single one of them features such rep.

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    In the Intersection: Neurodiversity and Disability in LGBT Lit

    The final post in our intersection series is here! Today we’re looking at books which feature neurodiverse or disability rep. That does, of course, give us a vast array of stories to choose from, and we couldn’t represent every possible facet of it in a single post. As such, perhaps even more than the lists, this is very much a starter pack. And if you don’t see a more popular one on here, that you might have been expecting, that’s just because we wanted to highlight those which aren’t often recced.

    Everything else we’ve featured in this series can be found here: Black, African & Caribbean lit, East Asian lit, West Asian lit, South Asian lit, Southeast Asian lit, Indigenous lit, religion in lit.