reviews, releases and recommendations of LGBT media
Sounds weird to use terms associated more with literature, but really, when I say “new adult characters” what I mean is characters in their early or mid 20s. Young people trying to figure adult life out.
I ended up with 11 titles, and because I cheated and am claiming the last one only half fits the theme & that’s why it can stay. I was also tempted to put And Then We Danced and God’s Own Country on here, but eventually figured you all must know about them already.
It’s been a while since I did my first high fantasy rec list on here, and I’ve read a lot more of it since so, it being Friday and I cannot come up with a more interesting theme for this list, I decided that it’s the perfect time for a sequel.
In the interests of making this list a little more, I don’t know, readable, I suppose, I’m going to only include books that are already out. So, yes, there are several upcoming I’ve read and loved, but they won’t be on here. Plenty of motivation to make a part three then though…
Waaaay back when this blog was just a baby blog, I did a rec list of enemies to lovers (or otherwise hate to love) and that rec list has been probably one of the most viewed of all time. But then I went back and looked at it the other day, and was like… this is quite basic.
And hence the idea for a second part was born.
Before we begin, however, I would like to say yes I am aware that enemies to lovers and hate to love are not synonymous. No, I don’t really care, but if you want to be specific, this is more of a hate to love list.
As requested by Lena on Twitter, here are ten books with “characters in college/university or that general age range”. A few are straight up taking place at uni, a few are just with protags roughly that age.
I really wanted to include two more books, but I just featured them on my last rec list (Warm Hug LGBT Books), so I figured y’all need some more variety. Please know, though, Abroad by Liz Jacobs & Weak Heart by Ban Gilmartin also fit this theme perfectly.
Today’s rec list is one which was requested sometime in December on Twitter (and yes, we’re just getting round to it. We are a slow-moving operation). But we’re finally here! In this post you will find 10 books, each featuring a BIPOC bi mc. So get yourself a cuppa and have a look see!
I don’t know if you guys are aware, but the LGBT History Month is celebrated at different times in different countries. And in the UK it’s in February. Which I figured is a perfect reason for me to recommend you some documentaries. It’s actually always a good time to learn something about our history.
Like Larry Kramer said, “we are entitled to our history. We are entitled to know who these people were. I don’t think you can be a people until you have a history”.
There will most definitely be a part two to this rec list, since it’s in no way comprehensive, but still: below you will find ten titles I have seen (or found) recently. Enjoy, and happy learning! (And of course, sadly, a general tw of homophobia, transphobia, violence for almost all of those titles.)
So, you’ve opened up Scribd. The choices are overwhelming. You’ve read everything Anna suggested on their previous post. But where do you go from here?
Not to worry because today it’s my turn to provide you with 50* books that you can read on Scribd! I’ve done the digging so you don’t have to! So whether you’re looking for YA or adult, classics or poetry, sapphic, achillean or trans/nonbinary rep, hopefully there’s something here for you.
A little disclaimer first though: I myself haven’t read all of these books (some of what I initially included has been taken off since, thanks for that Scribd!), but they are all, if not read, then ones I want to read sometime soon.
*You may not actually have access to all 50 of these books, since Scribd can vary in availability depending on country.
In desperation, two days ago, I asked for a rec list theme. The response I got was the theme of pirates, or the sea in general. Now, I’ve not read that many pirate books (not that I would feel able to rec, at least), so I went with the latter.
So, if you’ve been listening to sea shanties non-stop for however long, in this list you’ll be able to find yourself a book that they’re the perfect soundtrack to.
We asked what rec lists you guys would like to see & got this gorgeous request that maybe, possibly we have almost fought over. Just maybe.
So anyway, the request was: “wholesome books full of queer characters if possible, essentially just books that feel like a big queer warm hug because I cannot handle reading anything else”. You would fight to recommend people books like that, too, wouldn’t you? Enjoy then!
Since we added a section about movies, shows and other media to our monthly wrap-ups, we of course also had to let you guys know which of the titles we loved most.
And if you paid attention to said wrap-ups, you probably noticed that Charlotte doesn’t watch as much stuff as I do (Charlotte is definitely the Reader part of this blogging duo). That’s the reason why my section is longer than Charlotte’s. And why The Half of It, And Then We Danced, and Schitt’s Creek are not among my choices – I loved them too, a lot, but it was either let Charlotte pick them or agree to this post being just five titles for each of us.
Anyway, below are 25 great stories we have watched (or listened to) in 2020. Enjoy!
Buckle in, guys, this is gonna be a monster of a post! To give you some context for just how giant our list of favourite reads of this year is: we only listed three books each from 2018 & five books each from 2019.
But this time? We had to divide our list into 3 categories: backlist books, books released in 2020 & books to be released in 2021. We also cheated for the last two categories and added a group of books that both of us loved, so we didn’t have to fight over them. Also all the groups are 5 books long, apart from the group of 2021 ARCs which is uhh… 16 books long.
So yes, in total here are 41 books we read this year and loved the most! Enjoy!
A while back, Anna asked for rec list suggestions and one of the ones that came up was nonbinary SFF. Now, they passed that onto me, since that’s not really their ballpark, and I sort of changed the rules ever so slightly. Instead of solely nonbinary rep (although most of the books here are still that), I’ve just gone for SFF that actually considers gender in its worldbuilding.
It’s a smaller category than you might think, sadly. But because it’s Christmas (or another winter holiday of your choice), I’ve lengthened this post from the usual 10 books to include a couple more.
So, enjoy!
Books which features coming out scenes are all very well and good — we do, after all, need to see a wide range of those and there are areas where that story still hasn’t been told — but sometimes you just want to read a book where the fact that the main character is gay is wholly incidental to the story. That is, not a coming out story, nor really a romance.
So, here are 10 books which (hopefully) suit that remit. Yes, some do feature romances, but they aren’t romance books, in the sense that it’s central to the story. (Oh, and they’re all contemporary, because it doesn’t really make sense to make my task easier by including other genres, since obviously they wouldn’t have coming out scenes.)
But anyway. On with the list.
Okay, before we start: yes, there’s only one movie with trans rep and it’s a short feature at that. I know. (I made the list 11 titles long instead of the usual 10 to counterbalance that.) I was going to include Boy Meets Girl (which features a trans actress in the main role, in case you didn’t know), but frankly I have very mixed feelings about that movie. It feels a lot like a film for cis audience and not at all for trans people, and I really, really don’t understand why they didn’t go the sapphic route all the way.
I will tell you about an upcoming romcom with a trans main character played by a trans actress, though! Right now it’s called Re-Live: A Tale of an American Island Cheerleader and it stars Rain Valdez in the main role. Look out for that in 2021!
Happy holigays! Last year around this time I made a rec list of Christmas movies, so I figured this year it’s time for music. Especially since so many great songs came out recently!
The whole mix that I’m putting at the end of this post is almost 50 songs long. Which means I didn’t put them all on the post itself, but instead focused on my absolute favourites of 2020 alone.
I didn’t want to simply put the soundtrack of Happiest Season on my mix and call it a day (yes, it’s all by LGBT artists!), so I looked far and wide for more songs for you guys! My other goal was to make this mix as full of original songs as possible, and I mostly succeeded there.
In any case, believe me, you do want to check out the mix too, for even more holiday gay cheer!
