reviews, releases and recommendations of LGBT media
The first ten days of September brought us some excellent releases (which you can remind yourself of here). But the month isn’t done with us just yet. Remember how I said there were over sixty releases in September?
Well, these are the other thirty-odd of those.
So, dig in, and enjoy!
I know what you’re thinking. It’s not even the end of August yet, and that’s true, there’s still a few days left on our last book club read (which was Sing the Four Quarters), but we wanted to let you know what’s up next anyway.
Again, we asked on twitter what genre you wanted to read, and this month you came up with mystery! Because we read an f/f book last month, this month we’re reading an (ownvoices) m/m one (also because, shamefully, neither of us know any mystery novels with trans or nb mcs, which was our first thought. Next time definitely though).
Before I let you know what book we’re reading, just a reminder that we are on twitter for this and we have a hashtag too (#readarainbow). And also, watch out for our review of the last month’s read!
After a couple of more relaxed months in terms of releases, September brings us 60 alone. Some of our most anticipated releases are out this month (*cough cough* lesbian necromancers *cough cough*), and we are just as excited get to them as undoubtedly you are too.
So, in the interests of not rambling too much, let’s get into it!
(And, as ever, you can find all our previous release lists here.)
When a mysterious show arrives in town, seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Brighton is both intrigued and unsettled. But none of the acts capture her attention quite like the blue-eyed woman. Locked in a birdcage and covered in feathers, the anguish in her voice sounds just a little too real to be an act—because it isn’t. The show’s owner, a sadistic witch known only as the Mistress, is holding her captive.
And she’s chosen Elizabeth as her next victim.
After watching the blue-eyed woman die, Elizabeth is placed under the same curse. She clings to what little hope she can find in the words of a fortune teller and in her own strange dreams. The more she learns, the more she suspects that the Mistress isn’t as invulnerable as she appears. But time is against her, and every feather that sprouts brings her closer to meeting the blue-eyed woman’s fate. Can Elizabeth unlock the secret to flying free, or will the Mistress’s curse kill her and cage its next victim?
Jillian Maria
Published: 3rd September 2019
Goodreads
Rep: lesbian mc, bi li
I’m back with the second part of this series (the previous parts can all be found here)! This time, I’m reccing mystery/thriller books (because they are my favourite genre when done well). Good mysteries keep you on your toes the entire time, with plot twists you don’t see coming until they’ve happened (you know when you get a good one, and then you think back to what’s come before and you’re like oh this was coming. That’s just *chef’s kiss*). So with these recs I hope you will find some of that.
P. S. Some of the books I recced in the previous post may also apply here as mysteries, but I haven’t included them here so as not to duplicate too much.
P. P. S. Once again, I haven’t read all of these, so as such, I think some don’t have an f/f romance but do have a wlw mc, but I don’t necessarily know which those are.
We all know how US-centric the book blogging community can sometimes (often, if we’re being less nice) get. Myself and Anna have probably fallen into that trap on this blog a few times as well. So, in the interests of expanding this blog, here are 20 UK (and Irish) YA books.
First, a disclaimer: I haven’t read every single one of these books. And some of them aren’t even published yet (boo). But in the interests of raising awareness of LGBT lit out there that isn’t set in the USA*, I’m putting them all on here.
* Loosely speaking. Two books on this list still are.
Part two of my retellings rec lists, as promised! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the series: LGBT fairy tales retellings & LGBT retellings of classic books.
Now, when it comes to mythologies… I actually had a bit of a problem. I wasn’t sure if I should include retellings of The Odyssey, for example. Sure, we have mythology there, but also part three of this series is going to be Classic Texts & wouldn’t it be more of a fit there? I even ran a poll on twitter and y’all were who decided in the end. :>>
Also obviously my first thought for this theme was The Song of Achilles, because I am gay and love to suffer, but I figured there’s no point in reccing a book we have all read multiple times.
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.)
Approximately once a month, twitter throws up a certain argument along the lines of there is no f/f, or where is all the f/f, or where is all the hyped f/f. And while I think there is a genuine case to be made for f/f books getting less attention, that doesn’t mean there is none (and also to say there is barely any/none blatantly ignores the authors who are producing f/f and the publishers who are backing it (did you know there are several publishing houses who only publish f/f), which is not cool). Basically, it’s there if you look.
But this will become too much of a rant unless I shut up now.
What I’m aiming to do with this series is provide you with a bunch of rec lists so that, next time someone says there’s no f/f, you can point them in this direction. Because yes. There is f/f.
Quickly, and finally, before I start I want to point you towards Mahana @ Sapphic Library who not only posts a lot of sapphic rec lists, but also has a twitter dedicated to it all.
So, on with the historical f/f recs! (There is some overlap in some cases with fantasy and mystery, just fyi.)
P. S. in the interests of full disclosure: I haven’t read all of these. This is less a rec list in the sense that these are ones I’ve read and enjoyed, more these are 20 f/f historical books as proof they do exist.
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?
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!
