reviews, releases and recommendations of LGBT media
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!
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!
Week three of our little, proud project is upon us and this time we were reading a book with a bisexual protagonist. Cool fact about this book is that the MC actually uses the label, it shows up multiple times and there’s actual on page representation. Feels good, feels organic. (It’s also another book by Ashley Herring Blake where that happens!)
That being said, if you count me and Anna individually, we’re currently going 1 in 4 for how good our buddy reads are. So, to say we’re really hoping the last book improves on that is an understatement…
Read on to find out which one of us actually enjoyed this week’s book!
I’m sure all of you at least once experienced this: you go to school, you study history, and then years later, in totally random circumstances, you learn that some historical figure was actually gay. And then you probably cry a little (a lot, if you’re me) and you’re angry & disappointed, because yet again your own history was taken away from you.
That’s where we come in with this rec list! We put together fifty titles – so not a comprehensive list by any account, but it’s a place to start. To kick-off your historical journey and actually make you realise you do love history, just the one that is actually ours.
Siken would say that “there are a lot of names in history. / none of them are ours”, but he was only halfway right. We have always existed, we just weren’t always allowed to talk about it.
This list is divided into 5 historical eras, with a few books that are studies across eras, and then further into what types of books there are. You will find here memoirs, letters, essays, history textbooks… Anything you can think of, it’s probably here!
Take a quiz to figure out where you should start your LGBT education:
Or just scroll through the whole list.
Key:
memoir or letters 🍃
biography 🌻
historical account 🐚
essays or theory 🌼
After the disaster that was our first buddy read, we are back again for take two! It was, you might say, an inauspicious start. Anna didn’t even pick up this book until Saturday morning (hence why the post is delayed until Sunday. Thanks for ruining my carefully organised schedule for this month, Anna). But now, we’re sorted, and ready to review!
So, read on to find out if this week was better than the last!
We start off our buddy reads with Of Fire and Stars, and the L of LGBT in the form of a lesbian mc. This book has been on both our TBRs for a while, for a number of reasons. (By which I mean reasons we wanted to read it, not reasons why we waited until now. That’s just called having a way too long TBR.)
It’s a fantasy! With an f/f romance! It’s ownvoices! Given our taste in books, we honestly thought we couldn’t ask for more!
Read on to see if we were right.
Quick heads-up, please remember that this is only one part of books coming out this Pride – my previous post, covering the first few days of the month, is here. So check that one out as well if you haven’t yet!
And you can always see what past releases you might have missed – here are all our posts about LGBT books that came out recently.
Honestly, though! Can you think of a better way to celebrate Pride, than publishing so many wonderful books? Yeah, me neither.
So check out what more June has in store for us!
We are almost halfway through the year and Pride Month is upon us! Can you guys believe how fast the time flew? I can’t, especially with all the changes in my life lately (I moved into my own flat!).
We found forty two (42) nicely looking LGBT books coming out in June. Not as many as in May, but still a big number, right? Actually, our whole list for this year is nearly four hundreds titles long… Please don’t ever tell me you can’t find gay shit to read.
I’m only covering the first few days of June today, the rest will have to wait for the second post! And yes, there are enough books coming out in a less than a week for me to make a list of them. I know, sounds like a dream to me, too.
Also a little tidbit, maybe of interest to some of you: there are 13 sapphic (in any capacity) books on today’s list.
Let’s dive in!
Look me in the eyes and answer one single question: is there anything better than gay superheroes?
No! The correct answer is no & I’m glad we all agree on that. It also means that I compiled a list of ten books with LGBT superheroes just for you guys. And a quick note – only two of those are comics! This is not to say that comics are anything less than, which is an absurd notion & one I absolutely do not want associated with me or this blog. But I wanted to showcase that superheroes are more than beautiful comics and can have their stories told through novels as well!
Pride month is coming up and me and Anna have some really exciting stuff for you just to celebrate! Once the month gets underway, we’ll make a whole post about exactly what it is that we have planned, but first, throughout June we’re planning on doing a series of buddy reads. Four, to be exact, one for each week of the month (and also centered around L, G, B, and T! Though, technically our T is non-binary instead of trans – we put them all to vote so).
The plan is to read the books and then make a discussion post for each, where we write small reviews and then ask you guys what you thought, as well. Because we want to open these buddy reads up to all of you! We want to celebrate and have fun together! You can pick any of the books to read and join in at any time. The dates for each week are what we’re kind of aiming for, but undoubtedly there’ll be some overspill.
There were polls on twitter so you had a chance to decide what we will be reading next month. All the books we proposed are ownvoices ones, since you guys know how important that is to both of us. And your choices are as follows…
We have (finally) reached the last part of May’s releases. It’s been a long (and gay) month, but so worth it. There have been some great releases so far both this month and this year, and there’s still 7 months to go!
This is part two of that really long adult lit rec list I promised you. Part one can be found here, and all the parts will be in this tag (eventually).
You might notice as this list goes on, some genres will have fewer recs. That’s just because there’s not a lot in those genres that I’ve been able to find (as of yet!).
Key:
lesbians & wlw relationships: ☀️
gays & mlm relationships: 🌿
bisexual characters: 💎
trans, genderqueer, non-binary, gnc characters: 🌷
LGBT authors: 🌈
I told you that we had a monster list to get through for this month, and the releases just don’t let up. So in the interests of keeping this post as short as possible, on we go.
The other day I was scrolling through twitter and I saw someone make a comment that they didn’t see any rec lists of adult LGBT books. Which. Once you say it, becomes obvious, really. There are a lot of lists of YA LGBT books. In fact, those are the ones me and Anna find easiest to confirm the rep in for you. Adult books? That’s hard. Often, those are the ones where we find ourselves spending 10 minutes just trying to find a confirmation that it is LGBT, let alone how.
So this is (probably only part one of) a list of all the adult LGBT lit we can find (read, unread, and pre-release). Where possible, we’ve added in rep as usual, but for that we’re mostly reliant on Goodreads reviewers (and you know how vague they can be). But. These are 50 confirmed LGBT novels. Sorted by genre (10 of each).
Enjoy!
Key:
lesbians & wlw relationships: ☀️
gays & mlm relationships: 🌿
bisexual characters: 💎
trans, genderqueer, non-binary, gnc characters: 🌷
LGBT authors: 🌈
