aoc et al Archives — Page 4 of 11

All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

Book Recs: Gay Adult Fantasy

5 November, 2021

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 of the Month, Literature

Book of the Month: Spin Me Right Round

3 November, 2021

We’re approaching the end of the year now, which makes this month’s book of the month the final 2021 release we’ll be highlighting. And it’s one you won’t want to miss out on, that’s for sure. If you like the same kind of vibes as Back to the Future has, then this book is for you.

Related: Don’t forget all releases can be found in our monthly lists here.

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All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

Book Recs: LGBT Retellings

24 October, 2021

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):

folklore • fairy tales • classic books • historical figures

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All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

Book Recs: Get Your Spook On

20 October, 2021

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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All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

Book Recs: Adult Fantasy (II)

14 October, 2021

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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All Reviews, Interviews

ARC Review + Author Interview: Farhad J. Dadyburjor

12 October, 2021

Today’s post is two for the price of one! We were lucky enough, firstly, to read Farhad J. Dadyburjor’s romcom The Other Man early, and also interview the author himself. So, here you can find five reasons you should be reading this book (and you can even start right now! It’s out today! Buy it here) as well as finding out a little more about the mind behind it all. What’s not to love?

A heartwarming and transporting romantic comedy about finding happy ever after on your own terms.

Heir to his father’s Mumbai business empire, Ved Mehra has money, looks, and status. He is also living as a closeted gay man. Thirty-eight, lonely, still reeling from a breakup, and under pressure from his exasperated mother, Ved agrees to an arranged marriage. He regrettably now faces a doomed future with the perfectly lovely Disha Kapoor.

Then Ved’s world is turned upside down when he meets Carlos Silva, an American on a business trip in India.

As preparations for his wedding get into full swing, Ved finds himself drawn into a relationship he could never have imagined―and ready to take a bold step. Ved is ready to embrace who he is and declare his true feelings regardless of family expectations and staunch traditions. But with his engagement party just days away, and with so much at risk, Ved will have to fight for what he wants―if it’s not too late to get it.

The Other Man

Farhad J. Dadyburjor

Goodreads

Rep: Indian cast, gay mc, Brazilian American gay li
Release: 12th October 2021

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All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

Book Recs: LGBT Sports Lit

10 October, 2021

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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All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

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

27 September, 2021

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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All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

Book Recs: Historical Romances

13 September, 2021

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.

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All Releases, Book Releases, Literature

Book Releases: Ownvoices M/M books of July-December 2021

16 August, 2021

Specific labels may vary but all the books in this post have achillean main characters & are written by achillean authors. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t be reading m/m books which aren’t, roughly speaking, ownvoices. Rather, a place to celebrate the few that are.

Of course, I’m only human, so if you spot any mistakes or missing titles, let me know!

See also: ownvoices m/m books of January-June 2021, of January-June 2020 & of July-December 2020.

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All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

Book Recs: Books with Ace Protagonists

11 August, 2021

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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All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

Book Recs: Zodiac Signs as LGBT Books

8 August, 2021

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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All Releases, Book Releases, Literature

Book Releases: July-December 2021 Books With Bi Protagonists

24 July, 2021

A companion post to the one from the beginning of the year. Over 100 books with canon bisexual and/or pansexual protagonists. Or love interests. Or really major side characters.

My guidelines for choosing books to include in this post were pretty simple: either a character just uses the label or the text makes it abundantly clear that they’re bi/pan. (As you can imagine, not a lot of fantasy or historical books use modern labels.) If I missed anything that you think should be on the list, please let me know in the comments!

Like always on this blog, the rainbow emoji indicates that the book is by an LGBT author. 🌈

Related: January-June 2021 Bi/Pan Books, January-June 2020 Bi/Pan Books, July-December 2020 Bi/Pan Books

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All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

Book Recs: 100+ Books by Trans & Non-Binary Authors

26 June, 2021

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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All Recommended, Book Recs, Literature

In the Intersection: Neurodiversity and Disability in LGBT Lit

24 June, 2021

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.

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