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

    Film & TV Recs: LGBT Christmas movies

    10 December, 2021

    Christmas is just around the corner, so it’s high time for a rec list of movies to watch while you cosy up with some hot chocolate. Those are basically all new releases, since Happiest Season coming out last year gave studios a kick to bring us more LGBT Christmas movies. Finally. And no, I’m not including Single All the Way on my list, because you probably already know about it (and because, well, I didn’t really enjoy it much).

    I made a part one to this, with gay Christmas movies, two years ago, and I obviously encourage you to check it out, but also I have to be honest: most of the good stuff came out since then.

    There are also 11 movies on this list and that’s because one of them is a short feature, so it’s like a cute little bonus.

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  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: LGBT Fake Dating

    21 November, 2021

    Wouldn’t be much of a stretch, would it, to say that the fake dating trope is quintessential for LGBT lit somehow. Which is why it was only a matter of time for a fake dating rec list to be posted on the blog.

    At the end of this post you will find a few upcoming titles that I haven’t been fortunate enough to read an ARC of yet, but absolutely want y’all to be aware of. And if, like me, you’re constantly on the lookout for fake dating books with trans rep, we’ve been told you should keep an eye out for TJ Alexander’s projects (and follow them on Twitter).

    And hey, quite a few 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.)

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  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: Trans & Nonbinary Adult Fantasy

    19 November, 2021

    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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  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: Messy LGBT Teens

    15 November, 2021

    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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  • All Reviews,  Literature

    Book Reviews: Comics to Cap Off Your Spooky Season

    28 October, 2021

    October is drawing to a close now and we’re approaching Halloween itself. And, since there are three days left in the month (and only two more months in the rest of the year), perhaps you’re starting to think about how best to complete your Goodreads challenge. Fret not! Because today, we come bearing comic recs.

    So if you’re looking for the perfect short read to cap off your spooky season, Boom! Studios has you covered! Check these four out and let us know what you think!

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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 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 Reviews,  Literature

    ARC Review: Iron Widow

    17 September, 2021

    Iron Widow is one of those 2021 debuts that possibly everyone has already heard about it and is (rightly!) excited about, so let us stoke the fires some more with our reviews of this glorious beast of a book. There’s a music mix, too!

    And if you want to do yourself a big favour, go ahead & follow Xiran on twitter already!

    The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.

    When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.​

    To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed. 

    Iron Widow

    Xiran Jay Zhao

    Goodreads

    Rep: Chinese-coded cast, bi mcs, polyamory
    CWs: gore, murder, torture, mentions of rape, threats of rape, misogyny, femicide, suicide ideation, abuse, alcohol addiction
    Release: 21st September 2021

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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: East Asian LGBT Lit

    13 June, 2021

    It’s like buses: you wait ages for one pride rec list and then two arrive at once! Today we’re covering East Asian LGBT lit, both that which is translated, and that which comes from diaspora authors. Once again, we’ve not read everything on this list (in fact, because we do want to prioritise translated lit in general, there’s a fair bit that’s not read), so it’s more a starter list for everyone.

    As before, we’re using flags to mark a country of origin (where possible) and a separate emoji (🏹) to mark if the author is a diaspora author.

    All of the series: Black, African & Caribbean lit, West Asian lit, South Asian lit, Southeast Asian lit, Latine lit, Indigenous lit, religion in lit, and neurodiversity & disability in lit.

    Once again, some more links if you want to read more: translated literature from Taiwan and China, Japanese literature, Korean literature (also here – in Korean).

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  • All Reviews,  Literature

    ARC Review: Love and Other Natural Disasters

    8 June, 2021

    To say that Love and Other Natural Disasters was our most anticipated summer YA release, would probably be an understatement. And listen. It delivered all that we were hoping for & more.

    So if you’re looking for a sweet sapphic rom-com, absolutely do not look further. Maybe just read our reviews and let us convince you in more words that you should read this one! And listen to our mix while reading it, of course!

    Before all that, though, follow Misa Sugiura on twitter!

    When Nozomi Nagai pictured the ideal summer romance, a fake one wasn’t what she had in mind.

    That was before she met the perfect girl. Willow is gorgeous, glamorous, and…heartbroken? And when she enlists Nozomi to pose as her new girlfriend to make her ex jealous, Nozomi is a willing volunteer.

    Because Nozomi has a master plan of her own: one to show Willow she’s better than a stand-in, and turn their fauxmance into something real. But as the lies pile up, it’s not long before Nozomi’s schemes take a turn toward disaster…and maybe a chance at love she didn’t plan for.

    Love and Other Natural Disasters

    Misa Sugiura

    Goodreads

    Rep: Japanese American lesbian mc, Japanese American lesbian li, Taiwanese American sapphic li, Black bi side character, Japanese American gay side character, Filipino American gay side character
    CWs: homophobia
    Release: 8th June 2021

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    ARC Review: One Last Stop

    20 May, 2021

    Kicking off the Pride releases’ season the right way, with our reviews of an absolute gem, a sapphic time-travel rom-com of your dreams. One Last Stop hits all the spots for a perfect book.

    And as an extra treat, apart from the mix you can listen to while reading the book, we want to offer you one more thing: Charlotte actually set up a bot that will start tweeting in mid June, to avoid spoilers.

    Cynical twenty-three-year old August doesn’t believe in much. She doesn’t believe in psychics, or easily forged friendships, or finding the kind of love they make movies about. And she certainly doesn’t believe her ragtag band of new roommates, her night shifts at a 24-hour pancake diner, or her daily subway commute full of electrical outages are going to change that.

    But then, there’s Jane. Beautiful, impossible Jane.

    All hard edges with a soft smile and swoopy hair and saving August’s day when she needed it most. The person August looks forward to seeing on the train every day. The one who makes her forget about the cities she lived in that never seemed to fit, and her fear of what happens when she finally graduates, and even her cold-case obsessed mother who won’t quite let her go. And when August realizes her subway crush is impossible in more ways than one—namely, displaced in time from the 1970s—she thinks maybe it’s time to start believing.

    Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.

    One Last Stop

    Casey McQuiston

    Goodreads

    Rep: bi mc with anxiety, Chinese American lesbian li, gay side character, Black sapphic side character, Black gay side character, Puerto Rican American trans side character, Black pan side character
    CWs: past homophobic violence, off page death
    Release: 1st June 2021

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