• All Reviews,  Literature

    Blog Tour: How to Become a Planet

    24 May, 2021

    I loved In the Role of Brie Hutchens…, so when I was invited to take part in a blog tour for Melleby’s new middle grade book, it was a no-brainer. And I was right, and got exactly as soft & thoughtful book as I was expecting. So yeah, big thanks to Algonquin Young Readers for allowing me to shout about this lovely novel!

    Apart from a review, I also prepared a music mix you can listen to while reading the book.

    Also don’t forget to follow Nicole Melleby on twitter!

    For Pluto, summer has always started with a trip to the planetarium. It’s the launch to her favorite season, which also includes visits to the boardwalk arcade, working in her mom’s pizzeria, and her best friend Meredith’s birthday party. But this summer, none of that feels possible.

    A month before the end of the school year, Pluto’s frightened mom broke down Pluto’s bedroom door. What came next were doctor’s appointments, a diagnosis of depression, and a big black hole that still sits on Pluto’s chest, making it too hard to do anything.

    Pluto can’t explain to her mom why she can’t do the things she used to love. And it isn’t until Pluto’s dad threatens to make her move with him to the city—where he believes his money, in particular, could help—that Pluto becomes desperate enough to do whatever it takes to be the old Pluto again.

    She develops a plan and a checklist: If she takes her medication, if she goes to the planetarium with her mom for her birthday, if she successfully finishes her summer school work with her tutor, if she goes to Meredith’s birthday party . . . if she does all the things that “normal” Pluto would do, she can stay with her mom in Jersey. But it takes a new therapist, a new tutor, and a new (and cute) friend with a checklist and plan of her own for Pluto to learn that there is no old and new Pluto. There’s just her.

    How to Become a Planet

    Nicole Melleby

    Goodreads

    Rep: sapphic mc with depression and anxiety, nonbinary li, side sapphic couple
    CWs: panic attacks
    Release: 25th May 2021

    Read More
  • All Reviews,  Literature

    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

    Read More
  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: Standalone Fantasy

    13 May, 2021

    After a few days of unintentional downtime (can you tell neither me nor Anna has the slightest clue about self-hosting), we’re back with a rec list of standalone fantasy books. For those times when you don’t want to invest in reading an entire series, but you do want something fantastical.

    I’m sure we can all relate.

    But anyway. Enough waffling on, because it’s been days since we’ve been able to post. I’m sure you all just want to get straight into it (so to speak).

    Read More
  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: Lesbian Adult Fantasy

    27 April, 2021

    In keeping with the fact it’s Lesbian Visibility Week this week, today’s rec list is going to be one of solely lesbian adult fantasy recs (as requested by Anna). And I mean specifically lesbian, rather than sapphic in general (of which I have an old list here), so we’re talking characters who are attracted to women, but also are completely not attracted to men (simplistically put).

    A couple of disclaimers: firstly, I’m fairly sure I’m right in reading these characters as lesbians. But obviously, since it’s fantasy, you don’t tend to get the word itself used, or even hedged around like in contemporary. As such, these are to-the-best-of-my-knowledge recs. Secondly, yeah, a lot of these are upcoming ones. Turns out I haven’t read all that many sapphic adult fantasies that you can pinpoint as lesbian. Something to work on.

    All that aside, though, here are ten books you absolutely need to read. Call it lesbian canon, if you will.

    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.)

    Since writing this post, I’ve continued these recs as a series, so if you want to check out the other posts in that:

    Gay | Bi/Pan | Trans

    Read More
  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: Lesbian Lit

    23 April, 2021

    This is a rec list I keep promising and then never coming through on, but finally, finally, I’ve got my act together. If you’ve followed me on twitter, you’ll know I regularly complain about lesbians in (generally YA) lit never using the word lesbian about themselves. I even wrote a whole post about just that.

    But I never offered you the books I know that do use the word lesbian (of which, I’m finding, I know depressingly few). So, these are they (with the exception of one, which I had to get Anna to tell me how to rec). If you’re looking for more, there are some in this thread.

    Before we start, I just need to make clear how I’m deciding on these books. First and foremost, each book has to feature a lesbian character who claims the word lesbian for themselves. Not someone else calling them a lesbian, not random mentions of lesbianism but the mc never says “I’m a lesbian”. Yes, I’m being a bit strict in cases, but I want to offer you ten books where the mc claims the label in a positive context.

    I have also tried to keep only to YA books, but I had to sneak one adult in there to make up numbers.

    Read More
  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: High Fantasy (II)

    12 March, 2021

    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…

    Read More
  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: Enemies to Lovers (II)

    25 February, 2021

    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.

    Read More
  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: College-aged LGBT Protags

    23 February, 2021

    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.

    Read More
  • All Reviews,  Literature

    ARC Review: Night Tide

    24 January, 2021
    49245102

    Tides change, but some feelings can’t be washed away.

    Lillian Lee doesn’t believe in love at first sight. Hate is a different story—and one she is intimately familiar with. Luckily, she hasn’t seen her arch-nemesis, Ivy Holden, since graduating from veterinary school five years ago. Since then, while her life isn’t going exactly according to plan, she’s happy. She has great friends, a job she loves, and the best pets in the world. Most importantly, her life is stable.

    Seal Cove, Maine, is the last place Ivy Holden anticipated ending up. But when an unexpected medical condition forces her to relocate to be closer to family, she can’t turn down the opportunity. Her new job at Seal Cove Veterinary Clinic has everything she needs: flexibility, proximity to her family’s summer home, and the chance to do the work she loves. Unfortunately, it also has Lillian Lee.

    Thrown back into each other’s orbits, Lillian and Ivy must find a way to work together, despite the treacherous emotions threatening to drown them both.

    Night Tide

    Anna Burke

    Published: 26th January 2021
    Goodreads
    Rep: bi mc, bi mc with MS, lesbian & bi side characters
    CWs: internalised ableism

    Read More
  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum

    19 January, 2021

    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.

    Read More
  • All Releases,  Book Releases,  Literature

    Book Releases: Ownvoices M/M books of July-December 2020

    27 December, 2020

    I already showed you all the M/M books written by achillean authors that were published in the first half of this year. Now it’s time for the second half!

    I use the “ownvoices” term from the title in a pretty loose sense. So you will find books here by gay authors featuring bi characters, and so on. But at the end of the day, all the authors in this post know first-hand what love between men looks like.

    Without a further ado, then!

    See also: ownvoices m/m books of January-June 2021 & of July-December 2021.
    Read More
  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: YA Contemporary That Isn’t About Coming Out

    18 December, 2020

    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.

    Read More
  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: It’s About the Yearning

    26 November, 2020

    I had absolutely no idea what rec list to make for today so, in a sort of democracy I suppose, I got people on twitter to choose between this, butch lesbians and yes this book is gay. (Don’t worry, the latter two will be coming, although maybe not so soon.)

    We all know that yearning is a massive part of the best LGBT lit, at what we all yearn (lol) for. So, here are ten of my favourites that just hit that sweet spot.

    Yes, there are some upcoming books on this list, I can’t be held accountable for it though.

    Read More
  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: Bi MCs and M/F Romance (I)

    20 November, 2020

    Today’s list, brought to you late this evening, is one I touted doing a few months’ back, which got added to my (long) list of post ideas and which I am just now finally getting around to. So, here we are. Ten books featuring bi MCs in m/f romances. And, because when I started listing all the books I knew, the list got steadily longer and longer (if we include those I still need to read), this will have multiple parts to come.

    One little note before we start: this list includes bi MCs with POVs only. That is, a bi love interest, despite the fact they are a pretty major character, would not get included. For this list alone, obviously.

    Read More
  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: LGBT Graphic Novels (II)

    15 November, 2020

    I’ve made a rec list for LGBT graphic novels before (funnily enough, it was on Christmas Eve two years ago) and you can check it out here. But the truth is, you can never have too many of those in your life! Which is why I decided that part two of that particular rec list is long overdue.

    So here we are! Ten more LGBT graphic novels, across a bunch of genres and for various target audiences. Hope you will find a new favourite here.

    Read More