reviews, releases and recommendations of LGBT media
It’s a new month, which means a new book of the month! As ever, there were so many potential books to choose from, so, if you want to see what we sadly couldn’t choose, keep an eye out for our August releases post later in the month.
That said, here is what we did choose. And hopefully it’s introducing you to a whole new book!
About, oh a month or two back, I asked a question on twitter. Namely, if you had to rec a single LGBT book (cruel I know), what would it be.
Well, these are the results — 50+ books recommended by 50+ folks!
Lesbians everywhere, hello, I have a gift for you! Well for other people, too, but lesbians specifically… I’m part of the blog tour for The Falling in Love Montage organised by Fantastic Flying Book Club! This means that not only do I have a review for y’all, but also a giveaway and a playlist!
Saoirse doesn’t believe in love at first sight or happy endings. If they were real, her mother would still be able to remember her name and not in a care home with early onset dementia. A condition that Saoirse may one day turn out to have inherited. So she’s not looking for a relationship. She doesn’t see the point in igniting any romantic sparks if she’s bound to burn out.
But after a chance encounter at an end-of-term house party, Saoirse is about to break her own rules. For a girl with one blue freckle, an irresistible sense of mischief, and a passion for rom-coms.
Unbothered by Saoirse’s no-relationships rulebook, Ruby proposes a loophole: They don’t need true love to have one summer of fun, complete with every cliché, rom-com montage-worthy date they can dream up—and a binding agreement to end their romance come fall. It would be the perfect plan, if they weren’t forgetting one thing about the Falling in Love Montage: when it’s over, the characters actually fall in love… for real.
Ciara Smyth
Published: 9th June 2020
Goodreads | Barnes and Noble | iBooks | Book Depository | Kobo | Indiebound
Rep: lesbian mc & li, lesbian side character
Find the full schedule for the blog tour here!
It’s been a while since I last did one of these, and I have since read a fair few sapphic books. So, with the second resurgence of the f/f twitter discourse in a week, obviously my only recourse is to rec posts.
And here I am.
I also figured I’d go back to YA contemporary because, duh, I know more of them. But to mix things up a little, I’ll add a couple of upcoming ones you can support!
As ever, all the previous posts are here. The previous contemporary rec list can be found here.
Also as ever, it’s actually f/f or otherwise sapphic books.
A long promised continuation to my first rec list of LGBT period dramas. Definitely check out that post for more recommendations!
Like in that previous post, I’d like to say that I’m aware there are barely any movies with trans rep on the list. I did my best. All the other period dramas featuring trans characters that I know of, gave those roles to cis actors & I’m not about to recommend that here.
I accidentally made about half of this rec list about titles based on real stories & people, it wasn’t a conscious choice. But it does mean that not all of the movies listed are exactly super happy & gracious to the LGBT characters.
It’s quarantine day 2839394, you already baked your sourdough bread, learned how to embroider, cleaned all the grout in your flat, and – in a ideal world – finished all the books on your bookshelves. What to do now, you ask? Read more, of course!
Because we’re all tight on funds right about now, I would like to remind you that Scribd is offering a 30 days free trial on their whole library. If you’re not familiar with the website, this post would be a good place for you to get going. I tried to include a variety of genres in this list, but like it says in the title, it literally is just a starter pack.
(And if you’ll use my invite link, you will actually get two months off and I will get one, too. It’s a win-win situation.)
Final note: I very much encourage you to leave reviews of the books you’ll read on amazon and/or goodreads, and buying your own copies, if you can afford it. Or requesting them at your local library once it’s open again!
When we selected March’s read, we thought we’d cracked it. A book we’d both like, because we both had read and liked the author before. It was a shoo-in.
It was not a shoo-in.
So if you want to know exactly where things went wrong, read our reviews below.
The other day I asked people on book twitter to list 5* of their favourite books with best sapphic romance and this is what happened. I got so many great responses, I couldn’t just leave it as a tweet and let it disappear forever! Which is why I decided to turn all those recs into a post.
*Yes, Charlotte was allowed ten books because she’s my co-blogger and gets special treatment.
Some books appear multiple times on this list, yes, I know! But that only shows the bookish community loves them a lot. And I mean, a lot. And if they shower those books with love like that, then you definitely want to read them as well!
(As always on this blog, ownvoices books are marked with a 🌈 emoji.)
I’m a simple reader: give me a good mystery and I will be satisfied. Make it gay and I will be over the freaking moon. And I’ve finally read enough excellent mysteries that I can make a rec list of them!
I have fairly high standards for mysteries, I’ll admit. I mean, I want something where I could potentially guess the culprit myself for a start. But not too easily. Basically I have to be able to follow along but also have some element of actual mysteriousness. I told you it was high standards.
But that, of course, means that all the books on this list are especially excellent (not that they wouldn’t be otherwise but. Stringent criteria and all).
So, onwards.
‘She loved me as I loved her, fierce as a bloodied blade.’
When teenage queen Lia inherits her corrupt uncle’s bankrupt kingdom, she brings a new spymaster into the fold … Xania, who takes the job to avenge her murdered father.
Faced with dangerous plots and hidden enemies, can Lia and Xania learn to rely on each another, as they discover that all is not fair in love and treason?
In a world where the throne means both power and duty, they must decide what to sacrifice for their country – and for each other …
Helen Corcoran
Published: 23rd April 2020
Goodreads
Rep: lesbian mcs, lesbian, gay & bi side characters
Last month, we read The Stars and the Blackness Between Them. I say “we” but Anna didn’t actually manage to read it (something called a “book slump”, they say). So what you get is just my review.
So yeah. Enjoy.
For March’s read, you voted we pick sci-fi. So the chances of Anna not reading a third book club book in a row have immediately skyrocketed.
We ended up picking a very recent release from an author we have both liked the short stories of for March’s read. Hopefully, that means we’ll both read the book for the first time in about 3 months.
So take a look to see what we selected.
Today, I have for you a massive rec list of books by and about QPOC (and Latinx authors/characters). There are fifty books on here – though that isn’t the sum total of those I know, so if your favourite isn’t here, it’s simply because I couldn’t fit it.
It’s gonna go like this: I’ve split this post into contemporary, historical, science fiction or dystopia, and fantasy sections. In each section, half the books have been released, half are upcoming (barring sci fi, where I could only find 4 upcoming releases).
So, enjoy!
I said I want to make this a series of poetry recommendations, but the first and only post so far is from July last year… But I am here with ten more poetry collections and better late than never, right?
Like last time, I changed our traditional “Why Should I Read It?” section into a place to share my favourite quotes from a book. Or at least one of many favourites…
Let’s go then!
At the beginning of December, I decided (foolishly) to aim to have read 400 books in 2019 (being, at the time, only on about 325). I made it, exhaustedly sure, but I made it. And I did so by reading a lot of novellas on tor.com.
So, obviously, armed with that knowledge, I had to make a rec list. There are only my favourite 10 on here, but I also made a longer thread on twitter, with every single one I read over that time.
So enjoy!
