happy pride! queer books i read in june.
i'm reading more books and i'm now making it everyone's problem
i decided on a complete whim to try and only read queer books in june. mostly to work through my tbr, but also to challenge myself to find books by queer authors and/or featuring queer characters that would align with my fanciful mood reading. and here they are! just my little thoughts and observations.
angels in america - tony kushner (audio)
yessssss. i have been obsessed with this production of angels in america for a very long time and i have desperately wanted to watch the proshot from the national theatre and i have also really wanted to read this play. so thank goodness for this production because it was phenomenal! truly a beautiful piece with so much to pick apart. also as a side note: didn't realize how much mormonism it would discuss (honestly not sure what i expected from a play literally titled after the single most important thing about mormonism. that's on me) but i think the subject matter was so interesting.
murder in the dressing room - holly stars (audio)
i'm going to be honest. i was kind of taken aback that so much of the first part of this book was about misty being really distraught about lady lady dying. which, like, makes sense. i just wasn't excepting it. anyway. i think this was a fine book and i also think that i don't really like mystery as a genre. i realized about halfway through that the reason that i wasn't really enjoying this book was because i didn't really care who killed lady lady and that was like the point of the book. i definitely would have way preferred to hear more about misty and her friends. i have to assume that there were clues pointing to the killer but i felt it kind of came of left field and i didn't love it enough to read it again and see all the little details, honestly.
the fake divination offense - sara raasch (digital)
thank you so much to bramble for the arc courtesy of netgalley!
this was such a surprise standout to me! i read the first book in this series last fall and really enjoyed it. and this one is even better! i really really love orok and alexo and it was really cool to see how this world has evolved since the last book :) i was extremely worried that the ending was going to be dragged out a lot but they pulled a little switcheroo and actually i really liked how the ending played out. was this book a little cringy? yeah. i mean how can a book where the two characters meet for the first time at a karaoke bar after one of them sings "don't stop believing" not be a little cringe but it was also very cute so i guess it kind of evens out.
spoiled milk - avery curran (audio)
unfortunately this book was not for me. it was just really boring and not even close to the horror that i thought it was going to be. i think in general i don't love gothic novels that much so that was my bad to read this when it is pretty explicitly that genre, but also i think it just doesn't handle it's subject matter that well to be honest. it felt like there were a lot of threads that could have come together to form a horror novel but just never of them were ever really touched on once things started to happen. i think that there are people that would enjoy this book but i am not one of them.
roaming - mariko tamaki and jillian tamaki (digital)
hmmmm. this was fine. i thought the idea was very good and of course the art was gorgeous (everyone say thank you jillian) but i think i just did not gel with the characters at all, so it was really difficult to enjoy or care about what was going on. there was nothing that kept me particularly invested. but of course, i can never really say no to a tamaki graphic novel.
the fire never goes out - nd stevenson (digital)
i think that this was a wonderful compilation of nd stevenson's work from 2011-2019 but i do not think it was a particularly good "memoir in pictures" as he describes. there were some interesting topics touched on but i didn't love the little interludes that were just lists of things that happened in that year. it makes total sense since they were originally year end wrap up tumblr posts but it felt kind of at odds with the rest of the book. that being said the art was of course gorgeous and there were so many beautiful comics that all (mostly) came together in the end.
nothing tastes as good - luke dumas (digital)
ooohohhhh boyyyyyy. i have actively avoided writing these thoughts cause i am having a hard time parsing what i think. i believe that i enjoyed this book. it was dark and funny and terrible and disgusting and very very hard to read. this was an extremely good idea for a book and i am horrified that it exists. did i think it hit a little too close to home for me? maybe. and that could be why i am having a hard time with it. but genuinely a horror book that gave me the same gut sinking feeling that you weren't meant to be human did (that apparently is the horror book that i must compare literally every other horror book to) i think the ending was maybe a little cheesy weirdly enough (can't really get into that without massive spoilers) but that was perhaps a me problem. seriously though, this book is crazy and if you love a cannibalism book, you will like this one (for sure check the content warnings though! seriously!)
cosmic love at the multiverse hair salon - annie mare (audio)
i think this one wasn't for me really. there were parts that i really liked. i honestly thought the romance was very sweet and while i thought there were too many side characters i did like the ones that i could remember (guy and mary were standouts to me). but i think the crux of this one, which is the whole time travel/multiverse plot was the worst part by far. very convoluted and just when i had resigned myself to not really understanding that part of the book but accepting that it wasn't super important to the actual relationship that was being built, the last 1/3 of the book happened and that was all anyone could talk about. there was a weird part where there was a third-act "we don't breakup but we also don't talk for a while so a lot of the narration is a little self-pitying" which kinda sucked the life out of the book at that point. there was a point where i had been listening for about an hour near the end and i was like "surely this is almost done" and there was still an hour and a half left of the book. so yeah the very ending was pretty good but it was just far too long and should have been at least 2 hours shorter unfortunately. it wasn't terrible but definitely not my thing.
the deep dark - lee knox ostertag (digital)
this was soooo good. absolutely beautiful artwork, i loved mags and nessa and all the characters and it just a wonderful story. if you need a good dark ya graphic novel this is the one. i finished this bad boy in a day and its kind of massive so i consider that an accomplishment. definitely read this one either in print or on a colour display because the use of colour and monochrome is both beautiful and thematic!
bromantasy - máire roche (audio)
kind of a weird one for me. while i did enjoy it there were a bunch of things that i really didn't like. besides the fact that they talked about cheese just so so so much (i guess in a quirky way), i just don't really find "tiktokisms" being in real actual published work particularly funny ("unalivement" was used more than once) i did really really like mo and juniper and i thought they were really cute. the biggest problem was that a huge chunk of the plot revolved around miscommunication which is a trope that i just never enjoy. talk to each other!!! i'm begging you! stop interrupting each other and finish your damn sentences!!!! but yeah other than that it was very sweet and i did really enjoy it as a quick cute little romance!
smoke gets in your eyes - anaïs flogny (digital)
the art in this graphic novel was actually so beautiful! like truly the way that flogny was able to use colour was so wonderful and i LOVED the movement in the illustrations! the way the characters moved between panels was so cool and had an almost classic dreamworks vibe to me which i love. the story was also very good and i loved all the characters! i thought it was a little on the long side and it was SOOOO hard to read on my kobo because of how small and thin the text was but seriously a wonderful little graphic novel.
the miseducation of cameron post - emily m. danforth (digital)
i started this one in june but finished it in july. don't get mad at me. :)
there is almost nothing i enjoy more than finding a teen/ya book written pre-2016 that doesn't care to be flashy or popular but would much rather just watch you weep at it's feet. and the miseducation of cameron post is exactly one of those books. it is so vulnerable and has such a clear voice that is frankly so refreshing to read. this is exactly the book that i needed to read when i picked this up.
the end, or whatever
i hope you had a wonderful pride month! read gay books!