Archive
Book Review: Never Ever Getting Back Together by Sophie Gonzales
If you’ve ever wished that two of the women – any two of the women – on a reality tv dating show would just get with each other instead of pining over the questionable man they’re supposedly there for, this one is for you.
Summary:
It’s been two years since Maya’s ex-boyfriend cheated on her, and she still can’t escape him: his sister married the crown prince of a minor European country and he captured hearts as her charming younger brother. If the world only knew the real Jordy, the manipulative liar who broke Maya’s heart.
Skye Kaplan was always cautious with her heart until Jordy said all the right things and earned her trust. Now his face is all over the media and Skye is still wondering why he stopped calling.
When Maya and Skye are invited to star on the reality dating show Second-Chance Romance, they’re whisked away to a beautiful mansion—along with four more of Jordy’s exes— to compete for his affections while the whole world watches. Skye wonders if she and Jordy can recapture the spark she knows they had, but Maya has other plans: exposing Jordy and getting revenge. As they navigate the competition, Skye and Maya discover that their real happily ever after is nothing they could have scripted.
Review:
I’m revealing my age here, but in high school I definitely watched the very first season of The Bachelor (and a few of the following ones). I wasn’t yet out to myself, but even so found myself wondering why the women were such better catches than the man. Apparently, long after I stopped watching, in 2016 two of the women contestants got together with each other. But this happens far less frequently than one might imagine. In any case, when I saw the plot description for this book, let me tell you, I smashed the request button on NetGalley without paying too much attention beyond – two women on a reality tv dating show get together.
Beyond the reality tv show wrapping, this uses the enemies to lovers romance trope. I’ve historically avoided this trope because I had a hard time conceptualizing how I could root for someone to get together with someone they start off disliking strongly. This book showed me otherwise, though. Although it starts in Maya’s perspective in just a couple of chapters it shifts to Skye’s so it becomes easy to see how these two women have come to dislike each other based on a bad misunderstanding. So there’s not actually something enemy-worthy about either of them. That said, both of them are flawed (as are well all) but with the enemies to lovers they start out only seeing the flaws then start to see what’s great about each other. It makes for a really realistic depiction of a healthy relationship at the end, because it’s not all rose-colored glasses. Also, I really like how they move from enemies to women supporting women to women loving each other.
This book is also hysterically funny. I legitimately laughed out loud multiple times while reading it. Representation is decent. Two of the secondary characters are people of color, and one is gay. Both Skye and Maya are bisexual. Because Jordy hid his two-timing ways easily since his family moved all over the world, his exes are also international. Chalonne is funnily contrived in much the way Genovia from The Princess Diaries was. (Incidentally, this got me to wondering if European writers set books in fake countries in the Americas the way we seem to make up fake European monarchies. It seems like most of them that do exist are more of an alternate history where either fascism takes over or the colonies never won independence sort.)
There were three things I wasn’t so keen on in the book that held me back from five stars. First, I just didn’t feel like these characters were 18. They read as more like just out of college than just out of high school to me. It was easy for me to give that a pass, though, because I just headcanoned them older. Related to my mistaken belief that they were older when I started reading it, in the first scene, Maya is at a bar and not drinking. Oh nice! I thought. Representation of sobriety in a romance. But no. She was just under the drinking age in the US. As soon as she gets to Chalonne, where the drinking age is 18, she starts drinking. A lot. Just not wine because she thinks it’s icky. So that was disappointing to me. I also wish that the scene where she has too many vodka jello shots was more realistic. Binge drinking for people assigned female at birth is 4 drinks in one sitting. She has way more than that. She should have been very sick as opposed to having a mild hangover that passed by lunchish. I refuse to believe this reality tv show would have gone light on the vodka when we all know they like for contestants to get drunk. To be clear, while I personally would like to see more romances depicting sober people, I understand it’s realistic to show people drinking. But if we’re going to show them drinking and drinking too much in one night is a plot point, let’s be realistic about how much is too much for a person in a body assigned female at birth. Last, while I get it that Jordy needs to be the bad guy, he’s such a bad guy that I struggled to understand how all these nice women fell for him at all to begin with. I understand from Maya’s perspective he’s gross for valid non-physical reasons (the cheating, the lying, etc…) but we do have the chance to see Skye’s perspective as well, and it’s not clear to me from hers what she sees in him either. Maybe even if just in one of the first scenes where Jordy takes his shirt off Maya found herself attracted to him in spite of knowing his douchey ways, that would have helped me to understand. But she even seems to be turned off by his looks. It left me scratching my head a bit.
Overall, this book was a breath of fresh air, featuring two women bisexual leads who fall for each other surrounded by a very humorous reality tv setting. While some of that setting was a bit difficult to believe, the enemies to lovers plot was so enjoyable that it was easy enough to just focus on them.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 384 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: NetGalley
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
Book Review: Broke the Bread, Spilled the Tea by Mitchell Kesller
A bisexual, Christian man explores how he came to a queer-affirming version of his faith.
Summary:
The Christian Church has long been one of the most influential institutions in society. Self-proclaimed as God’s representatives on earth, it is ironic to see how a faith of love and inclusion has been the source of wars, genocides, slavery, and oppression throughout the ages. In an era of misinformation and blind faith, maybe it’s time to take a closer look at the Bible and “judge by the fruits” of what is real and what is not. Broke the Bread, Spilled the Tea aims to explore one of Christianity’s most marginalized groups and breaks down exactly what the Bible says about queerness through a contextual, historical, and lexicological lens. Bridging the gap between identity and faith is possible when we conclude that perhaps the God preached on the Sunday pulpits isn’t the fullness of who He actually is.
From an author deep in the trenches,
I’ve broken the bread,
it’s time to spill the tea.
Review:
There’s a big divide in the various sects of Christianity about what to say and do about us queer people. Some say simply being queer is an abomination. Some say it’s ok to be queer but you must not act on it. And some are affirming churches – that say being queer is how God made us, and He loves us just the way we are. Catholicism’s response to queerness is a mixture of tradition, catechism, and what the Pope says. (It has tended to come down on it’s ok to be queer as long as you’re celibate.) Protestant sects, in contrast, make their decisions based on interpretations of the Bible. Mitchell was raised Protestant, and this is a Protestant exploration of queerness. Thus, it is largely rooted in interpretations of the Bible and focuses a large part on the clobber passages. These are 6 (or 7, depending on who you ask) passages in the Bible that non-affirming interpretations view as condemning queerness, whereas affirming churches view as not doing that. I tried to find a neutral explanation of the clobber passages but could not. So here is one from a non-affirming viewpoint. Here is one from an affirming viewpoint.
Kesller starts the book with a memoir chapter, explaining who he is, his upbringing, and how he came to his affirming viewpoint (without the fine details – those are covered later in the book). I found it particularly interesting that his perspective is of a bisexual person. I know as a bisexual person myself that often people find it difficult to understand why I couldn’t just let go of my queer identity and pass. Kesller does a great job of articulating why that wasn’t possible for him, and I found it quite relatable. Another interesting aspect of his perspective is that he immigrated to the US from Brazil as a child, so his childhood church experience wasn’t the pasty-white version of Evangelicalism you usually see on the news. In general, Kesller has a humble, relatable tone throughout the book. He’s not preachy. He’s just trying to share his own journey of how he personally came to understand the Bible and Christianity generally and the clobber passages specifically.
After the memoir section, the chapters explore the ancient church, how we got the Bible, and how God is represented in the Bible. Only then does Kesller go into the clobber passages. I like that he gives context to this exploration. Too often people dive right into Bible verses with no surrounding context whatsoever. I appreciate how Kesller tries to focus on the big picture of who Jesus is, what his message was, and what that means for Christians. I think some of his points on the clobber passages are stronger than others – and that’s coming from an affirming person. This is to say….I think some of the apologetics need some work. But that’s not really a critique because this is his own personal journey, not an apologetics book. There are other books out there if that’s what you’re looking for. (Clobber the Passages or UnClobber spring to mind.)
Interestingly, I think the greatest strength of this book is in calling out modern day Protestant churches for falling into Pharisee like behavior – being focused on religiosity rather than living lives of radical caring. The two quotes that I think really demonstrate this are these:
More often than not, we see Jesus living out a ministry of relationships rather than one of religiousness.
loc 299
The Church often tries to eliminate a symptom without treating the underlying cause.
loc 1829
I also think this book could be really useful in trying to help build a bridge between a non-affirming family member and an affirming one. It answers the question of “how can you both be happily queer and a Christian” in a gentle manner.
Overall, I appreciate Kesller’s bravery in writing this book and being so open about his own life and faith journey.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 157 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: NetGalley
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
Book Review: A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker
An eerily prescient book that came out in September of 2019 that looks at a future where stay at home orders in response to both bombing attacks and a deadly virus mean performing music live for a crowd is illegal.
Summary:
In the Before, when the government didn’t prohibit large public gatherings, Luce Cannon was on top of the world. One of her songs had just taken off and she was on her way to becoming a star. Now, in the After, terror attacks and deadly viruses have led the government to ban concerts, and Luce’s connection to the world—her music, her purpose—is closed off forever. She does what she has to do: she performs in illegal concerts to a small but passionate community, always evading the law.
Rosemary Laws barely remembers the Before times. She spends her days in Hoodspace, helping customers order all of their goods online for drone delivery—no physical contact with humans needed. By lucky chance, she finds a new job and a new calling: discover amazing musicians and bring their concerts to everyone via virtual reality. The only catch is that she’ll have to do something she’s never done before and go out in public. Find the illegal concerts and bring musicians into the limelight they deserve. But when she sees how the world could actually be, that won’t be enough.
Review:
I wouldn’t have been too surprised if this vision of a dystopian future was written during the height of the pandemic then came out recently. What intrigued me about this book was that it was published in September of 2019. It both predicted stay at home orders and density rules and imagines what would have happened if they’d never been lifted. In an interview in Marie Claire, Pinsker graciously states that this is simply a risk of writing about the near future. Indeed, she’s correct. Near future scifi is about paying attention to the current and predicting where we might end up soon – whether dystopic, hopepunk, or somewhere in-between. Pinsker certainly had her finger on the pulse of both risks and what responses to those risks might be given our technology.
She was a note that hadn’t ever known it fit into a chord.
page 213
While the book is certainly about the risk/reward balance and how to live in a satisfying way, it also is drenched in music and musical references. It was obvious to me that Pinsker is a musician, and I wasn’t surprised at all to look it up later and see she’s an indie rocker. If you’re a musician who wants to see music accurately represented in fiction, just stop reading this review now and go pick up this book. It’s the best integration of music from a musician’s perspective I’ve ever seen in a fiction book.
Another element of this book that is a wise storytelling choice is the dual perspective from Luce and Rosemary. Luce remembers the Before very well. The bombings and pandemic ripped away her success just as she was taking off. Rosemary barely remembers the Before, because she’s about 15 years younger than Luce. She remembers a baseball game at a stadium. But mostly she remembers being in the hospital with the Pox. Luce is able to remember all that was good and not actually that dangerous about Before. But Rosemary is able to see the parts of Now that are good – and there are parts that are. For example, the ability of rural people and people who can’t travel to go see Graceland (and other cultural places) in Hoodspace. There’s one scene in particular where Rosemary argues with Luce about how Hoodspace isn’t all bad that reminded me of some people speaking excitedly about being able to go back to conferences just the way they were before, while people with disabilities tried to get them to listen to the fact that joining things remotely meant they weren’t being left out any longer and how much they didn’t want to lose that. Without spoilers, an important part of the plot is Luce and Rosemary having to figure out together how to take the best from both and make a better future.
An important theme of the book is the balance of staying safe with still being able to live a fulfilling life. Who gets to decide what’s too risky? What actually is too risky? And isn’t that something that’s fluid? Are things that were once risky always risky? And aren’t things that were once safe sometimes too risky for a time? This is definitely a book that comes down on the side of part of life is taking some risks.
Now she understood how much she’d missed; how much had been taken from her in the name of safety and control.
page 268
While this isn’t a book about being queer, it is a book by a queer author full of queer characters. Luce and Rosemary both are attracted to women. Their relationships are mentioned when relevant to the plot but there’s no big coming out arc for either. Also, you can tell this was written by a queer person because Luce and Rosemary are not automatically attracted to each other just because they both happen to be women who are into women. Love to see that. A flaw I often see in books with queer characters by straight author is this idea that all women who are into women are automatically attracted to each other. That’s….not how it works. So I found the representation to be quite authentic. It’s just people living their lives who happen to be queer.
I also want to mention that Luce is Jewish, originally from an Orthodox community that she became ostracized from due to her sexuality. The author is herself Jewish, and I trust people to represent their own faiths and cultures well. I will say, much like the queer representation, there was one scene where Luce thinks about Rosh Hashanah’s in the past after seeing some people throwing paper into the river, and I found it very moving.
Overall, this is a scifi book about a dystopian future written by a queer, Jewish musician. It thus brings authentic representation to all three of these and tells a universal story about balancing safety with risk and using technology to accentuate our lives.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 384 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Library
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
Book Review: Haven by Emma Donoghue
Three monks struggle to survive on an inhospitable island off the Irish coast.
Summary:
In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar and priest called Artt has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks—young Trian and old Cormac—he rows down the river Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a monastery. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. In such a place, what will survival mean?
Review:
This is a quiet character study set on a windswept island with only one tree upon it but thousands of birds. (This is based upon a real place in Ireland.) It wrestles with how being with nature at a more intimate level than what is currently experienced by one’s peers can bring out great revelations about a person. Both good and bad. It demonstrates how a group with a leader can show great resolve through trials but also the weakness of unquestioned loyalty to a questionable leader. How do you know when it’s time to question the leader?
What I found particularly interesting was how the story itself shows the strange juxtaposition of this group going to nature but their leader not respecting nature simultaneously. While Cormac and Trian both have a respect for and understanding of nature due to their lives before they were monks, Artt as a scholar does not. He does things and asks the other monks to do things that strike them as odd. Two things in particular feel like wrongdoing to the other two monks although they struggle to articulate why. I found myself wishing that Cormac and Trian could find either Buddhism or a Christian sect that had a greater respect for nature (for example: Franciscans). They would surely have fit in better.
An example of something Artt asks along this line that isn’t particularly a spoiler. Trian, after they arrive on the island, eats some shellfish and brings some back for the others to eat. Artt tells them this food is unclean and forbidden. Trian’s thoughts later:
He wishes he still didn’t know it was forbidden; wishes he was innocent and could cram his belly with whatever dirty, delicious stuff he found.
page 161
Trian loves the birds and watching them. Artt is annoyed by the birds. He views their noisemaking as exacerbated by the devil to work against them and tells Trian that it’s not possible to pray with your eyes open. Trian internally resists this. He feels it is possible to pray with one’s eyes open. The reader is left seeing how much more spiritually Trian engages with God’s creation than Artt does. In fairness to Artt he does have a greater faith than the other two in God’s providing for them. When the other two might be willing to give up and take the boat to get supplies, Artt encourages them to wait and see what they can figure out on the island itself. He’s often correct that they hadn’t quite considered all options yet. One might say that Artt has a lot of faith in God’s creativity and perhaps too much suspicion of Satan’s creativity as well.
There is some queer content. I can’t describe what it is without spoilers. Highlight the next paragraph to see.
Trian is intersex. This is a critical plot point. Cormac and Artt are divided on how to handle Trian after finding out. I was pleased with the resolution and feel the ending is, overall, uplifting.
Overall, this is a quiet study of what happens when one person is given too much authority over other people’s spiritual development. It’s set in a gorgeous, richly imagined backdrop. I couldn’t stop thinking about it after I read it, which is why I rated it five stars.
If you found this review helpful, please consider tipping me on ko-fi, checking out my digital items available in my ko-fi shop, buying one of my publications, or using one of my referral/coupon codes. Thank you for your support!
5 out of 5 stars
Length: 272 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: Library
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
Book Review: A Restless Truth by Freya Marske (Series, #2)
A murder mystery on an ocean liner cruising from the US to the UK in the early 1900s being solved by two women – one of whom is a magician. Both of whom are into each other. Things get spicy…and dangerous.
Summary:
When Maud voyages from the US to the UK on RMS Lyric, she finds a dead body, a disrespectful parrot, and a beautiful stranger in Violet Debenham, who is everything—a magician, an actress, a scandal—Maud has been trained to fear and has learned to desire. Surrounded by the open sea and a ship full of loathsome, aristocratic suspects, they must solve a murder and untangle a conspiracy that began generations before them.
Review:
I’m not sure how I ended up with an advanced copy of the second book in The Last Binding series – when I hadn’t read the first. I’m assuming either I requested it, not realizing it was a second book or it was sent to me based on my reading history with the assumption it didn’t matter. The series aspect is less “the story happens in a row” and more “everyone featured is living in these alternate history version of the early 1900s plus magic.” Apparently the first book in the series features a m/m pairing (Amazon, Bookshop.org), whereas this one stars a f/f pair.
I didn’t struggle too much to figure out what’s going on. The author does refrain from explaining much for the first chapter or two. But that’s because the book starts essentially in media res – with the murder happening. After that has occurred we slow down for a minute, and there’s a refresher of the rules of the universe. It didn’t take me too long to catch up and get into it.
One thing that did surprise me was the spice level of this romance. I was expecting very light spice with most encounters occurring off-screen after a fade to dark. That is not the case. Things get very explicit. Let’s put it this way….at least one of the scenes would have had to have been cut to manage to squeak in an R rating for explicitness. There are three scenes total, and each takes up a whole chapter. To me, this much spice feels like erotica jammed into a romance. I prefer the two separately.
The pairing here is grumpy/cheery. Violet is the grumpy, and I adored her. I liked Maud too, but Violet was someone I could see a whole book’s perspective on. Perhaps I’m biased since Violet is bisexual and the quintessential theater geek. I just really enjoyed her. But Maud is nice enough too. I liked their pairing well enough.
The mystery is substantial enough to hold up a plot. I enjoyed the animals and sneaking around the boat. I did think a bit more attention could have been paid to the class and race issues that sort of came up and got a bit glossed over. I don’t expect preaching in a book but it might have been interesting to at least have Maud and Violet see the second or third class areas of the ship on one of their many attempts to outrun their pursuers. (Somehow they always seemed to end up in the cargo hold instead). Maud talks with disdain of her parents only giving charity when others can see it, but Maud herself doesn’t seem to do much giving either. Violet, at least, offers to become the patron of an all-Black opera. (The real history of Black opera.)
Overall, I liked getting to know Violet, and it was an interesting world to visit. But the spice level was far too hot for what I personally prefer in romance, sliding more into an erotica category in my opinion. It also seems to me that the first book may have been quite different from this one, so readers of the first should come in aware of these differences.
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3 out of 5 stars
Length: 388 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: NetGalley
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
2022 Award Eligibility
I have four pieces eligible for awards during the 2022 award season in three categories.
All of these were first published during 2022.
For the paid stories, I am able to provide author copies for award consideration purposes only. Please email me at mcneil.author [at] gmail.com to request one.
Short Stories
“The University of Late-Night Moans” in Decoded Pride: A science fiction, fantasy, and horror story-a-day anthology for Pride month
June 9, 2022, issue 3, $14.99 digital
fantasy romance (sapphic / wlw)
It’s 1998, and Leonora’s friend Virginia is helping her investigate the moans coming from the cemetery across the train tracks from her dorm.
“Sister Prudence on the Beach” in Solarpunk Magazine
Issue #6, Lunarpunk Special, Nov/Dec 2022, $6 digital
hopepunk (speculative scifi)
Sister Prudence settles down for her full moon meditation on the beach. But a young one passing by interrupts not just her meditation but perhaps her retirement as well.
Drabble
“Bostonians Aren’t Friends With Our Neighbors” in Wyrms: An Anthology of Dragon Drabbles
July 1, 2022, $3 digital, $6 print
fantasy
The first line is “Deadrodents.com said the box on the triple-decker’s porch next door.”
Creative Nonfiction
“These Boots Were Made for Who?” in Just Femme & Dandy
July 4, 2022, issue 3, free
digital magazine version (page 105) or html/accessible version
literary fashion magazine through a queer lens
I explore how my favorite pair of thrifted boots helped me develop my queer, bisexual fashion sense and sustained me throughout the pandemic.
Book Review: Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen
A reality tv dating show is filming its final four – including a closeted bisexual – on an island in the Pacific Northwest, but things take a fantastical horrifying turn the night before the penultimate decision day.
Summary:
This season’s Catch is a slightly sleazy bachelor who helped fund Glamstapix, which explains why so many of the final four women are Glamstapix stars. There’s Vanessa a car model, Amanda the daughter of two lesbian moms with a fashion Glamsta, Lilah-Mae a Dallas-based Christian influencer, and Renee a Black woman nominated by her coworkers who’s pretty over being the token woman of color on the show. No one is thrilled with the rural Otters Island location in the Pacific Northwest but everyone is motivated to make it to the final two in Palm Springs. Things get heated while they film the final interactions before the Catch chooses who will come with him to Palm Springs but things take a horrifying and fantastical turn when the cameras turn off for the night.
Review:
I did not receive the blurb I gave you above. The blurb I got combined with the title led me to believe that this was going to be a reality tv dating show where one of the women contestants was into another one of the women contestants who then gets abducted by a King-Kong like female creature she has to rescue her from. I still love this idea. But this isn’t what actually happens in the book. At all. It’s not a romance. It’s a funny reality tv show book that takes a horrifying turn in the last third.
I repeat. There is no romance in this book. Unless you count old love letters between an elderly B&B owner and her now dead wife. (Not a spoiler, she’s dead from the beginning). Renee is a closeted bisexual who does have feelings for Amanda (or at least the hots for her) but those feelings are not the focus of the book. The title of the book is misleading because Patricia, the giant ape-like monster, absolutely is not out to cuddle anyone. It’s not some weird cross-species ill-fated romance like King-Kong. Patricia is out to murder. And she murders a lot of people gruesomely. If you don’t like descriptions of a monster tearing people apart, then you won’t like the direction this book goes in. Sorry if you consider that a spoiler but I think it’s essential given how the book is being marketed and how the first two-thirds of the book reads to warn you about the dark, horrific ending before you get there.
Speaking of the first two-thirds of the book, that’s what made me give it three stars. I loved the insider look at the overlap of reality tv and influencer culture. I enjoyed Renee’s scathing observations about it all. I appreciated that there was some understanding and empathy for the influencers, especially that it actually is hard work to get the glamor shots and constantly promote every aspect of your day. It’s a fun, light-hearted read. I was wondering why it was taking so long to introduce Patricia. But then when Patricia came in I understood. The last third was basically a rapid slasher, not a search and romantic rescue. So it didn’t need much room.
The following paragraph is a spoiler filled analysis of the ending. Highlight to read.
Renee is the only one that Patricia doesn’t attack. The book seems to make the point that Patricia doesn’t attack her because Renee doesn’t treat her like a monster, and Renee doesn’t do that because she herself is queer. There’s this queer woman death cult that surrounds Patricia and protects her as well, even killing people to keep her existence a secret. To me this read as that monstrous groups only act monstrously (or seem monstrous) because of how you react to them. This might have worked but Patricia literally immediately tears people limb from limb. It’s not a kind act that’s misinterpreted. She hasn’t gently carried someone away in a kidnapping because she’s lonely. She concusses Amanda when she kidnaps her and then later tears her head off when she dares to try to run out of the cave. She scales the tower Lilah-Mae and Vanessa are on and immediately tackles Vanessa unprovoked. If this is an allegory, it’s a bad one, because Patricia is, in fact, acting like a monster. I think the allegory could have worked if there were real misunderstandings involved instead of the actual gore that occurred.
Overall, this felt like two different works mashed together. The first was a funny and empathic analysis of influencer and reality tv culture. The second was a gore-filled horror slash-fest that would work as a short story. The former is more my taste, but I respect the quality of the latter. The way the two are put together, though, might struggle to find its audience. So if you like a slow burn horror led by reality tv satire, give this one a try.
If you found this review helpful, please consider tipping me on ko-fi, checking out my digital items available in my ko-fi shop, buying one of my publications, or using one of my referral/coupon codes. Thank you for your support!
3 out of 5 stars
Length: 256 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: Library
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
Book Review: Lavender House by Lev A.C. Rosen
A 1952 noir-esque mystery — but everyone from the detective to the murder victim to most of the suspects themselves are part of the queer community.
Summary:
Andy was just fired from the San Francisco police department after he was found in a compromising situation in a gay bar’s bathroom. He’s having one last night of drinks before throwing himself into the bay when a woman shows up asking him to investigate the murder of Irene Lamontaine – the matriarch of the Lamontaine soap company. She wants Andy to do the job because it turns out Irene was a lesbian, and almost everyone in her home is queer. A secret they have to keep if they want to remain an empire.
Review:
All I noticed in the blurb I saw was that this was a queer Knives Out. I somehow missed the historical part. I loved Knives Out but I wasn’t prepared for the amount of period appropriate homophobic content in this one.
This book is authentic to its time period. It doesn’t gloss over homophobia whatsoever. We witness one brutal gay bashing (literal gay bashing) and two other characters reference their own beatings. This is a world of bribes and secrecy from society such that even the happy characters can never be fully happy. Be prepared for the realistic depiction as you go into it.
The family Lamontaine consists of Irene and her partner Pearl. They have a son Henry. I can’t remember whose biological son he is. He has a partner named Cliff. He’s legally married to a woman named Margo who has her own partner Elsie, who is bisexual and runs a queer bar. Margo’s straight mother Alice begrudgingly lives with them. They have a butleresque character who is also gay, as well as another sapphic couple who run the kitchen and garden. They all get to be themselves inside the Lamontaine house but never outside of it. Irene was found dead in the perfume library. The family and coroner rule it a fall, all with the exception of Pearl who suspects foul play. She found out about the recently outed cop and figured he could be their private investigator without risk of outing them all. The characters feel like a lot but are actually easy to keep track of.
I appreciate that there was a bisexual character. I wished that there was more diversity. There was one Filipino bar tender and a rival soap company run by a Jewish family. With all the rampant homophobia being depicted, I was honestly shocked that racism didn’t come up. It would certainly have been period appropriate to, for example, even allude to issues like redlining or racist responses to the Korean War. If one was completely unaware of history coming into this book, one could have left it thinking the only issue of tolerance and acceptance in the 1950s was sexuality. (For a queer book that does explore racism in San Francisco in the 1950s, check out Malinda Lo’s Last Night at the Telegraph Club).
Please also note that there is a scene where some rabbits are killed. I don’t think this is a spoiler as it’s alluded to on the cover. I wouldn’t have asked for the book at all on NetGalley if I’d been able to see the full cover as it’s rendered now, because I have a personal love for rabbits so that was distressing to me. One of the characters is depicted as having a drinking problem that they are told to snap out of. This is never followed up on in a way that implies the drinking problem is fine now. This isn’t how a drinking problem works. I found this to be a flawed and misleading depiction of alcoholism that was used as a plot device.
The mystery itself was kind of ho-hum. I suspected who did it from the get-go and was proven correct. The solution seemed….more than a bit obvious to me, honestly. If you’re curious, take a guess in the comments, and I’ll respond with if you’re right. Ultimately though for me I wanted this book to swing more fully into one direction or the other. Either to go full period piece and get into all the nitty gritty or move it into the present and just make it fun.
Overall, if a simply mystery set in the 1950s with a mostly queer cast facing an intolerant society appeals to you, then you should give this one a go.
If you found this review helpful, please consider tipping me on ko-fi, checking out my digital items available in my ko-fi shop, buying one of my publications, or using one of my referral/coupon codes. Thank you for your support!
3 out of 5 stars
Length: 274 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: NetGalley
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
Publication Announcement: Hopepunk “Sister Prudence on the Beach”
I am thrilled to announce the publication of my hopepunk short story in the special Lunarpunk edition of Solarpunk Magazine. What’s hopepunk? It’s speculative fiction that gives a glimpse of a hopeful future. The opposite of dystopia. Think Star Trek style. There’s still conflicts but society has improved. Hopepunk is also called solarpunk. Lunarpunk is on the introspective side of hopepunk.
This issue of the magazine costs $6 and includes 12 other pieces, including poetry and nonfiction.
Here’s a blurb about my piece.
Sister Prudence settles down for her full moon meditation on the beach. But a young one passing by interrupts not just her meditation but perhaps her retirement as well.
Please be sure to check out my Publications Page for my other work.
Book Review: Reader, I Murdered Him by Betsy Cornwell
A YA romp told from the perspective of Mr. Rochester’s ward gives a new view of both Jane Eyre and London’s queer underground.
Summary:
Adéle grew up watching her mother dance in Le Moulin in Paris but soon found herself sent away to England with the man her mother said was her father. Mr. Rochester. Soon she meets her governess Jane Eyre and begins her own series of adventures.
Review:
If you have a love/hate relationship with Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, then this book is for you. If you love your YA with sapphic romance in period costumes, then get this book immediately.
The thing about Jane Eyre is…Mr. Rochester is terrible. Yet she’s still attracted to him. (This was beautifully summed up in the web comic Hark! A Vagrant). Shifting to Adéle’s perspective gives a whole new angle on just how deliciously insidious Mr. Rochester is. Adéle does not pull any punches when it comes to him. It’s downright cathartic for everyone who tears their hair out about Jane’s love for him.
There’s much more in this story than a shift of perspective on Jane Eyre though. Adéle is well-rounded, and we have entire chapters where Mr. Rochester and Jane aren’t mentioned at all or only in passing. My favorite part is when Adéle goes to a finishing school in London, because this is when the sapphic subtext becomes blatant. Adéle has the hots for more than one other teenage girl. (Both of whom are excellent choices, by the way). There’s cross-dressing! There’s scuttling around on the streets of London late at night in widow’s clothes! But also Adéle has feelings for Mr. Rochester’s nephew she’s been exchanging letters with since she first came to England. What to do. what to do. I loved seeing representation of a bisexual woman who leans more in a certain direction usually. I really like that even though she is capable of attraction to men that the sexist society fizzles it for her, making her a bisexual that leans toward women. What a fun twist on what we usually see in period pieces with fluid sexuality.
The book does start slow. The first chapter in Le Moulin was rough with overly flowery language and stirred up drama. But this drops out as Adéle ages and comes into her own. Perhaps some of this was meant to show how she is a little too idealistic in how she remembers her early years. I suspect the first chapter may have served better as flashbacks from her early time in England, rather than linear.
Please do take a moment to check out the content notes on StoryGraph. The ones listed as of the day I was writing this post are accurate.
Overall, this is a fun twist on Jane Eyre that gives agency to Mr. Rochester’s ward Adéle. Come for the twist, stay for the YA sapphic heart-throbbing.
If you found this review helpful, please consider tipping me on ko-fi, checking out my digital items available in my ko-fi shop, buying one of my publications, or using one of my referral/coupon codes. Thank you for your support!
4 out of 5 stars
Length: 288 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: NetGalley
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 