review

Gay Means Happy Too

Hannah LLeave a comment

A Review of Date Me, Bryson Keller by Kevin van Whye

Rating: 4 out of 5.

**Disclaimer** This turns into something a little more in-depth than a normal review because I have a lot of thoughts on the nature of LGBTQ+ romance for teens and I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about it.

Kai Sheridan is your normal teenager, he likes to write, loves his family, and has a small but super close group of friends that he knows he can trust with anything. Except for…the fact that he’s gay. Kai has known for a while that he’s gay but he’s never told anyone about it. He’s pretty sure his friends would accept him, but he’s a little less sure about his family. Either way, he hesitates coming out because he doesn’t want to be known as “Kai Sheridan…the gay one.”

He’s hid it pretty well, until he gets swept up in a school-wide dare and ends up asking out one of the most popular students, Bryson Keller. Bryson hasn’t really dated throughout high school under the excuse that high school relationships are stupid, that they’ll never make it through college. They’re just a waste of time. Despite that, though, Bryson is pretty confident that if he WANTED to, he could have a new date every week. Hence where the dare comes in. For a good chunk of senior year, Bryson has to say yes to the first person who asks him out at the beginning of each week and dump them at the end of the week. They aren’t “real” relationships, it’s just a game.

Until the week that Kai asks Bryson out on a rather helpful burst of confidence. Of course, nothing was ever said in the dare rules that it HAD to be a girl, just that it had to be the first person to ask him out. So, Bryson and Kai start dating.

I love fake dating troupes, they’re typically pretty cheesy but my little heart loves them anyway. This one did not disappoint. Bryson and Kai keep their pretend relationship a secret but as they spend time together so Bryson can fulfill the dare, they start to fall for each other. Hard.

Throughout the novel there are some rough parts, they get caught by one of Brysons friends who doesn’t accept him potentially being gay. Kai’s mom finds out and has a less than accepting initial response. But, in the end, everything works out and Kai and Bryson live happily ever after, so to speak.

When I finished the novel, I was conflicted. I felt like some parts were TOO easy, that everything fit together a little too well. But I quickly realized there’s absolutely no reason they shouldn’t. We live in a world full of heteronormative fairy tales. No one questions if it was “too easy” for Cinderella and The Prince to end up together. No one questions if the stars aligned just a little too perfectly for the ultimate jock boy to fall in love with the bookish girl. There are heaps upon heaps of straight stories where, after a little bit of conflict, everything just falls into place and no one really questions it.

Why, then, should an LGBTQ+ romance be any different? Why do we have this pre-conceived notion that LGBTQ+ youth books need to highlight a central struggle that never ends or that the characters need to always be sad or that more “work” needs to be put into the story for those characters to get their happy ending? I think it’s become we have buried a bias so deep inside of ourselves, as a society, that says if you’re different you have to be upset about it. But really, there’s nothing to be upset about. Sometimes two young men can fall in love over the course of a week and everything turns out okay, because why not, our society is FULL to the brim of the exact same story told from the perspective of straight people.

I loved this book and everything it stands for. The only reason I gave it four stars instead of five was because I felt like sometimes the dialogue was a little bit unrealistic for real life teenagers, but I absolutely adored Kai and Bryson. They deserve happiness and they deserve to have it come as easily as it does for every other straight couple that has ever been written.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for providing me with a free eBook of Date Me, Bryson Keller, for the purpose of this review.

Date Me, Bryson Keller is out Tuesday, May 19.

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | GOODREADS

The Happiness of an Unending Universe

Hannah LLeave a comment

A Review of The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper

Rating: 5 out of 5.

When I was ten I wanted to be an astronaut. More specifically a ballerina, astronaut, janitor who was also a photographer. Unlike Calvin Lewis Jr’s dad, who collected Life magazines about the space craze of the 60s, I collected National Geographics. I clipped and taped images I liked all over my room and whenever I was feeling overwhelmed or like my dreams of being a ballerina, astronaut, janitor were unattainable, I would look at all of those pictures and it would make everything seem right.

I’m, sadly, not a ballerina, or an astronaut, or a janitor, but this book definitely transported me back to that time. It gave me an intense feeling of nostalgia, not only for my childhood, but also for my teenage years, when I was an aspiring journalist dealing with my own questions about my sexual orientation. Cal and I are SO similar, it’s almost a little scary. Perhaps that’s why I really enjoyed this novel as well, but, at its core, it’s a loving book about all the endless kinds of love there are.

When Calvin, Cal for short, learns that his dad has been selected to be part of a major space mission with NASA his life is uprooted completely. Literally and figuratively. He moves with his family from Brooklyn all the way down to Texas, where he knows his whole life will be on display as he becomes a part of media circus surrounding the mission. What he doesn’t expect, though, is to love it so much. Not just Texas, but the people, the story, and the heart, that surrounds everyone who plays a part in this mission.

Reading this book was like the equivalent of curling up on a couch on a rainy, spring day with a cup of hot tea and an old friend. The story felt so familiar to me and yet so exciting and new. I could see so much of myself reflected in Cal, with his Earth sign tendencies to always want to plan; plan for himself, for other people, for the country. I was also, however, getting an exciting look into Phil Stamper’s take on what a modern day “space craze” would look like.

This book is heartwarming and fun, but it’s also an exploration of us as a society, and our insatiable desire to always know what’s coming next. It also takes such a refreshing look at tough to tackle themes like mental illness, relationship conflict, and more.

I may not have become a ballerina, astronaut, janitor and I may not still know what I want to be when I grow up, but it’s okay not to know the ending sometimes. It’s okay not to plan for every little eventuality. It also okay to be “breezy”, as Cal would say. It’s okay to fall in love. I fell in love with this story and with Cal and Leon’s sense of wholeness as characters, and I know whatever path they choose from their endless options, they’re going to be happy together for a long while.

Thank you to Bloomsbury and NetGalley for providing me with a free eBook version for the purpose of this review.

The Gravity of Us is out today, February 4! Click here to purchase.

A Bloody, Philosophical Extravaganza

Hannah LLeave a comment

A Review of Prosper’s Demon by K.J. Parker

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Prosper’s Demon begins with a murder, a murder that is very easily overlooked once the dark, twisting tale actually starts to wind its way down to Hell. A murder that, in the grand scheme of things, really isn’t so bad, is it?

Our unnamed narrator is, for lack of a better term (and I really mean that), an exorcist. His (and I only use He/Him here because, similar to our narrator’s demon, “this one particular, unique, individual specimen was definitely, in my mind, a He.”) job is to remove immortal, evil, entities from people when they’ve found a home inside of one. The process is brutal, bloody, and painful for both the entity and the human, making many of the encounters with these entities a zero sum game. However, it’s a game our narrator has been playing since he was very young and, luckily, he’s very good at it.

This novella is equal parts witty and gritty and takes you down dark, and even darker still, philosophical paths until you’re questioning who’s really in the right. Our narrator isn’t a “good” person, he makes that abundantly clear. Then again, he’s not an evil person either. He’s simply the person with the skills necessary for the job and the one that just happens to be around at the time to do it.

When our narrator encounters one of these evil entities hidden inside one of the brightest minds of the century, Prosper of Schnaz, he is faced with a dilemma. To remove the demon would surely end the man’s life, thus ending a life of pure genius. However, allowing the demon to stay means playing alongside that which he has vowed, and come to, hate. Like I said, it’s usually a zero sum game.

The gory, blood-splattered, bone-splintering ending was, really, both a complete surprise and completely inevitable. What surprised me the most was that I still ended the novella rooting for our unscrupulous narrator. He’s going to die eventually, but damn is he going to raise Hell in the meantime.

Thank you to Tor.com publishing and NetGalley for providing me with free access to the digital version of this book prior to its publication.

Prosper’s Demon will be available for purchase on Tuesday, January 28!

True Nightmare Fuel

Hannah LLeave a comment

A Review of Testament by Jose Nateras

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

It’s not often that a book terrifies me, but wow did this one. Not to mention, as a queer woman, it was terrifying on two fronts, the paranormal activity and the thought that past evils of privileged groups of people can have lingering effects on a place, on a society. Honestly, that thought scares me more than the paranormal activity. The thought that, despite all of the advances we have made as a society, our dark past can never be undone, and it will never stop haunting those people still affected by it.

Gabe Espinosa is back at work after an ugly break-up and a suicide attempt, and although neither he nor anyone else at the Rosebriar Room, a fancy restaurant in an upscale hotel that was converted from an old Gentleman’s Club, thinks he’s quite ready to be back yet, Gabe is trying his best to return to some sort of normalcy. That is, until a man hurls a three hundred pound table at him and tries to kill him. From there, it only gets scarier.

This book heavily reminded me of the indie horror film, It Follows. Not just because of the way both the movie and the book involve possessed people just off in the peripheral working their way ever so closer and closer to you, but also in the meaning behind it. It Follows is a metaphor for an STI, the main girl goes on a date with a man she barely knows and she gets tied up and told that this “thing” walking towards her is going to follow her now, until she passes it on to someone else. In the same vein, Gabe’s following is tied to his idea that he cannot be worthy of love. In It Follows, the main character decides that she could never live with herself if she gave it to someone else, so she spends her whole life walking away from It. Gabe realizes he needs to move on, love himself, and find worth in himself to get the haunting to stop.

Not to mention, my favorite thing about this book is that NOT ONCE did anyone question Gabe and what he was experiencing, which I wholeheartedly appreciated.

I loved this spooky, atmospheric, dark-themed read!

Lesbian Necromancers in Space!

Hannah LLeave a comment

A Review of Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Rating: 5 out of 5.

I was about 100 pages into The Night Circus, which I had been told time and time again I needed to read if I loved The Starless Sea as much as I proclaimed to, when my other half finished Gideon the Ninth. As soon as they finished it, they insisted I read it and when I learned it was about a buff, kind of naive, lesbian and her pointy, angry, elf-like necromancer friend, I knew I had to listen.

I put aside The Night Circus (don’t worry, I’m back in it now) and finished Gideon the Ninth is a rip-roaring, spell-binding, heart-aching two days. When I say this book reached into my chest and pulled out my still beating heart and then ate it in front of me straight up Khaleesi style, it’s not an exaggeration.

Gideon is a fighter, in pretty much every sense of the word. She’s an orphan who was all but abandoned on a desolate planet under…shady circumstances, but she’s never let that stop her from being a badass. The only other person remotely near her age on the planet is Harrowhawk, the princess of the Ninth House, and stone cold bitch extraordinair. They hate each other, but, when a call is sent out for the necromancers of each planet, or House, to enter a competition that hasn’t happened in a millennia, Harrow and Gideon join, reluctant, forces.

The cast of characters that Muir manages to each give distinct personalities and backstories is insanely huge. Despite the host of characters, they all feel unique and they all play a significant role in the story and, thematically, help force Gideon and Harrow closer together.

There are some issues with pacing, I feel, in the second third of the novel, but it more than paid off in the end when, as I said, my heart was ripped from my chest. This blood-thirsty, gut-wrenching, bone-crunching novel got me so good in the “feels” I took a few days to not read anything else and let the story process. I legitimately think *SPOILER WARNING* that I was in some sort of mourning.

I eagerly await the second book in the series, Harrow the Ninth, of which I have already read the prologue for. You can find it here. The second person fucked me up emotionally, man, my heart isn’t ready for that shit. Now I just have to somehow survive until June without gnawing my own fingers off and trying to resurrect my fractured soul from the bones. Damn you, Muir!

PS: If Gideon and Harrow aren’t endgame at the end of this trilogy I will, first, grind my bones down into dust, and then sprinkle them in Tamsyn Muir’s cereal.