Rainbow Reading: August 5

Bite-sized reviews of the LGBTQ books I’ve read in the past week. All titles are linked to their Goodreads page.

Between July 29th and August 4th, I read:

All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson (2020)
Genre: nonfiction/memoir
Audience: young adult
Queer rep: Johnson is queer
Thoughts: Subtitled “a memoir manifesto”, this takes Johnson’s personal experiences growing up as a queer Black boy and ties them into broader reflections on masculinity, family, racialization, and intersectionality. This is the memoir of a single person, but it’s also a call to action regarding the way Black boys, queer boys, and Black queer boys are treated in U.S. culture. It’s written in a very engaging way and I really enjoyed the anecdotes from Johnson’s life, particularly the ones surrounding his relationship with his grandmother Nanny. I also thought the two threads of this book – the memoir and the manifesto – were woven together well, with each one supporting and strengthening the other. Definitely well worth reading.

Revealing Selves: Transgender Portraits from Argentina by Kike Arnal (2018)
Genre: nonfiction/photography
Audience: adult
Queer rep: Transgender women and men
Thoughts: This entry in the the Arcus Foundation and EWS’ LGBTQ photography book series focuses on transgender individuals in Argentina. Argentina was the first country in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage and has passed legislation that makes it one of the most progressive countries globally in terms of transgender rights – but discrimination and violence are still major threats. I was really struck by the statement that the cover photo of a group of trans women entering a subway station is a huge sign of progress because of how dangerous it was for trans people to use public transportation or even exist in the public eye at all. The photos and interviews complement each other really nicely and this is probably one of my favorite entries in the series.

Playing Wicked by Alex R. Kahler, illustrated by Ben Whitehouse (2020)
Genre: picture book
Audience: juvenile
Queer rep: The MC is gender nonconforming, same-sex crush is hinted at
Thoughts: This is a cute story about Dante, who loves playing make believe as a wizard, knight, or king. But he doesn’t always want to the hero. Sometimes he wants to be the villain, and the very best is being the wicked queen. He plays wicked by himself in his house, and hero with his friends outside. But then he creates such a perfect wicked queen costume that he can’t keep it hidden away indoors. Will he find a friend to play the hero to his villain? I liked the story and the illustrations; very cute all around.

Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron (2020)
Genre: fantasy
Audience: young adult
Queer rep: The MC is lesbian, several sapphic and one gay secondary characters, f/f romance
Thoughts: Two hundred years after Cinderella found her prince, the fairy tale is over. Attendance at the Annual Ball is now mandatory for teen girls, where the men of the kingdom make their selections based on the girls’ costumes and reverence of the Cinderella story. If a girl is not selected, she is Forfeit, and not seen again. Sophia would rather marry her best friend Erin, but that’s not an option. In desperation, she flees the ball and stumbles across Cinderella’s mausoleum, where she finds Cinderella’s last descendant, who is part of a secret resistance to bring down the king and his twisted traditions. This was a very promising premise that ultimately didn’t really work for me. The emotions in the story felt flat; this is the second hyped YA written in first person that I’ve read recently that has felt so flat to me, so this might just be me having trouble with this perspective. The idea was good but the execution didn’t work for me.

Now Entering Addamsville by Francesca Zappia (2019)
Genre: fantasy/horror
Audience: young adult
Queer rep: The MC is asexual, a couple secondary sapphic characters
Thoughts: Zora sees ghosts, which are all over Addamsville, and she hunts the malevolent beings called firestarters that also haunt the town. No one knows that, though; what they know is her father’s in jail after cheating half the town, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and Novaks are no good. When a fire burns down the home of the school janitor, killing him, Zora is the prime suspect. She’s been framed and has to clear her name, but with no support, a ghost-hunting television crew in town riling things up, rumors flying thick and fast, and the ghosts behaving strangely, things aren’t going according to plan. Forget proving her innocence – Zora’s having a hard time just staying alive. I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed this. I’m not a big ghost story person, but this had a whole detailed mythology to it – not just a simple “spooky story” – and although ghosts are driving the plot, it’s really more about Zora’s investigations than the ghosts themselves. Zora is a great character with a wonderful grasp of sarcasm and her voice really carried the book for me. The ending also tantalizingly hints at the possibility of a sequel, and I would definitely read another book about Zora and co.

We Wear the Mask: 15 Stories of Passing in America by Brando Skyhore and Lisa Page (eds.) (2017)
Genre: nonfiction/anthology
Audience: adult
Queer rep: At least one lesbian and one trans author
Thoughts: This is a collection of 15 stories about “passing” – being regarded as a member of an identity group other than one’s own: light-skinned people of color being perceived as white, Jewish people as Christian, trans people as cis, etc. Some pass deliberately to access opportunities or simply safety; others don’t try to pass, but are read that way by society. Even when done deliberately, passing into one community can also mean become estranged from one’s original group; it can take an emotional or psychological toll even while providing economic benefits. This anthology collects the experiences of 15 authors, some of whom choose to pass, some who are passed by society, as they reflect on their own experiences and what passing is and means more broadly. It’s a very interesting collection.

The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows by Olivia Waite (2020)
Genre: historical fiction/romance
Audience: adult
Queer rep: One MC is lesbian, the other is bi; several gay/bi/lesbian secondary characters
Thoughts: Book two in the Feminine Pursuits series of historical f/f romances. This one centers around Agatha Griffin, a widowed printer, and Penelope Flood, a beekeeper who might as well be widowed; she’s in a marriage of convenience with a sailor who is gone for years at a time. Their paths cross when a swarm of bees colonizes Agatha’s warehouse and she seeks Penelope’s help to rehive them. They strike up a correspondence about bees that quickly becomes a friendship that gives them both much-needed support in turbulent times: the exiled Queen is returning to England, striking up political fervor throughout the country that threatens both Agatha’s printing business and Penelope’s social position in her small town. I really liked these characters, although there are perhaps one or two more subplots than needed – it gets a little convoluted; there are bees, printing perils, an overly political son, a contested will, a missing snuffbox, a townswoman who needs to escape her husband, the return of Penelope’s husband from sea… But I cared about Agatha and Penelope as individuals and about their relationship, to the point I was actually getting angry about some of the other character’s machinations against them (the vicar in particular can go hang, what a self-righteous jerk), and everything works out in the end so overall thumbs up!