Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for my free digital ARC in exchange for a review!

I’ve been burned by uneven anthologies in the past, but how could I not be intrigued by the title Queer Love, Queer Life when I saw it on Netgalley? 🏳️‍🌈🩷 And I’m glad I put my apprehension behind me because I thoroughly enjoyed this collection!

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It’s a mix of short stories, essays, memoir and poetry, and though a lot of the poetry did go over my head (as always), I found something to appreciate in most pieces, and there were more than a few absolutely brilliant pieces of writing from mostly new and emerging or lesser known queer writers. There are stories exploring lots of aspects of queer life, from young people coming out, beginning the messy journey of figuring out who they are, to middle aged queer folks navigating change and illness, to elder queer people looking back on their lives and how society has changed. There was one beautiful essay from an older man, George Hodson, who battled AIDs and cancer, whose little author bio afterwards said he had a memoir forthcoming, but then I looked him up only to find he’d passed away just a few weeks earlier. Honestly so sad, and a reminder of how important it is to immortalise queer stories in collections like these.

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Some of my favourites included: Studio by Amy Ridler, a lovely story about a blossoming love between nonbinary Kay and cis woman Hazel; Bo by Tom Spencer, a charming and hopeful story of a young boy figuring himself out while playing with gender; This Day by George Hodson, as above; Nobody’s Sons by Jonathan Pizarro, a gorgeously evocative snapshot of stolen moments between two young men on a beach in Spain; and The Moment is Perfect, Whole & Complete by L.E. Yates, quite a sensational story about a woman struggling to deal with her partner’s terminal illness that had me absolutely gripped!

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Another reviewer pointed out that it perhaps skews a little heavy on stories from cis and trans men, but overall I found it to be an engaging anthology with more than a few authors whose full length works I’d like to pick up!