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laura_sackton's Reviews (170)
Many of these poems are inspired by various terms for gay in different languages, and they are really something. The way White plays with different layers of meaning is amazing. And the lines are so sharp, this is a book I'm glad I own because I'm going to want to read these over and over. Really startling work.
Really cannot explain how much I love this book. Book of my life.
This made no sense and made me feel no emotions. I will probably have to read another book for this QYY prompt because this was so deeply unsatisfying!
If I read a book this year that is better than this one, I will be genuinely shocked. I don't think it is possible.
This book was very bad! I disliked it so much! There is not one thing about it that I liked! Just absolute trash. However, it served its purpose and I completed the cowboys prompt, so yay. Also, I kind of like reading a truly horrible romance one every 3 years just to remind myself how brilliant and wonderful most of the romances I read are.
I liked this! Chatty and inviting. Just a little taste but a lovely one. Gorgeous illustrations.
I really enjoyed this, even though I’m not really the target audience, and I would have been very happy to read a much more in-depth book. It’s a series of short profiles of various queer Black writers, artists, and performers of the Harlem Renaissance. Johnson profiles people like Langston Huges, Claude McKay, and Josephine Baker, but also some people I didn’t know about at all, like Jimmie Daniels.
I really enjoyed this, even though I’m not really the target audience, and I would have been very happy to read a much more in-depth book. It’s a series of short profiles of various queer Black writers, artists, and performers of the Harlem Renaissance. Johnson profiles people like Langston Huges, Claude McKay, and Josephine Baker, but also some people I didn’t know about at all, like Jimmie Daniels.
The profiles are short and mostly hover on the surface, but Johnson weaves their own reflections and feelings into each one, writing about when they first learned about some of these people, and relating their own life experiences to the lives of these artists. Their style is open, inviting, informal, chatty. Each profile has a loose structure, as Johnson jumps from theme to theme, following what interests, upsets, or excites them.
I was a little meh for the first few profiles, but once I got into it I was delighted by this book and read it in one sitting. The artwork is gorgeous. Don’t come to this for in-depth Harlem Renaissance history; come for a loud and riotous celebration of Black queerness written directly to young people. Also come to get excited! I’ve read books by many of the people in this book, heard about many of them, and listened to some of their music, but after I finished this book I was like, okay, sign me up for a queer Harlem Renaissance class.
What? I think Julia Armfield is just not for me. I found this boring and empty, could not find anything in the characters to care about, didn't really get the world, and the ending what? I know it's a retelling of King Lear but she lost me.
