notsobinaryart's Reviews (153)

Hijab Butch Blues

5.0

challenging emotional reflective

The first thing that stuck out to me in Hijab Butch Blues was the structure. Each section & chapter is based on another notable person in the Quran. We are introduced to a bit of each person's story alongside Lamya's own life, in creative and imaginative ways. Within each chapter we get multiple subsections, each a few minutes up to 20 or so minutes on average.

I think one reason I took so long to start this book is my own experiences with homophobia & transphobia in organized religion, specifically under the guise of Christianity. I generally avoid media that predominantly feature Christianity, and sometimes this inadvertently spills over into other organized religion as a whole subconsciously. But instead of simply religious trauma (which, don't get me wrong, we do see homophobia and transphobia under the guise of Islam in Hijab Butch Blues), we see a complex view of religion in helping come to terms with queerness. I love Lamya's realization of Allah being trans in their interpretation, so of course they must be welcoming to queer expansiveness. I loved the queer analogies to stories in the Quran, how Lamya comes closer to themself as both a queer person and a Muslim person both in these moments. I don't often get to see these tender moments in religion, and this made me address my own preconceived notions on all organized religion based on my personal experiences with Christianity.

I can see myself coming back to this book over and over and learning new things about Lamya and myself each time. There is so much depth and emotion here, I cannot recommend this book enough. A definite contender to one of my favorite books of 2025.

Some of my favorite parts are the chapter/section on Allah and seeing God through an inherently queer light, as well as the queer joy when Lamya finally realizes their queerness and when they get their partner to experience some of the joys and not just the heartaches of queerness. I really appreciated some of the last few chapters for fully understanding why someone may never come out -- not because of not being proud of themself or self-hating in some way, not in any less of a queer way, but because of the context that sometimes losing all of your vital community, a huge part of your sense of self, isn't worth the gains of coming out. It made me reconsider some of my own feelings of guilt for not coming out to all of my family yet, if I'm "queer enough" if I haven't.

I highly recommend reading this by audiobook, if possible, as the narrator really brings the emotions to life. The anger, the disappointment, the awe at discovering queerness at different points through life. I was worried about reading a memoir not read by the author (who, in this case, is anonymous), but I had nothing to worry about as Lamya's story is really brought to life through the audiobook. My only gripe about the audiobook, at least when listening on Libro.fm and I assume is the case on other platforms as well, is that I wish there were markers for each of these sub-chapters to break up the roughly hour long chapter/section for each notable person from the Quran.

I'd say this book is mostly reflective, but please know there are some very heavy and challenging moments, so please check out the trigger warnings and read when you are in a space to do so.

a few of my favorite (approximate, as read via audio) quotes:

"How important it is to use the pronoun "they" for God. My God, who I refuse to define as a man or a woman. My God, who transcends gender.... this conception of God as genderqueer, of God as nonbinary, of God as trans. and I learn that I want to learn what these gender expansive concepts mean for myself too." (from section called Allah)
on realizing their own queerness: "I pray that night for God to help me, like he helped Musa, in all that will follow this moment, this moment of receiving this miracle. My miracle, from God."
"I'm scared that somehow that everyone at my mosque will find out, and I'm scared of the rampant homophobia at my mosque. Not because it's unique to Muslims, but because the homophobia of muslims feel like more of a betrayal. these people who will be with me through death prayers... who will stand next to me at ramadan, these people who are my people, who know what it's like to be shunned for Muslimness but can't extend that empathy to queerness. It's less heartbreaking that they don't know."

Representation:

South Asian author who grew up in predominantly Arab country
queer nonbinary hijabi Muslim immigrant who now lives in America

Content Warnings

Sunrise on the Reaping

Suzanne Collins

4.5

dark sad tense

Diverse cast of characters: No

Spoilers for other books in the Hunger Games series ahead.

My nostalgia and need to know what happens next made me absolutely devour this book. I loved hearing Haymitch’s story, and it really works best if read after reading the main trilogy & first prequel as there are many references and it helps add a greater meaning to the plot and actions of the characters.

This prequel is probably in some ways the hardest to make, given we know the vague outcome of Haymitch’s Hunger Games the best given that he is alive to mentor Katniss and Peeta. Even still, I rooted for some of the other characters (maybe it’s the optimist in me, or my tendency to read books where everything turns out okay). At times the character’s deaths didn’t hit as hard because I could see it coming, but Suzanne Collins still did manage a few surprises to hit me (looking at you

Louella & the appearance of Lou Lou

Not spoilers if you’ve consumed the other Hunger Games books + prequel, but we see why Haymitch turned to drinking especially, introduced to some of our important characters in future books like Effie, and we see how effective propaganda can be spun when Haymitch doesn’t know anything about the year Snow first played a hand into the Hunger Games.

Half a point deducted as though the book is good and makes points about oppressive governments/systems, propaganda, and the like, I’m not sure if it brought out as much new message or as profound as I was expecting for how much people were hyping it. Sometimes I also wondered, based on things Haymitch did in the games, wouldn’t the game masters have killed him for that? Why did they allow him to ultimately win, when they proved they could target & kill any of them? Obviously Haymitch had to live to keep the story congruent, but I wonder how that could be explained away other than maybe him being a fan favorite.

I appreciate the epilogue being post-Hunger Games trilogy so we get to see a glimpse at some semblance of happiness for him, after all of his hardships through his entire life.

Content Warnings

Triple Sec

TJ Alexander

4.25

hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

A major content warning for alcohol. This might be obvious to some from the title and the cover, some books titles or covers are just punny references and not central to the story, so I want others to be aware going in. This book centers very heavily around alcoholic drinks, and if you are sober or are otherwise needing to avoid heavy themes of drinking, this book is not for you. Every single chapter, or nearly at the least, features alcohol or drinking, in large part because the main character works as a bartender. While this is not a trigger for me, I cannot drink because of medical reasons so I did feel a bit of a disconnect from the subject matter of this book.

That being said, I really enjoyed one of my first polyamorous romance books! Our main character, Mel, is so messy and while I love that about her, sometimes I also wanted to shake her character for being so conflict avoidant and leading us to avoidable situations. Of the individual pairings, I was probably most enraptured by Kade & Mel. I love the trope of "I think they hate me but really they have a massive crush on me," and it's cute to see it played out with forced proximity.

I loved getting to see nonbinary representation, especially with a person AMAB as we usually do not get to see that representation as often. It brought one of my favorite lines in the book, something I could so easily see a "well meaning" person ignorant to trans people saying, which was "Oh! I thought only women could be nonbinary." It so perfectly captures how cis people still see nonbinary people as the gender they were assigned at birth (in particular, "women lite") that I wanted to show this to all of the cis people in my life to point out the hypocrisy and how not to be an ally.

Overall, though, we mainly get to see queer & trans joy, with only a few moments of transphobia sprinkled in to show the everyday reality of trans people. I loved getting to see someone stumbling into polyamory for the first time and trying to work through her ignorance, including many questions and situations I could imagine myself getting into if I was in her place. Queerness can be a confusing journey, and I love books that approach baby queers (in this case, baby polyams?) and the joy and confusion that comes from new experiences and how isolating it can feel to think it comes naturally to everyone but you.

My first TJ Alexander book, but I'm excited to explore more by them!

Content Warnings

Hammajang Luck

Makana Yamamoto

Queer heist novel is a new favorite subgenre of mine, and this hit the spot so well! I love how diverse the queer rep in this book is, from lesbians, to a trans woman, to a few mahu, a native Hawaiian third gender. I loved meeting our diverse crew of characters and learning each of their “tropes” in the heist genre and what brought them to where they are at today, and what lead them to take the job.

We meet our main character, Edie, just as they are mysteriously released early from prison after 8 years behind bars. Edie is met by Angel, the cause of their time, who offers them a position on their crew for the biggest job of their lives. Gradually, we meet the rest of the large crew, which takes a good portion of the front of the book and does impact the pacing a bit, but overall brings us to know the characters I quickly loved and cared for.

I’ll admit I, like Edie, had a hard time forgiving Angel and rooting for the obvious romantic & sexual tension between the two of them. Angel forever changed the lives of both Edie but all of Edie’s family that relies on them to keep afloat. Even after the “big reveals” that are supposed to make us sympathize, I struggled for awhile to root for her.

Ultimately, though, the story shows it is the systems, not the people forced to make tough decisions within it, that are evil. Don’t read this book if you are somehow pro- capitalism, gentrification, and colonization — or do, and hopefully learn something new through seeing what people are forced to do to survive.

Definitely going on my Be Gay Do Crime book list.

tropes & tags

Be gay do crime
Heist novel
Messy gays

Content Warnings

The Appendix: Transmasculine Joy in a Transphobic Culture

Liam Konemann

DID NOT FINISH: 39%

Did not finish before my library hold expired; first chapter was heavier than I expected from the title and took me longer to read

I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I'm Trapped in a Rom-Com

Kimberly Lemming

4.75

adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

If you love Kimberly Lemming's Mead Mishap series you'll love this book! It's light on the sci-fi and world building and is instead a fun, hilarious, romantic, spicy romp. The book doesn't take itself too seriously and neither should you!

There are some minor pacing problems and I wish we had a little more time with the characters and this world, but I devoured this book and there's a reason Kimberly Lemming is an auto-buy author for me!

Content Warnings