rainbowbrarian's Reviews (1.85k)

The marriage of Empress In-yo was a political one. A way to keep the Northern territories under the emperor’s control, after her father and all her brothers had been killed. But the Emperor doesn’t need to keep his new wife around once she’s provided him with an heir. In-yo finds herself exiled to a remote province, kept in a state of constant summer by the empire’s mages. Her young hand maiden, Rabbit, recalls that the Empress was perhaps not as helpless as everyone had hoped.

I had a little bit of a struggle when I started this book. There are a number of fantasy creatures and terms that the reader is just given without any explanation. I had to figure out, oh, that’s some kind of sentient talking bird... and this must be some kind of magic thing. But the story is WELL worth it. Don’t let that small amount of front loading put you off.

A cleric of the Singing Hills Monastery is sent to catalog the exiled home of the late empress and record it’s contents for the archive. Cleric Chih meets Rabbit there and as they discuss the contents of the house we learn the story of what really happened during In-yo’s brilliantly orchestrated rise to power. It’s a wonderful tale of what happens when you try to crush powerful women.

Nick Russo didn’t want to do it, but he couldn’t help but fall hard for Andy Fleming. Andy is the son of a publishing tycoon who own the Chronicle. Andy is from a totally different world of wealth and privilege, and what’s more, he’s engaged to Emily, Nick’s friend. So he’s straight and totally off limits. But Andy is like an adorable puppy that won’t go away and needs constant rescuing so he doesn’t wander out into traffic.Someone has to look out for him in the dangerous world of news reporting.
They strike up an unlikely friendship that Nick is determined will not turn into anything more. Besides, he can have his feelings and no one else ever has to know about them. But when Emily breaks it off and Andy shows up heartbroken at Nick’s doorstep, he can’t help but let Andy in.
But what if Andy’s looks and casual closeness mean something more? Can either of them risk what it might mean if this wasn’t just a friendship?

I absolutely loved this story. I couldn’t put it down. Nick is such a damaged but wonderful person and Andy is adorable and sweet and surprisingly sarcastic and funny! He’s fully accepting of Nick’s sexuality, and I really enjoyed watching Andy’s train of thoughts as he explored his own feelings as he allowed himself to wonder what it would be like if he were queer.
There is some on page homophobia, violence, and remember it’s the late 50s, but there is a real feeling of queer community looking out for each other and creating their own families in the spaces they carve out. It didn’t feel bleak and depressing. Nick struggled, and it was handled well.
Their snarky banter back and forth was fantastic, Cat Sebastian has a gift for that kind of thing. I really liked seeing them both grow as individuals and as a couple. Highly recommend this one if you like determined reporters chasing the truth and falling in love with their adorkable friends.

Hijab Butch Blues is the memoir of a Queer Muslim woman writing under the pen name Lamya H. I majored in middle eastern history when I was in college. I’ve been wanting to read this memoir for a while now. I’m glad that I finally picked it up.
I appreciated being invited into Lamya’s writing as she shared her personal journey through her faith and coming into her identity as a queer person and a person of faith. Those two identities are not always compatible and sometimes are a recipe for misery, oppression, and self hatred. I don’t especially consider myself a person of faith, although I do sort of identify as a witch. I think this book was a fantastic example of how faith can exist alongside queerness and be a source of joy and comfort instead of a tool of oppression. I think Islam is hugely misunderstood by most American as we conveniently ignore all the violence done in the name of Christianity and the massive shared roots that Islam and Christianity and Judaism all share.
I loved getting to see how Lamya came to understand herself and where she fit into the world. My heart breaks for the fact that she can’t be as completely open with her family about her queerness in the way that my intersectional privileges have allowed me to be with mine. There’s a definite push in America for queer folks to always come out to their families and that they must live “openly and authentically” or else they’re doing queerness wrong. And that is a shitty and dangerous narrative to express, especially to younger queer folks and queer people of color.
Pick up this book to learn more about our queer Muslim community and to maybe learn to be a better ally to them as well.

I freaking love Murderbot. So. Much. I think I will need to own these books. I can see myself re-reading these as a comfort read. Artificial Condition is the second in the series and Rogue Protocol is the third. I read both of them in basically one sitting each. They’re like potato chip reads, but with so much more substance.
In Artificial Condition Murderbot is making it’s way away from the commercialized parts of the galaxy where it hopes it can fly under the radar a bit more. But it’s also trying to get to the place where it allegedly malfunctioned and murdered most of the humans under it’s care. Murderbot needs to know what really happened before the Company scrubbed its memory. En route they hitch a ride on a transport known as Art. Art is a massively powerful AI that is somehow just running this unmanned ship. With the help of it’s terrifying new friend Murderbot digs into it’s past, and somehow ends up helping another set of lunatic humans who won’t stop rushing into danger.

I freaking love Murderbot. So. Much. I think I will need to own these books. I can see myself re-reading these as a comfort read. Artificial Condition is the second in the series and Rogue Protocol is the third. I read both of them in basically one sitting each. They’re like potato chip reads, but with so much more substance.

In Rogue Protocol, Murderbot finally gets the answers to what really happened and reveals an ugly mess with the information. It accidentally is befriended by a cute little Pet Bot named Miki. In uncovering the data Murderbot again ends up having to protect a whole new group of humans! What is a bot to do when they’re so reckless and there’s something out to kill them all. Murderbot is struggling with what to do with the information that it found on Ravi Hyral. The human who helped rescue Murderbot has come under fire in the wake of its escape. Afterall, no one wants a rogue SecUnit loose in the galaxy. But the information Murderbot found could help get her out of that. Does Murderbot want to risk getting that information to her when it could get discovered and destroyed for doing it?

Do yourself a favor and fall in love with Murderbot too. I love Murderbot’s long suffering struggle with how to interact (as little as bot-ily possible, please!) with the humans around it. These short thrillers are full of heart and such a very relatable struggle to understand who we are and what we want to do with the time given to us.

How far is too far when it comes to changing yourself to catch someone’s eye? Randy is a high femme gay kid who has been going to Camp Outland for years. As long as he’s been there he’s had a planet sized crush on Hudson, a hyper masc hottie who is tragically only into other masc guys. Over the rest of the year Randy has been working out and ‘manning up’ to turn himself into “Del”, a masc version of himself who is sure to catch Hudson’s eye. But to make this transformation work Del can’t act like Randy. He’s giving up a lot of the things that he loves to become Del. Will this plan work and is it worth changing who you are for someone else?
This was the May pick for the Reading Rainbow Queer Book Club that I run at my library. I was excited to read it because I really liked another of Rosen’s books, Lavender House. This book is a different genre and while I didn’t enjoy it as much as Lavender House, it was still pretty good. I full on think that Randy was nuts to change himself so much as he did just for some stupid boy, but that’s teenage hormones I guess. It was tough to listen to Hudson throwing out so much internalized toxic masculinity even at a safe space queer camp. We learn where he picked it up, from his crappy family, but it still felt like Hudson was stuck as a character. Should he not maybe have learned some of this stuff in the other years he’d been going to camp?
I have to keep reminding myself that these are teenagers doing dumb teenage things and that I did PLENTY of dumb teenage things when I was one as well. I’m looking forward to the book discussion we’ll have when we next meet!

I was really disappointed by this book. I hated the way they fought and failed to communicate and respect each other. It felt like them going backwards instead of growing together.

I had SUCH high hopes for this sequel but it ended up just making me sad.