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simonlorden's Reviews (1.38k)
In theories of culture class we learned about the pleasure of recognition, and there's definitely something to that because maybe 70% of my enjoyment in this book came from recognising the same stories that were retold in Magnus Chase. The other 30% came from the writing.
Disappointingly straight, though.
Disappointingly straight, though.
I received a copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
5 hundred stars
While reading this graphic novel, my most common thought was “holy shit”, usually paired with “that’s me!”. It was like the author reached into my brain to pluck out my thoughts, memories and experiences, and turned them into drawings. Only, of course, e was doing the same with eir own memories – which happened to be hauntingly similar to mine. I firmly believe that if I had read this book before I was 18, I would have found my identity much sooner.
Gender Queer is a memoir that tells a story of a person growing up questioning both eir sexuality and gender. It addresses many issues that are described in the blurb, such as coming out to friends and family, feeling ignorant around your peers who seem to have more experience than you, relationships and being ready to be in them, listening to David Bowie, wanting to have life experiences as research for fanfiction, feelings about menstruation, having children, and much else.
Maia tells the story of eir childhood with beautiful illustrations, and honest even about the uncomfortable truths. Like most teens, Maia also used to be ignorant about some issues that e now knows better about, such as the dangers of using ace bandages. The only thing I would have appreciated more critical thinking on is the erotic gay shipping that is often used to fetishize gay men. There are several scenes where Maia and eir friends write fanfiction, including about real people, and mention several popular gay ships – and again, I don’t judge em and eir friends for these, but I still would have appreciated a couple of sentences about this shipping can be toxic as well as validating.
But really, what really struck me was how much I related to these experiences. Some scenes, like realising other girls shave their legs and I don’t, not being able to describe what haircut you want and then hating it, having a conversation with a mother about having children, wearing pants to graduation, and even playing a boy character in drama class brought up memories that happened to me, occasionally ones that I haven’t thought of or related to my gender journey.
Overall, Gender Queer is a beautifully written and drawn, honest account of a genderqueer bi/asexual person’s life. It’s special to me because I related to it so much, but I think anyone can enjoy it, and many queer people regardless of identity can find relatable moments in it. (There were also a lot of aro-relatable moments, although I’m not sure if the author identifies as aromantic as well or not.)
“It was everyone else being silly, not me.”
“This seed put out many leaves, but I didn’t have the language to identify the plant.”
“Friendship is NINE THOUSAND TIMES better than romance!”
“I’d be constantly resenting my kid for taking up all my time. I’m way too selfish for parenting.”
“I wish I didn’t fear that my identity is too political for a classroom.”
5 hundred stars
While reading this graphic novel, my most common thought was “holy shit”, usually paired with “that’s me!”. It was like the author reached into my brain to pluck out my thoughts, memories and experiences, and turned them into drawings. Only, of course, e was doing the same with eir own memories – which happened to be hauntingly similar to mine. I firmly believe that if I had read this book before I was 18, I would have found my identity much sooner.
Gender Queer is a memoir that tells a story of a person growing up questioning both eir sexuality and gender. It addresses many issues that are described in the blurb, such as coming out to friends and family, feeling ignorant around your peers who seem to have more experience than you, relationships and being ready to be in them, listening to David Bowie, wanting to have life experiences as research for fanfiction, feelings about menstruation, having children, and much else.
Maia tells the story of eir childhood with beautiful illustrations, and honest even about the uncomfortable truths. Like most teens, Maia also used to be ignorant about some issues that e now knows better about, such as the dangers of using ace bandages. The only thing I would have appreciated more critical thinking on is the erotic gay shipping that is often used to fetishize gay men. There are several scenes where Maia and eir friends write fanfiction, including about real people, and mention several popular gay ships – and again, I don’t judge em and eir friends for these, but I still would have appreciated a couple of sentences about this shipping can be toxic as well as validating.
But really, what really struck me was how much I related to these experiences. Some scenes, like realising other girls shave their legs and I don’t, not being able to describe what haircut you want and then hating it, having a conversation with a mother about having children, wearing pants to graduation, and even playing a boy character in drama class brought up memories that happened to me, occasionally ones that I haven’t thought of or related to my gender journey.
Overall, Gender Queer is a beautifully written and drawn, honest account of a genderqueer bi/asexual person’s life. It’s special to me because I related to it so much, but I think anyone can enjoy it, and many queer people regardless of identity can find relatable moments in it. (There were also a lot of aro-relatable moments, although I’m not sure if the author identifies as aromantic as well or not.)
“It was everyone else being silly, not me.”
“This seed put out many leaves, but I didn’t have the language to identify the plant.”
“Friendship is NINE THOUSAND TIMES better than romance!”
“I’d be constantly resenting my kid for taking up all my time. I’m way too selfish for parenting.”
“I wish I didn’t fear that my identity is too political for a classroom.”
4.5 stars
I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Yes, I know I’m super late to this party, but the book is getting re-released so it counts, okay?
The Love Song of Sawyer Bell is a wonderful F/F New Adult romance between two girls who just really love music. Although Vix has hookups and I know some people might find this bad rep, but it is made clear on several occasions that this is not because of her bisexuality. Personally, I loved the bi rep, and I especially loved that while there were some ignorant comments, they were all addressed and dealt with.
Meanwhile, Sawyer is just realising that she is a lesbian, while also figuring out that her prestigious, super competitive school is not making her happy. This was so important and nice to see, because often what you dream of and really want to achieve can turn out to be bad for you as well. Just like Sawyer, you need to recognise it and walk away.
Vix and Sawyer go from hooking up to falling in love. The book has a lot of sex scenes, but even as a sex-repulsed person I wasn’t as bothered as I usually am, because the sex scenes were full of consent, dialogue, jokes, and just generally felt like two real people who really like each other wanting to please the other.
There was also a side friendship between a bi girl and a bi guy, which is one of my favourite dynamics and I really need more of it. If you have any books like this, recommend them in the comments, please!
My only complaints are that 1) there was a brief comment where Sawyer is worried that if Vix can’t get her off then she is “defective”, which sounded pretty anti-ace to me, 2) while Sawyer’s jealousy is addressed, I felt like it wasn’t REALLY addressed that biphobia contributed to it. Like, it was kind of brought up but I still found it lacking?
Still, there was a lot of addressing of stereotypes, communication and consent, and despite some arguments this is still mainly a lighthearted and music-filled romance.
I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Yes, I know I’m super late to this party, but the book is getting re-released so it counts, okay?
The Love Song of Sawyer Bell is a wonderful F/F New Adult romance between two girls who just really love music. Although Vix has hookups and I know some people might find this bad rep, but it is made clear on several occasions that this is not because of her bisexuality. Personally, I loved the bi rep, and I especially loved that while there were some ignorant comments, they were all addressed and dealt with.
Meanwhile, Sawyer is just realising that she is a lesbian, while also figuring out that her prestigious, super competitive school is not making her happy. This was so important and nice to see, because often what you dream of and really want to achieve can turn out to be bad for you as well. Just like Sawyer, you need to recognise it and walk away.
Vix and Sawyer go from hooking up to falling in love. The book has a lot of sex scenes, but even as a sex-repulsed person I wasn’t as bothered as I usually am, because the sex scenes were full of consent, dialogue, jokes, and just generally felt like two real people who really like each other wanting to please the other.
There was also a side friendship between a bi girl and a bi guy, which is one of my favourite dynamics and I really need more of it. If you have any books like this, recommend them in the comments, please!
My only complaints are that 1) there was a brief comment where Sawyer is worried that if Vix can’t get her off then she is “defective”, which sounded pretty anti-ace to me, 2) while Sawyer’s jealousy is addressed, I felt like it wasn’t REALLY addressed that biphobia contributed to it. Like, it was kind of brought up but I still found it lacking?
Still, there was a lot of addressing of stereotypes, communication and consent, and despite some arguments this is still mainly a lighthearted and music-filled romance.
I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.
New Suns is an anthology of short stories, each written by an author of colour. There is a variety of stories, sci-fi, fantasy or a mix of the two, often based in legend or myth. I liked the diversity in the collection, and I was glad to see a couple of authors whose work I've enjoyed before.
My favourites were:
Jaymee Goh: The Freedom of the Shifting Sea
E. Lily Yu: Three Variations on a Theme of Imperial Attire
Karin Lowachee: Blood and Bells
Rebecca Roanhorse: Harvest
Darcie Little Badger: Kelsey and the Burdened Breath
There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.
New Suns is an anthology of short stories, each written by an author of colour. There is a variety of stories, sci-fi, fantasy or a mix of the two, often based in legend or myth. I liked the diversity in the collection, and I was glad to see a couple of authors whose work I've enjoyed before.
My favourites were:
Jaymee Goh: The Freedom of the Shifting Sea
E. Lily Yu: Three Variations on a Theme of Imperial Attire
Karin Lowachee: Blood and Bells
Rebecca Roanhorse: Harvest
Darcie Little Badger: Kelsey and the Burdened Breath
I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Cogheart is a story of a very brave girl who teams up with a boy who becomes brave, as well as a mechanical fox and some other mechanical helping characters. It's a real steampunk story with cogs and machines and robots who feel like people. There's also a female air pirate/journalist who is awesome.
This story is adventure-packed and relatively fast-paced. I liked the main characters, especially Lily, and I liked her love for machines, and that in the end she was allowed to learn what she wanted even if the interests weren't considered feminine.
Still, ultimately I found this story... too bleak, if that makes sense. It does have a happy ending and a happy epilogue, but there's also a lot of death and some quite gory scenes. I'm not saying it's inappropriate for a middle grade novel really, because I don't want to patronise kids, but it wasn't as lighthearted and fun as I expected from the cover and blurb.
Cogheart is a story of a very brave girl who teams up with a boy who becomes brave, as well as a mechanical fox and some other mechanical helping characters. It's a real steampunk story with cogs and machines and robots who feel like people. There's also a female air pirate/journalist who is awesome.
This story is adventure-packed and relatively fast-paced. I liked the main characters, especially Lily, and I liked her love for machines, and that in the end she was allowed to learn what she wanted even if the interests weren't considered feminine.
Still, ultimately I found this story... too bleak, if that makes sense. It does have a happy ending and a happy epilogue, but there's also a lot of death and some quite gory scenes. I'm not saying it's inappropriate for a middle grade novel really, because I don't want to patronise kids, but it wasn't as lighthearted and fun as I expected from the cover and blurb.
two things:
1) “Does someone want to explain what’s going on? Because this whole situation is getting damned difficult to follow, and I’d really appreciate some footnotes.”
2) *unintelligible screaming and happy crying despite everything* !!!!!!
+1 seriously, I'm on book 8, and I really thought Tybalt and Quentin liking guys would be brought up by this point in the main series. I know we were all a little preoccupied, but don't keep it in the short stories damnit!
1) “Does someone want to explain what’s going on? Because this whole situation is getting damned difficult to follow, and I’d really appreciate some footnotes.”
2) *unintelligible screaming and happy crying despite everything* !!!!!!
+1 seriously, I'm on book 8, and I really thought Tybalt and Quentin liking guys would be brought up by this point in the main series. I know we were all a little preoccupied, but don't keep it in the short stories damnit!
something I didn't expect to be saying a few books ago: Simon Torquill has joined my list of favourite characters.
Dianda and Patrick were already my favourites, but this short story definitely cemented that.
Dianda and Patrick were already my favourites, but this short story definitely cemented that.
hello yes I love the Luidaeg and she deserves good things and I hate that she rarely gets them
I love my all-queer supporting cast, and Walther is the best.
this book was still intense, but didn't have as many huge revelations as the last one, so it was still sort of a break.
this book was still intense, but didn't have as many huge revelations as the last one, so it was still sort of a break.
This was kind of fun, but also really weird. And the ending was so anticlimatic that even the characters pointed it out, so, you know, at least it's self-aware.
content warning for cheating, zombies, some gore, vomit, probably more I forgot
content warning for cheating, zombies, some gore, vomit, probably more I forgot