Tell Me How You Really Feel by Aminah Mae Safi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was the queer, brown Gilmore Girls remake of my dreams and I am LIVING FOR IT. This was the best kind of enemies-to-lovers story fueled by misunderstandings and insecurities rather than actual douchebaggery. Both Sana and Rachel were gorgeously fleshed out characters coming to terms with family expectations, dreams versus reality, financial pressure, and struggling to present the most honest version of yourself.
I was once again blessed to read the second story in the last month about a Jewish character whose Judaism is actually an integral part of her identity and her story. The Passover seder literally had me wanting to shout from the rooftops because this is how you include cultural tradition and identity into story!! I really had to put the book down and just soak in that scene because it felt so god damn good.
Honestly, I'm just kinda sitting here grinning stupidly to myself over how much I just adore this book. This was definitely one the highlights of my year and I will absolutely be coming back to this book again and again.
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Deposing Nathan by Zack Smedley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book was an incredibly tough read. Trigger warnings for internalized homophobia, homophobic violence, biphobia, infidelity, gaslighting, and child abuse. This book was emotionally brutal. Definitely take stock of your mental health before getting into it. This book was a gut punch, to be quite honest.
So much about Nathan's relationship to Catholicism hit so achingly close to home. There were moments at the beginning of the book that reminded me of the comfort I found in Catholicism as a teenager, but the majority of the book really reminded me why I cannot be Catholic any more. Why I can't be Christian at all anymore. I respect the hell out of the fact that Nathan and Cam both are able to find an equilibrium between their bisexual identities and their Catholic identities and are able to find some peace in their religion. But I cannot fucking do it. Nathan's absolute anguish over his "sin" and his fear of hell should never exist for anyone. Exploring your identity should not include an existential crisis over what hell is and how overwhelmingly awful it will be for all eternity. I simply can't square the practice of Catholicism as I experienced it and as other people like Nathan experience it with my view of human rights and human decency and this book kind of punched me in the face with that. I really was not expecting it and it made this a tough book to read for me, even as I appreciate what it was doing.
I also really really appreciated the ending. (view spoiler)[I am so happy that Cam was able to recognize that his relationship with Nathan was bad and that they couldn't keep it up without continuing to tear each other apart. I'm so glad that the abuse the two of them inflicted on each other was acknowledged and that the fact that they loved each other or could love each other wasn't a good enough reason to stay in touch or try to maintain any kind of relationship - platonic or romantic or anything else - once Nathan moved away. Quite often love is not enough. Admitting that and doing what's best for yourself is hard but so absolutely essential. I'm so happy Cam was able to do that and Nathan was able to recognize and accept it as well, even when he really didn't want to. (hide spoiler)]
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Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The hype is goddamn real y'all. This book was exactly the kind of hopeful catharsis we needed in the face of the last three years of unrelenting bullshit. In some ways this book hurt like a motherfucker because we don't live in a world where it actually feels possible right now for the bisexual son of the first female president to be a deciding reason for her reelection. Where sexual predators who are willing to hire hackers to undermine their political opponents don't become President of the United States. Where the whole world is willing to come together to support two queer young men in the public eye who want to help people as much as possible without stuffing their essential selves in a box. I enjoyed the romance, as well, but truly what made this book for me was all the ways it showed what we could have been in a marginally better alternate universe.
Don't get me wrong, the world is still pretty fucked up in this book. There are still assholes willing to see Alex's bisexuality as proof that his mother isn't a capable president. There are young people of color who have faced trauma in their past and have had to learn how to live with their powerlessness in the face of those who wronged them and the multitude of ways it's fucked them up. There's a British monarch who isn't willing to accept that the world has changed since she took the crown in 1947 and that her bigoted, antiquated views are actively hurting her country and the world. There's invasive journalism that doesn't respect the privacy of pretty much anybody. But still it's a world that elected a divorced woman in 2016 and reelected her despite her son's gay sex scandal in 2020. It's a world that hasn't had to face an increase in white supremacy and violence against people of color, Jews, Muslims, and queer people. It's a world that didn't let a private email server scandal determine the results of the election. And it's a world where two high profile queer boys are able to actually imagine their happily ever after.
So, yeah, I love this book. I love these boys. I love this relationship. I love all of their friendships and their relationships with their siblings and parents. I fucking love the flirting through fucking historical quotes because they're goddamn adorable nerds. I just. Really love this book. Get on the hype train y'all, it is so worth it.
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Star Wars: Darth Maul by Ron Marz
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I'm gonna be honest, Darth Maul is right up there with Boba Fett on the list of silent killing machine characters that I just don't care about at all. The obsession with these murderous super characters is just so tiresome and I'm never gonna be super hyped about a comic that's focused on them. I will say, that I did appreciate the way this story was told. There was very little dialogue, so the story was mostly conveyed through really expressive artwork. This fit well with how Maul was portrayed in The Phantom Menace and visually was a good work. Just not a story I actually care about.
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If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo
My rating: 0 of 5 stars
I'm struggling to come up with a rating for this book. Given the hype, I think I expected more emotional depth from the relationships in the book. But they all felt very surface level to me. Amanda as an individual was great, but her friendships and romantic relationship felt too shallow. Amanda and Grant's relationship felt like a plot point more than a genuine exchange of feelings. It developed so quickly and I just didn't find myself caring about their relationship at all. And honestly, I'm really angry about the climax of this book. It felt so unnecessary to (view spoiler)[publicly out Amanda like that and then have her be sexually assaulted?? Why did that have to be the narrative climax of the book? Why couldn't it have been something less traumatizing and public and fucked up? (hide spoiler)]
So I feel like this was a story that needs to be told - a trans girl starting over at a new school and wondering if not telling people she's trans is in some way lying or if she's simply living her truth and the details don't matter. But I'm not sure how I feel about the way this particular story was told.
I will say I loved the author's note at the end, explaining why she choose to portray Amanda's transness the way she did and that Amanda's experience is by no means universal. I definitely understand why Russo choose to use the easiest to swallow narrative as a foray into telling trans stories and I respect her reasoning and her decision.
I guess I think I'm at the point in exploring my own gender where I don't want to read stories where the character has always been sure; I want to see more stories where the character is confused as hell and trying to figure out the difference between identity and expression and how important that difference is to them and how their sexuality does or doesn't affect the way they think about their gender. So my mixed feelings might be more about the mental place I'm in rather than the book itself.
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Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Not gonna lie I was grinning stupidly to myself for the last like hour of this audiobook. It was just really cute and sweet. I really like Simon and his relationship with his friends and his family and, of course, with Blue. Despite the forced coming out, the book still felt really light and I enjoyed that a lot.
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Not Your Villain by C.B. Lee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I spent the first few chapters of this book being hella confused before I was able to square away the timelines of this book and its predecessor. It was honestly really disappointing to realize that the full first third of this book was just retelling the events of Not Your Sidekick. I definitely didn't feel like Bells's viewpoint added enough extra to our understanding of what happened in Sidekick to justify putting so much time into retelling it. That entire first third could have been cut and more time could have been put into Bells's family's illegal farming and the methods of resistance that his family has been practicing for decades already and how that informs the way Bells and his friends form their new resistance efforts. I feel like Lee really dropped the ball there and it made the entire reading experience kind of underwhelming.
I still love the characters of this series and I'll definitely continue it (esp since the next book is from Emma's POV and we're gonna get a lot of questioning aroace content which I am SO HERE FOR) but this installment just didn't do a ton for me. Which was unfortunate.
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