07 Feb, 2019

Any Old Diamonds

/ posted in: Book Review, Reading

Any Old Diamonds (Lilywhite Boys #1) by K.J. Charles
on January 30, 2019
Pages: 320
Genres: Fiction, Historical, Love & Romance, Romance
Published by KJC Books
Format: eARC
Source: From author/publisher

Lord Alexander Pyne-ffoulkes is the younger son of the Duke of Ilvar, with a bitter grudge against his wealthy father. The Duke intends to give his Duchess a priceless diamond parure on their wedding anniversary—so Alec hires a pair of jewel thieves to steal it.

The Duke's remote castle is a difficult target, and Alec needs a way to get the thieves in. Soldier-turned-criminal Jerry Crozier has the answer: he'll pose as a Society gentleman and become Alec's new best friend.

But Jerry is a dangerous man: controlling, remote, and devastating. He effortlessly teases out the lonely young nobleman’s most secret desires, and soon he’s got Alec in his bed—and the palm of his hand.

Or maybe not. Because as the plot thickens, betrayals, secrets, new loves, and old evils come to light. Now the jewel thief and the aristocrat must keep up the pretence, find their way through a maze of privilege and deceit, and confront the truth of what's between them...all without getting caught.

K.J. Charles is one of the romance authors that I found out about on Twitter and now is an autobuy for me. I was thrilled when she offered ARCs of this book to readers.

A lot of her books that I’ve read previously have focused on people who aren’t part of the gentry. That has been a major part of the appeal for me. This one crosses class lines into upper crust society and I think that wasn’t as enjoyable for me as her previous books. Still, the premise is inventive.

An upper class man has abandoned his children because they vocally opposed his second marriage. The children are adults and they are living in poverty with some terrible consequences. Alec decides to get back at his father by hiring thieves to steal the showy anniversary present that his father plans to give his wife. However, to get close to his father he’ll have to pretend to abandon his principles to get back to a life of leisure. This is going to alienate him from his siblings who don’t know that he has another motive.

This conflict between what he believes and the pretense that he needs to keep up tears at him. He has no practice or talent at being underhanded at all. For help he’s reliant on the con man he hired to coach him and who he is very drawn to.

I like more slow burn and not much sex on the page in my romance books. That’s definitely not what you get in these books. This relationship has a dominance-submission aspect to it. It is handled well and respectfully to both parties. I would recommend this book if you like historical romances that aren’t just ladies looking for dukes.

25 Jul, 2018

Unfit to Print

/ posted in: Book Review, Reading

Unfit to Print by K.J. Charles
on July 10, 2018
Pages: 145
Genres: Fiction, Historical, Love & Romance
Format: eBook
Source: Owned
Setting: England

When crusading lawyer Vikram Pandey sets out in search of a missing youth, his investigations take him to Holywell Street, London’s most notorious address. He expects to find a disgraceful array of sordid bookshops. He doesn’t expect one of them to be run by the long-lost friend whose disappearance and presumed death he’s been mourning for thirteen years.

Gil Lawless became a Holywell Street bookseller for his own reasons, and he’s damned if he’s going to apologise or listen to moralising from anyone. Not even Vikram; not even if the once-beloved boy has grown into a man who makes his mouth water.

Now the upright lawyer and the illicit bookseller need to work together to track down the missing youth. And on the way, they may even learn if there’s more than just memory and old affection binding them together...

I read this book immediately after A Gentleman Never Keeps Score. The two fit together nicely because they share the theme of sexual abuse/exploitation of teenage boys due to poverty.

Gil is a bastard child of a rich family. When his father died, his older half-brother cut off his education and funds. In order to survive he was a prostitute. Now he runs a bookstore that sells pornography, which is illegal.

Vikram is a lawyer who takes some pro bono cases in London’s Indian community. He knew Gil at school where they bonded over being the only dark-skinned people. He has always wondered what happened to his friend when he suddenly left school but no one would answer his questions. Vikram is investigating the disappearance of an Indian teen who worked as a prostitute. The only clue is a studio photo that the boy’s parents had. There is no way he could afford to have bought it. Vikram guesses he may have been modeling for erotic photographers and was given the formal portrait as partial payment.

There is a bit of over the top serendipity in the main characters meeting. It is like, “I’m searching for this lost boy because it reminds me of my former best friend who went missing. I’ll go to this bookstore. Oh, look! There is my missing best friend. Imagine that!”

Vikram wants to renew his friendship with Gil but has a very hard time accepting the world Gil lives in. He is uncomfortable with the life his friend was forced to lead while he continued his comfortable life in school and university. Gil is cynical about Vikram’s desire to help people because in his life he hasn’t seen many people with that motivation.

This is a novella but there is a good amount of character growth in it. It was interesting to find out all about the Victorian pornography trade. I haven’t seen that as a basis for a romance before.

24 Jul, 2018

A Gentleman Never Keeps Score

/ posted in: Book Review, Reading

A Gentleman Never Keeps Score by Cat Sebastian
on July 10th 2018
Pages: 384
Genres: Fiction, Historical, Love & Romance
Published by Avon Impulse
Format: eBook
Source: Owned
Setting: England

Once beloved by London's fashionable elite, Hartley Sedgwick has become a recluse after a spate of salacious gossip exposed his most-private secrets. Rarely venturing from the house whose inheritance is a daily reminder of his downfall, he’s captivated by the exceedingly handsome man who seeks to rob him.

Since retiring from the boxing ring, Sam Fox has made his pub, The Bell, into a haven for those in his Free Black community. But when his best friend Kate implores him to find and destroy a scandalously revealing painting of her, he agrees. Sam would do anything to protect those he loves, even if it means stealing from a wealthy gentleman. But when he encounters Hartley, he soon finds himself wanting to steal more than just a painting from the lovely, lonely man—he wants to steal his heart.

Content Warning from Author: This book includes a main character who was sexually abused in the past; abuse happens off page but is alluded to.

It is not strictly necessary to read the first book in this series to understand this book but it helps to gain understanding of the family background. Hartley is the oldest brother. He tried to make a prosperous life for his brothers by attaching himself to a rich man who was interested in him. At the time Hartley was a teenager and the relationship was abusive. At the beginning of the book, he has inherited his abuser’s house in London. Relatives of the abuser let details of the relationship out and Hartley is now shunned in society. He is living in a house where most of the servants have left because of the scandal. He is dealing with the psychological aftermath of an abusive relationship.

I love Cat Sebastian’s writing. Her plots are original and include people and situations that aren’t often seen in traditional historical romances. Sam is a black man who formerly was a boxer. He is trying to make a living running a pub but he is being harassed by a policeman who is convinced that there are illegal boxing matches in the bar. His brother wants to marry a woman but she is stalling. She tells Sam that she once posed for a naked painting for a rich man. She doesn’t feel right marrying a respectable man when that painting is still out there somewhere. Sam decides to track down the painting to steal and destroy it. The trail leads him to Hartley’s house because it was painted for his abuser.

This book highlights found family. Hartley assembles a rag tag staff of people from London’s underworld who have nowhere else to go. His valet is a former male prostitute. The valet brings home a cook/maid who was thrown out of her house for being pregnant. Slowly he realizes that piecing his life back together doesn’t mean that it has to look the same as it did before. He looks to rebuild his ability to trust and love that was severely damaged in his previous relationship. He needs to deal with the anger he has about being forced to prostitute himself for his family, who are uncomfortable with him now because of it.

I love all the characters in this story. The author does a wonderful job of making them each well-drawn, three dimensional people. No one is just a side character there to advance the plot. I’m looking forward to the next installment of this series.

13 Jun, 2017

Book Versus Movie – How to Survive A Plague

/ posted in: Reading

How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France
on November 29th 2016
Pages: 640
Genres: History, Nonfiction
Published by Knopf
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
Setting: New York

A riveting, powerful telling of the story of the grassroots movement of activists, many of them in a life-or-death struggle, who seized upon scientific research to help develop the drugs that turned HIV from a mostly fatal infection to a manageable disease. Ignored by public officials, religious leaders, and the nation at large, and confronted with shame and hatred, this small group of men and women chose to fight for their right to live by educating themselves and demanding to become full partners in the race for effective treatments. Around the globe, 16 million people are alive today thanks to their efforts.
In dramatic fashion, we witness the founding of ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group), and the rise of an underground drug market in opposition to the prohibitively expensive (and sometimes toxic) AZT. We watch as these activists learn to become their own researchers, lobbyists, drug smugglers, and clinicians, establishing their own newspapers, research journals, and laboratories, and as they go on to force reform in the nation s disease-fighting agencies.
With his unparalleled access to this community David France illuminates the lives of extraordinary characters, including the closeted Wall Street trader-turned-activist, the high school dropout who found purpose battling pharmaceutical giants in New York, the South African physician who helped establish the first officially recognized buyers club at the height of the epidemic, and the public relations executive fighting to save his own life for the sake of his young daughter.
Expansive yet richly detailed, this is an insider's account of a pivotal moment in the history of American civil rights. Powerful, heart-wrenching, and finally exhilarating, How to Survive a Plague is destined to become an essential part of the literature of AIDS.

Think back to a time not that long ago when:

The New York Times banned the use of the words gay and lesbian in the newspaper
Hospitals and funeral homes turned away people they suspected were infected with AIDS
Weekly meetings of gay activists included a list of names of people who had been at the last meeting and who had died since

This book tells the story of ACT UP. This was a group founded to pressure scientists, politicians, and drug companies to increase the number of drugs being investigated for possible treatment for AIDS.

One of the main problems in the beginning, besides a lack of funding, was government scientists’ insistence on doing double-blind controlled studies. They weren’t wrong from a science perspective. These trials have patients in two groups. One group gets the treatment and the other gets a placebo. Neither the patient or the doctor knows who is in each group. The problem was that people with AIDS were dying so quickly that being in a placebo group for a few months, especially if you were required to go off all other medication, was basically a death sentence. There are stories of trials in this book where all the placebo group died in the course of the trial.

Without these studies to cover them from liability no one was willing to go on record and recommend using drugs off label. Doctors in the field, especially if they didn’t handle many AIDS cases, then didn’t know that giving a common antibiotic decreased the chances of patients dying of opportunistic pneumonia, for example. This was the leading cause of death in AIDS patients. It was almost entirely preventable and no one would officially say so. ACT UP worked to streamline and humanize the drug trials.

They were able to:

Stop people having to go off all other medications (like antibiotics to prevent pneumonia) to be in the trial
Allow drugs to be tested on women and people of color
Allow a parallel track where sick people who couldn’t wait for formal drug approval could try the drugs in the trial at their own risk and data could be collected about their experiences
Get drug companies to stop increasing prices of the drugs as demand went up.

I don’t remember hearing anything good about ACT UP at the time. I only knew of them from news coverage that was always negative because of their dramatic demonstrations. The first time I ever heard of ACT UP in a positive light was when I started watching Gay USA on TV. One of the hosts talked about being in ACT UP. Her name is Ann Northrup and she is in the movie a lot more than in the book. The associate producer of Gay USA is named Bill Bahlman. I know that because he does the intro to the podcast that I listen to now. What I didn’t know is what all he did during the early days of the AIDS epidemic to reach lawmakers.

This book is a long, slow read. It is very densely packed with names and actions and committee meetings. The author was a young, gay journalist reporting on AIDS in New York at the time. It is very focused on New York. Occasionally it talks about San Francisco but you could get the sense that except for occasional mentions of Africa, that AIDS was only a New York/California problem. It is also focused primarily on white gay men. This was one of the criticisms of the drug trials. They wouldn’t enroll women, people of color, or drug users. Although ACT UP seemed to give equal representation to women, those women aren’t discussed much in the book with a few exceptions.

When I was almost finished with the book I watched the documentary that the book came out of. It is also called How To Survive a Plague and is available on Netflix.

I don’t think that I would have understood the documentary as much if I didn’t already know what they were talking about from the book. Especially at the beginning of the documentary, there wasn’t a lot of context given for the video being shown. I understood where they were and what they were protesting from reading the book. It was interesting for me to see what I had read about but I don’t think the documentary did a good job of really explaining all the issues that they were fighting for.

This book is a must read for anyone interested in the history of medicine or the gay rights movement in the United States. It is heartbreaking and inspirational. This is civil action on so many levels. It is interesting to look back now and see how far the United States has come in just the last 30 years – even when we feel like there is so much that needs to be better.

Other books that I like on this subject are And The Band Played On and My Own Country.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Books Set in North America
LBGTQ authors/characters

04 Apr, 2017

My Own Country

/ posted in: Reading

My Own Country: A Doctor's Story by Abraham Verghese
on April 25, 1995
Pages: 432
Genres: Nonfiction, Personal Memoirs
Format: Paperback
Source: Library
Setting: Tennessee

Nestled in the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee, the town of Johnson City saw its first AIDS patient in August 1985. Working in Johnson City was Abraham Verghese, a young Indian doctor specializing in infectious diseases who became, by necessity, the local AIDS expert. Out of his experience comes a startling, ultimately uplifting portrait of the American heartland.

I have been coming across books in the most roundabout ways recently. For March’s 6 Degrees of Separation post I needed a book set in Ethiopia. I thought of Cutting for Stone which I’ve never read so I wasn’t absolutely sure that’s where it was set. I looked it up on Goodreads and saw that the author wrote this book about his life in Tennessee. Was I actually mixing up Ethiopia and Tennessee in my mind? Not exactly. He was in rural east Tennessee at about the same time I was in school there. That intrigued me.

In the late 1980s he finished his residency as an infectious disease specialist in Boston. He decided to take a job in Tennessee for the slower pace and better quality of life. He planned to split his time between a VA nursing home/hospital and a small public hospital.

At the same time he moved to Tennessee, the first AIDS cases were appearing in the area. He had seen AIDS patients in Boston. His experience in infectious disease made him the logical doctor for people to refer patients to in the area. At this point there was no real treatment. All he could do was monitor their blood counts and support them through their secondary diseases. At first the community of AIDS patients was small and he spent a lot of time going into their homes and getting to know them and their families.

The initial patients he saw were gay men who had moved away from the area in order to lead more open lives in big cities. Now they were sick and were coming home for help from their families. There was a huge stigma. AIDS was a curse handed down for sinful behavior in a lot of the minds of the people of the area. Even the local gay community didn’t think it was in their local group. Many nurses refused to work with the patients. Some protested even offering them treatment in the hospital at all since it was ultimately futile.

Dr. Verghese had to confront his own bigotry. He was uncomfortable at first with gay men. He later concerned that he was showing preferential treatment to an elderly couple who had been infected by the husband’s blood transfusion. Was he falling into the “innocent victim” mentality towards AIDS? How did he feel about the man with AIDS-related dementia who had infected both his wife and her sister?

Even though this book was written in 1995, I would recommend it for anyone interested in medical history. This is an account of the front lines of an AIDS epidemic as it moved into an area. He is a very empathetic and compassionate writer who gave so much of himself to the patients that he ended up destroying his own marriage.

About Abraham Verghese

Born of Indian parents who were teachers in Ethiopia, he grew up near Addis Ababa and began his medical training there. When Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed, he completed his training at Madras Medical College and went to the United States for his residency as one of many foreign medical graduates.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Backlist Books
Books Set in North America
POC authors

21 Mar, 2017

Symptoms of Being Human

/ posted in: General

Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin
on February 2nd 2016
Pages: 352
Genres: Fiction, Young Adult
Published by Balzer + Bray
Format: eBook
Source: Library
Setting: California

The first thing you’re going to want to know about me is: Am I a boy, or am I a girl?
Riley Cavanaugh is many things: Punk rock. Snarky. Rebellious. And gender fluid. Some days Riley identifies as a boy, and others as a girl. The thing is…Riley isn’t exactly out yet. And between starting a new school and having a congressman father running for reelection in uber-conservative Orange County, the pressure—media and otherwise—is building up in Riley’s so-called “normal” life.
On the advice of a therapist, Riley starts an anonymous blog to vent those pent-up feelings and tell the truth of what it’s REALLY like to be a gender fluid teenager. But just as Riley’s starting to settle in at school—even developing feelings for a mysterious outcast—the blog goes viral, and an unnamed commenter discovers Riley’s real identity, threatening exposure. Riley must make a choice: walk away from what the blog has created—a lifeline, new friends, a cause to believe in—or stand up, come out, and risk everything.

Riley is a congressman’s child in a conservative part of California. The congressman is pushing for educational reform so Riley is taken out of private school and put in a public one for the first time. First day jitters are worse because Riley is gender fluid and is unsure of how to present on the first day of school. Within minutes of arriving at school, Riley overhears people guessing, “Is that a boy or a girl?” and one person decides to use “It” instead of any pronoun.

As part of Riley’s therapy after a suicide attempt, the psychologist recommends starting a blog. The second post goes viral. (Yeah, right.) Riley becomes an online star and eventually is outed publicly. It is a huge problem because Riley’s parents didn’t know.

An interesting aspect of the book is that the gender that Riley was assigned at birth is never stated. The author never uses any pronouns to refer to Riley. I’m extra impressed by this because it was hard to write this review without pronouns, let alone a whole book. (Some reviews I’ve read have taken issue with this because pronouns are a difficult part of life for some people.)

This is a very character driven novel. Riley and friends are the focus more than the plot. Bec is a new friend at school. She’s a social outcast and she’s in a band. She befriends Riley and becomes a potential love interest. Solo is a former outcast turned athlete who befriends Riley. This causes tension with his friends on the football team.

There is a lot of violence and abuse hurled at Riley in the book. Several characters have either committed suicide or have attempted.

Symptoms of Being Human does a great job of introducing gender fluidity to an audience who may not be familiar with the term. The author is not gender fluid but obviously did a lot of research into the subject. I’ve only seen one review by a person who identified as being gender fluid on Goodreads and that was a positive review for the book. The feel of this book reminds me a lot of None of the Above. The intent of the book is to educate on the subject. Large information dumps don’t bother me at all but some people get annoyed by it.

I think this book is a good one for people to read especially if they aren’t familiar with gender fluidity. Riley has a unique voice and perspective on the world.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Backlist Books
Books Set in North America
LBGTQ authors/characters

15 Feb, 2017

3 by Hannah Moskowitz

/ posted in: Reading

3 by Hannah Moskowitz
on October 31st 2016
Pages: 261
Genres: Young Adult
Format: eBook
Source: Owned
Setting: Florida

Taylor Cipriano had everything figured out, back when she lived with her single mother in Miami. Now, she's moved upstate for her junior year to live with her mom's boyfriend and her soon-to-be-stepsister and is trying to figure out who she is out of the shadow of her best friend. When she meets Theo—quirky, cute, sensitive Theo—he seems like a great match...except he has a girlfriend. Josey, icy and oh-so-intimidating.
But Theo and Josey aren't like anyone Taylor's met before; Josey grew up in a polyamorous family, and the two of them have a history of letting a third person in to their relationship. It's nothing Taylor's ever considered before...but she really likes Theo.
Her feelings for Josey, though?
That's where it really gets complicated.

I have a few things that I consider to be true about my reading life.

YA books generally annoy me.
I especially don’t like YA contemporary books.
I hate, hate, hate love triangles.

I hate to have to rethink long held beliefs about myself. I’m going to have to though. I’ve been enjoying some YA contemporary books lately.

I loved this book. I loved it even though this is an actual love triangle. Maybe I don’t hate it because no one is choosing who to love and is just agreeing to love everyone. It isn’t a competition.

Taylor is a junior when she moves to a new town. She meets Theo and Josey. She is warned that they are weird but she likes Theo a lot. When they explain to her that they are polyamorous, she doesn’t know what that means. In their relationship that means that they are open to other partners.

Other people misunderstand the intent behind the relationship. They feel that it is unfair for Theo to have two girls that he is using. They think that it means that Taylor is open to sleeping with any one. Taylor is nervous that her involvement will feed into stereotypes of Latinas being The Other Women.

What I found most interesting about this book is that I believed it. I wasn’t mocking the author’s attempts to make it seem like this was a real relationship that wasn’t exploiting anyone because it felt real. I could see how this relationship could work. It worked better than a lot of two person relationships I’ve read about in books. There were no major misunderstandings that could be resolved just by talking to each other. There was no game playing to make someone else jealous or insecure. It felt age appropriate.

My only complaint about this book was Josey’s obsession with vet school that didn’t make any sense at all. I ranted about that all in this post.

About Hannah Moskowitz

“Hannah Moskowitz wrote her first story, about a kitten named Lilly on the run from cat hunters, for a contest when she was seven years old. She was disqualified for violence. Her first book, BREAK, was on the ALA’s 2010 list of Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults, and her book GONE, GONE, GONE won a Stonewall Honor in 2013. She lives in Maryland.“

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

LBGTQ authors/characters

15 Dec, 2016

LGBT Books

/ posted in: Reading

What books did I read this year that featured LGBT characters?

Lesbian Main Characters

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

You have it all in here. Female-female cross species relationships, polyamorous families, asexual relationships, species that transition between genders.

Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear

Lesbian characters and a transwoman character in a steampunk story set in a brothel.

Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera

A young Puerto Rican lesbian travels to Portland to take an internship with a white lesbian writer.

Radio Girls by Sarah-Jane Stratford

This is historical fiction about the early days of the BBC. A lesbian executive and her promotion of homosexual writers is a point of controversy.

Everfair by Nisi Shawl

Lesbian main characters and polyamory

Unicorn Tracks by Julia Ember

YA fantasy about an interracial lesbian relationship on a safari looking for unicorns

Saving Delaney by Andréa Ott-Dahl

A lesbian couple agrees to be a surrogate and then needs to decide what to do when they find out that the baby will be born with Down’s Syndrome.

Santa Muerte by Lucina Stone

A time-traveling witchy story based on Mexican magic.

Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi

Lesbian main characters in a space opera

The Stars Change by Mary Anne Mohanraj

A terrorist attack on a planet changes everyone’s life in one night. Many types of relationships here.

Gay Main Characters

Smile As They Bow by Nu Nu Yi

Gay men and transwomen in Burma

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan

Gay men and a trans teenager

Transgender

Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family by Amy Ellis Nutt

This is nonfiction about a transgirl and her family’s lawsuit against her middle school.

Secondary Characters

Half-Resurrection Blues by Daniel José Older

Midnight Taxi Tango by Daniel José Older

My favorite character in this series is a Latina lesbian but there is also a gay Santeria priest.

Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older

Lesbian teenagers are secondary characters

Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs

This series has a gay werewolf in the uber-macho werewolf hierarchy.

Polyamory

The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor

A woman with two husbands leads the main character’s village

12 Dec, 2016

Becoming Nicole

/ posted in: Reading Becoming Nicole

Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family by Amy Ellis Nutt
on October 20th 2015
Pages: 279
Published by Random House
Format: Audiobook
Source: Library
Buy on Amazon (affiliate link)
Setting: Maine

“The inspiring true story of a transgender girl, her identical twin brother, and an ordinary American family’s extraordinary journey to understand, nurture, and celebrate the uniqueness in us all, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning science reporter for The Washington Post.”

Wayne and Kelly Maines adopted identical twin boys at birth. They were named Jonas and Wyatt. Starting around age 2, Wyatt started showing a strong preference for stereotypically female toys, clothes, and activities. He started asking about why people thought he was a boy.

I did enjoy the discussion of prenatal development that attempt to explain how identical twins can turn out so differently. Different positioning in utero can influence the availability of hormones to each twin, for example.

Mrs. Maines accepted what Wyatt was trying to tell her at an early age but Mr. Maines did not.

This section of the book was frustrating for me to listen to because there seemed to be so much misogyny involved. It seemed like the reason that Mr. Maines fought this for so long and so hard is that he had a hard time with a son of his preferring female things over male things. The book talks about how he wanted to play sports and hunt with his sons. Well, a girl child could do those things also. That was never mentioned. It was either there was going to be a rough-and-tumble boy or a sweet little princess girl. For a book about trans issues, the discussion of gender roles seemed very inflexible.

Wyatt’s classmates didn’t have a problem with any of this through elementary school. When it came time for middle school, the decision was made after talking to teachers, doctors, and counselors to have a legal name change to Nicole and to let her wear feminine clothing to school. This more public acknowledgement of Nicole’s transgender identity started to become controversial.

A Maine anti-LGBT group got involved in protesting against her. A grandfather of another student in the school told his grandson that if he ever saw Nicole go into the girls’ bathroom, he was to follow her in there because he had every right to be in there too.

It always comes down to the bathrooms. Why is that?

It makes me wonder if I’ve been using public restrooms wrong this whole time. Are we supposed to be getting naked and cavorting around the stalls? What do people imagine is going on?

Amazingly, the “logic” always seems to go like this:

Letting transgender people use the bathroom they identify with is the same as letting any random person choose any bathroom they feel like going into on any given day.
So, cis heterosexual men will take advantage of this opportunity to go into women’s restroom where (we must presume) they are imagining naked women lining up for their perusal.
This will lead to rape.

So, if I’m following the logic correctly, all we can fix all this and still let transgender people go to the bathroom in peace. All we need to do is:

Make cis heterosexual psychosexually disturbed men use a private restroom of their own — and —-
Teach these same men not to rape people

Problem solved! Notice that nowhere in here are transgender people a public hazard AT ALL.

Anyway, instead of using my logic, the school district banned Nicole from the girl’s restroom and made her be monitored by an adult at all times. This was supposed to be for her safety to keep the other student who was harassing her away but it punished her instead of dealing with his harassment. After trying to work out a solution, the Maines moved and filed suit against the district.

The lawsuit worked its way up to the Maine Supreme Court where they finally won a ruling that kids in school in Maine are allowed to use a restroom that conforms to their gender identity.

I finished this audiobook a few days before HBO released The Trans List, which includes an interview with Nicole. In this trailer, she is youngest woman who is talking about bathrooms. I watched the documentary. It is very good. It is only an hour long so if you have access to it you should definitely watch.

28 Oct, 2016

Juliet Takes a Breath

/ posted in: Reading Juliet Takes a Breath

Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera
on January 1st 1970
Genres: Fiction
Format: Audiobook
Source: Audible, Owned
Buy on Amazon (affiliate link)
Setting: Oregon

“Juliet Milagros Palante is leaving the Bronx and headed to Portland, Oregon. She just came out to her family and isn’t sure if her mom will ever speak to her again. But Juliet has a plan, sort of, one that’s going to help her figure out this whole “Puerto Rican lesbian” thing. She’s interning with the author of her favorite book: Harlowe Brisbane, the ultimate authority on feminism, women’s bodies, and other gay-sounding stuff.
Will Juliet be able to figure out her life over the course of one magical summer? Is that even possible? Or is she running away from all the problems that seem too big to handle?
With more questions than answers, Juliet takes on Portland, Harlowe, and most importantly, herself. “

Everyone needs to read Juliet Takes a Breath

Ok, that was easy. Review over.

Seriously though, this book has something to say to everyone.

Juliet is nineteen and has her first girlfriend. Her family doesn’t know and that bothers her. They are very close and keeping something this important from them feels wrong to her. She tells them right before she leaves for the summer to do an internship in Portland with her favorite author. The reception is not what she hoped for.

Portland isn’t what she expected either. It is so overwhelmingly white but the white people are weirder than any white people she’s met before. If she’s come to her favorite lesbian author’s house, why is there a naked man in the kitchen? Why doesn’t she understand what anyone is talking about?

There is no right way to be

Juliet had idolized Harlowe as a lesbian author who seemed to have the answers to everything. But as Juliet gets more involved in Harlowe’s world she sees that some of the ideas that Harlowe has might not be right for her. Part of her growing up and owning her own story is finding out how she needs to branch out and be different. Learning what to keep and what to reject is hard. She needs to see a variety of ways of being a lesbian so she realizes that there are options out there.

Likewise, Harlowe can’t mold Juliet to fit into her preferred narrative. This causes conflict in the book as they try to find neutral ground to speak to each other.

Not everyone speaks your language

Juliet doesn’t have the background in the language of the LGBT movement to be able to understand everything that people in Portland are talking about. Preferred pronouns? Polyamory? As readers follow Juliet’s stories they are exposed to concepts that they may also have not known about. It is also a reminder not to denigrate people who may not know the “correct” terminology but to educate.

This is a book for anyone who has ever felt out of place but who wants to belong. Juliet is charming and you root for her the whole way through the book.

I listened to the audio version of this book. The narration was amazing. Her accents were well done and the Spanish in the book flowed naturally in the story.

Do yourself a favor. Pick up this book and fall in love with Juliet.

20 Oct, 2016

Karen Memory

/ posted in: Reading Karen Memory

Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear
on February 3rd 2015
Pages: 350
Genres: Science Fiction, Steampunk
Published by Tor Books
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
Buy on Amazon (affiliate link)
Setting: Washington

“Set in the late 19th century—when the city we now call Seattle Underground was the whole town (and still on the surface), when airships plied the trade routes, would-be gold miners were heading to the gold fields of Alaska, and steam-powered mechanicals stalked the waterfront, Karen is a young woman on her own, is making the best of her orphaned state by working in Madame Damnable’s high-quality bordello. Through Karen’s eyes we get to know the other girls in the house—a resourceful group—and the poor and the powerful of the town. Trouble erupts one night when a badly injured girl arrives at their door, begging sanctuary, followed by the man who holds her indenture, and who has a machine that can take over anyone’s mind and control their actions. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the next night brings a body dumped in their rubbish heap—a streetwalker who has been brutally murdered.”

Oh my God, I loved this book. Loved it as in I started it Tuesday at 8 PM, finished it Wednesday at 3:30 PM, and am posting this review on Thursday.

It grabbed me from the first page where it explains that prostitutes are taxed as seamstresses. They even have sewing machines — a regular one and one that you get inside and use your body to control. I don’t understand how that would work but I want it!

The story is told from Karen’s point of view. She has a great voice. She is an uneducated sixteen year old who grew up with her father training horses. After his death she ended up working as a “seamstress” in an upscale house. The girls of the house are a family and protect and love each other in spite of their differences. They are from many different races. There is a trans woman. There are disabled women. Some are lesbians who only serve male clients because it’s their job. Karen accepts this all but sometimes still falls into the casual prejudices of white women in that time. Sometimes she gets called out on it. Sometimes she needs to learn her lessons a harder way.

The women of Karen’s house protect a prostitute escaping from a more disreputable house. This fans the flames of a simmering rivalry into out and out war. Karen gets grabbed by a thug at the market.

Don’t worry though. She hits him the face with a bag of onions. She holds her own until the fight is stopped by the appearance of a U.S. Marshal. He’s chasing a murderer who was in Indian Territory previously. When dead prostitutes start showing up, the Marshal enlists Karen and her friends to help his Comanche deputy and him find the bad guy.

This is a great read for any one who likes a fast moving adventure tale full of steam punk technology and daring ladies. Karen is a great lesbian heroine who sees the world in her own unique way.

10 Oct, 2016

Radio Girls

/ posted in: Reading Radio Girls

Radio Girls by Sarah-Jane Stratford
on June 14th 2016
Pages: 384
Genres: Historical Fiction
Published by NAL
Format: Paperback
Source: Owned
Buy on Amazon (affiliate link)
Setting: England

“London, 1926. American-raised Maisie Musgrave is thrilled to land a job as a secretary at the upstart British Broadcasting Corporation, whose use of radio—still new, strange, and electrifying—is captivating the nation. But the hectic pace, smart young staff, and intimidating bosses only add to Maisie’s insecurity.
Soon, she is seduced by the work—gaining confidence as she arranges broadcasts by the most famous writers, scientists, and politicians in Britain. She is also caught up in a growing conflict between her two bosses, John Reith, the formidable Director-General of the BBC, and Hilda Matheson, the extraordinary director of the hugely popular Talks programming, who each have very different visions of what radio should be. Under Hilda’s tutelage, Maisie discovers her talent, passion, and ambition. But when she unearths a shocking conspiracy, she and Hilda join forces to make their voices heard both on and off the air…and then face the dangerous consequences of telling the truth for a living.”

I love historical fiction and especially British historical fiction. I was thrilled to receive this book from my OTSP Secret Sister and had to read it immediately.

BBC radio was only allowed to broadcast during set hours and was not allowed to cover news. One of their most popular departments was Talks, headed by Hilda Matheson. It was unusual for a woman to be allowed to head a department. The head of the BBC, John Reith, was a very conservative man who asked all (male) applicants for executive positions two questions – Are you a Christian? and Do you have any character flaws?

He thought that Miss Matheson was too liberal in topics she wanted to cover. She also kept bringing in homosexuals to present topics. He did not approve but did seem strangely up to date on who had rumors circulating around about their sexuality. Their conflict was real and this novel examines their issues through the voice of Maisie, a secretary that they share. Reith warns her about being too ambitious and being exposed to the wrong kinds of people while working in the Talks department. Matheson encourages her to speak up and promote ideas for new shows. Eventually Maisie is enlisted by Matheson to spy on some new backers of the BBC who have ties to an increasingly unstable Germany.

Hilda Matheson was a fascinating woman who I’d never heard of before. She was a political secretary for Lady Astor, the first female Member of Parliament. Then she went to the BBC and after that she worked on the Africa Survey. She also became a radio critic and wrote a textbook on broadcasting. She was a lesbian who had relationships with several high society women in England. A book on her alone would have been fascinating.

There is spying, burgeoning feminism, the evolution of new technology, and arguments about censorship. What more could you want from one book?

27 Sep, 2016

Smile As They Bow

/ posted in: Reading Smile As They Bow

Smile As They Bow by Nu Nu Yi
on September 1st 2008
Pages: 146
Genres: Fiction
Published by Hachette Books
Format: Hardcover
Source: Owned
Buy on Amazon (affiliate link)
Setting: Myanmar

“As the weeklong Taungbyon Festival draws near, thousands of villagers from all regions of Burma descend upon a tiny hamlet near Mandalay to pay respect to the spirits, known as nats, which are central to Burmese tradition. At the heart of these festivities is Daisy Bond, a gay, transvestite spiritual medium in his fifties. With his sharp tongue and vivid performances, he has long been revered as one of the festival’s most illustrious natkadaws. At his side is Min Min, his young assistant and lover, who endures unyielding taunts and abuse from his fiery boss. But when a young beggar girl named Pan Nyo threatens to steal Min Min’s heart, the outrageous Daisy finds himself face-to-face with his worst fears.”

I bought this book several years ago when I was trying to read books set in as many countries as possible. I had never seen any other books written by a Burmese author. I never got around to reading it though. I finally decided to get to it during the #diverseathon readathon. I’m glad I did.

I didn’t know anything about nats or the Taungbyon festival to honor these spirits in Myanmar. Worshippers, mostly women, come to the festival to promise the nats favors and offerings if they help their family in the coming year. The book opens with beautiful descriptions of some of the people coming to the festival – a pickpocket lamenting the poor pickings this year, a poor woman, and a rich woman. Once the stage is set, the story moves to Daisy Bond and Min Min.

Daisy is a natkadaw or spirit medium. He pretends to be possessed by a spirit to bestow blessings in exchange for cash. The women around him will hear about it if they don’t offer him enough cash too. Min Min is his “husband.” He acts as a manager for both Daisy’s career and house as well as being his lover. Daisy is very insecure about his relationship with Min Min. Daisy is in his 50s and Min Min is a teenager. Min Min also isn’t gay. Daisy bought him from his mother to serve this role in Daisy’s life. He knows Min Min isn’t happy and is afraid that he is planning on leaving. His paranoia is serving to push Min Min farther and farther away until he does make plans to get away from Daisy.

Here’s a video that shows what the festival looks like now.

This book is beautifully written and draws you into the festival that you’ve probably never heard of.

15 Sep, 2016

Two Boys Kissing

/ posted in: Reading Two Boys Kissing

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
on August 27th 2013
Pages: 196
Genres: Fiction, Young Adult
Published by Knopf Books for Young Readers
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
Buy on Amazon (affiliate link)

“David Levithan tells the based-on-true-events story of Harry and Craig, two 17-year-olds who are about to take part in a 32-hour marathon of kissing to set a new Guinness World Record—all of which is narrated by a Greek Chorus of the generation of gay men lost to AIDS.”

I’d seen this book around but wasn’t really interested. Contemporary YA isn’t my thing. Then I heard last week that it was narrated by the spirits of men who died of AIDS and I had to read it.

I devoured this book in one afternoon. When the husband came home that night I told him that a book made me cry – twice. He was as surprised as I was that a book melted my ice-cold heart.

This is the story of three couples and of a single teenager. Craig and Harry are exes who are looking to set the world record for kissing at over 32 hours. They were inspired by a homophobic attack on their friend Tariq. Craig isn’t out to his family.

Peter and Neil have been a couple for over a year. Neil’s family is still not acknowledging his homosexuality.

Avery and Ryan just met last night. Avery is trans and is worried about letting Ryan know.

Cooper’s family just found out that he is gay and the resulting argument drove him out of the house.

These aren’t the stories that got to me though. I think that’s because I’m older than the typical YA demographic. It was the narration of the dead men watching these boys openly live their lives in ways that the men of the 1980s couldn’t have dreamed of.

“You can’t know what it is like for us now — you will always be one step behind.

Be thankful for that.

You can’t know what it was like for us then — you will always be one step ahead.

Be thankful for that too.”

Those are the opening lines of the book and that’s when I started getting teary. The passage that made the tears roll down my cheeks is later when Craig and Harry was going into the first night of the kiss. They have teachers watching as official monitors so the record counts. The teacher that is taking over the shift is recognized by the narrators.

“He’s Mr. Ballamy to his history students. But he’s Tom to us. Tom! It’s so good to see him. So wonderful to see him. Tom is one of us. Tom went through it all with us. Tom made it through.”

It goes on to tell the story of a man who lost his partner in the first wave of the AIDS epidemic and stayed in the community to nurse others.

“He lost years of his life to us although that’s not the story he’d tell. He would say he gained. And he’d say he was lucky, because when he came down with it, when his blood turned against him, it was a little later on and the cocktail was starting to work. So he lived. He made it to a different kind of after from the rest of us. It is still an after. Every day it feels to him like an after. But he is here. He is living…..

…. But this is what losing most of your friends does: It makes you unafraid. Whatever anyone threatens, whatever anyone is offended by, it doesn’t matter, because you have already survived much, much worse. If fact, you are still surviving. You survive every single, blessed day.”

I would recommend this book to everyone. Younger people will likely identify with the problems of the teens in the story. Older readers, especially those of us who remember the 80s, will think of all of those lost to the disease whose stories were never told.

15 Jul, 2016

Santa Muerte

/ posted in: Reading Santa Muerte

Santa Muerte (The Daniela Story #1) by Lucina Stone
on January 1st 1970
Genres: Fantasy & Magic, Fiction
Format: eARC
Source: From author/publisher
Set in New York and Mexico

In 2030 college student Daniela Delgado decides to kill herself. Instead of dying though, she is dropped through time to 1923 where her pixie cut and boy clothes convince people that she is a young colored boy. Soon she is on the run with an abused farm girl posing as an aristocrat and her male servant.

Back in 2030 Daniela’s mother fears that the only way to find her daughter is to contact her mother. They have been estranged ever since Emma came out as a lesbian. She also didn’t want any part in her mother’s delusions that she was a witch. But what if she wasn’t crazy and she is the only one who can help Daniela?

This is one of the more realistic time travel books that I’ve read. Daniela doesn’t land among rich people who will help her. She isn’t a history scholar who can fix past events. She’s just a girl who knows that the 1920s aren’t a good time to be mistaken for a young colored man and she needs to get out.

Things get weird when her smartphone still works. She is able to message another smartphone user in the area. This turns out to be another time traveler who recognizes the significance of her last name. The Delgados are family of powerful witches. An unprotected Delgado is an opportunity to earn a big ransom.

In the future, Emma is getting a crash course in the magic that she has rejected all her life. Can she embrace her family legacy and not destroy her relationship with her wife?

This is the first book in a series so things aren’t tied up at the end. I like a little more ending than we got here. I am interested to see what comes next in the series.

3flower

09 Sep, 2015

If You Could Be Mine

/ posted in: Reading If You Could Be Mine

If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan
on August 20th 2013
Pages: 247
Genres: Contemporary
Published by Alqonquin Young Readers
Format: eBook
Source: Owned
Buy on Amazon (affiliate link)

Seventeen-year-old Sahar has been in love with her best friend, Nasrin, since they were six. They’ve shared stolen kisses and romantic promises. But Iran is a dangerous place for two girls in love—Sahar and Nasrin could be beaten, imprisoned, even executed if their relationship came to light.
So they carry on in secret—until Nasrin’s parents announce that they’ve arranged for her marriage. Nasrin tries to persuade Sahar that they can go on as they have been, only now with new comforts provided by the decent, well-to-do doctor Nasrin will marry. But Sahar dreams of loving Nasrin exclusively—and openly.

The only homosexuals that Sahar has ever met are the friends of her cousin Ali. She doesn’t consider herself to be anything like Ali, who is always working on his next illegal scheme. But when Ali introduces her to his transsexual friend Pavreen, Sahar gets an idea.

In Iran homosexuality is punishable by death. However, transsexuals are considered to have a disease and the government pays for sex reassignment surgery. If Sahar transitions she will be able to marry her girlfriend and live openly. Unfortunately, her girlfriend may not be strong enough to defy convention no matter what Sahar is willing to do.

This is an eye opening look at many aspects of the LGBT community in Iran. Same sex couples are allowed to hold hands in the streets because that is considered normal for friends. Support groups for transsexual people contain people who are happy to be transitioning and those forced to transition by families who feel it is better than having a gay child. Police are paid to protect parties where gay people meet openly instead of turning them in. But get caught and the punishments are swift and severe.

Sahar is blinded by her love for her girlfriend and can’t see her faults. She is trying to make rash decisions without considering all the implications. This is typical teenage behavior but it can be frustrating to read because she is making huge decisions without thinking it through.

I was satisfied with the ending. I think it is realistic for the situation.

About Sara Farizan

“Sara Farizan was born on August 2, 1984 in Massachusetts. Her parents immigrated from Iran in the seventies, her father a surgeon and her mother a homemaker. Sara grew up feeling different in her private high school not only because of her ethnicity but also because of her liking girls romantically, her lack of excitement in science and math, and her love of writing plays and short stories. So she came out of the closet in college, realized math and science weren’t so bad (but not for her), and decided she wanted to be a writer. She is an MFA graduate of Lesley University and holds a BA in film and media studies from American University. ” from Goodreads

Tag Archives For: lgbt

About Abraham Verghese

About Hannah Moskowitz

What books did I read this year that featured LGBT characters?

Lesbian Main Characters

Gay Main Characters

Transgender

Secondary Characters

Polyamory

It always comes down to the bathrooms. Why is that?

Amazingly, the “logic” always seems to go like this:

Problem solved! Notice that nowhere in here are transgender people a public hazard AT ALL.

Everyone needs to read Juliet Takes a Breath

There is no right way to be

Not everyone speaks your language

About Sara Farizan