Time for some Pride

I read across a lot of different mediums this month and while I made a point of looking for books written (mostly) by authors who, like myself, claim at least one of the letters in the LGBTQIA+ family (hi, I’m Shiri, and in case you didn’t know, I’m pan- and demisexual) or wrote stories featuring queer characters, it was only as I sat down to write this and looked at my notes that I realized I’d found myself a theme as well. Turns out, the majority of the books I finished this month allow their queer characters to exist in their queerness without making it the central conflict of their stories. Why is this important? Well, for a long time, the only way LGBTQIA+ characters were allowed to be significant in media was either as the sidekick, the villain, or the protagonist whose sole purpose was to represent all the queer people in the entire world and fight for the rights of those queer people to exist. And those stories were really, really important. They still are. But so is letting queer people just live. Letting them have families and mortgages and nemeses and culture clashes and fight class wars and face down gods and monsters. Also important. Let Tim Drake and Connor Hawke have coffee at a diner. Let Quentin and Lawrence raise their kids. Let Siyon and Ismirlian make out in peace. We need both and while LGBTQIA+ characters can do anything, they can’t do everything. So here are some stories about them doing a couple of things at a time.

Bungo Stray Dogs: Dead Apple Vol. #3 by Gun_zi (Yen Press)

I’m going to be honest here: it would be really hard for me to hate anything BSD related but I am very much continuing to enjoy this side story both because, as usual, Dazai is doing something absolutely opaque that is pissing everyone off and also because of the blatant fan service being performed in having Akutagawa furiously and cruelly doing absolutely everything he can to protect Atsushi and Chuuya literally running people over to get to Dazai even while he’s calling his old partner-in-crime absolutely vile names and threatening to do him bodily harm.

Oh, and it’s a pretty good story too, something a little bit different than previous Big Bad Events in either the main BSD continuity or in other side quests.

I still haven’t watched the anime (on purpose) and my husband has been kind enough not to spoil it for me so I have no idea how the story ends and I won’t until the end of next month. The story group is usually pretty reliable so I’m relatively sure it will be at least decent so I’m willing to give Dead Apple a “recommend” at 3/4 of the way through.

My Dear Agent, Vol #1 by Ebino Bisque (Tokyo Pop)

I know, I know. Tokyo Pop. I bought it anyway and I liked it. This one does earn its E, so keep that in mind if you have youngs around like I do. Or you’re thinking about books you want to leave “strewn” around the house when you know conservative relatives are coming over. Not that I’ve ever done that. Not that I also recommend Dick Fight Island for such nefarious business.

Two bodyguards. The cool, collected, experienced one (Tachibana) and the newb (Riichi). The client is the wildcard here, in that they actually like him and he likes them and yeah, he causes a little bit of trouble but, in the end, they’re sort of a cute, little found family with the client as the catalyst to the romance. The reveal at the end of Vol. 1 isn’t anything particularly new or different but works really well with the way the relationship between Tachibana and Riichi is set up and eventually pays off and I’m excited for Vol. 2 in July. Sweet, a little spicy, and fun which honestly, the world is on fire, so gimme.

Best Men by Sidney Karger (Berkley)

There are infinite iterations of family and many of us in the LGBTQIA+ group value the members of the family we find as much, if not more, than the family we are born into. Karger’s queer romance, Best Men, plays with that dynamic when it pits best friend of the bride, Max against soon to be brother-in-law, Chasten. Especially when it turns out the two have met before in less than ideal circumstances.

Max is a very relatable protagonist for so many of us. Finding people who accept him has been difficult so when they change, he forces himself to change with them, or at least given the appearance of doing so, terrified of being abandoned and forgotten. He’s been forced to build a tough exterior to shield his soft interior, to mask the comfort routine imparts, to assume rejection so that it doesn’t sting so badly if it comes (it does, but it’s easier to pretend it doesn’t), and to prepare himself that if it didn’t initially, it will soon.

It’s not a sustainable way to live. Or to love. But he does it because he hopes. Just like so many of us do.

And then, inevitably, it all crashes down because life is for living and while our friends don’t abandon us or forget us, they do move on. They do things like get married and new people come into the circle and they become part of our lives too and, if they’re important to the people we care about, we make room for them in our lives as well and fronts are only sustainable for so long.

If we’re lucky, the people we meet take time to get to know the real us and sometimes even love us. If we let them.

A little twist I appreciated in Best Men that set it apart from other romances: Paige, the best friend and bride-to-be, isn’t actually the BFF she thinks she is or that Max deserves. While that injects some sadness to the story, it also it’s also a good reminder that you can be happy even if the bows on your gifts are a little lopsided. Sometimes, part of learning to love yourself is realizing that you don’t have to fit into the space other people have made for you. You can make your own space and if you don’t fit on their shelf, that’s okay. You can move on.

Runes of Fall Inheritance #9 by AK Faulkner

Are you reading this series? No? Why not? I read the first 8 books in a week and a half back to back to back and it was the only thing that kept me from burning my house down during COVID recovery. My only caveat is that it contains pretty much every trigger/content warning in existence so, you know, gird your loins.

Most excellent dads Lawrence (bi, horny, recovering heroin addict, various traumas, magical) and Quentin (gay, demisexual, recovering alcoholic, so much trauma, also magical but different magical) take the kids (adopted, teenagers, largely queer, also traumatized, also magical), to Disneyland which is mostly fun until Mel’s (one of kids) dad (magical Nazi) sends one of his magical lapdogs to let her know he’s coming for her. Dads and kids then go on magical training mission in desert with millionaire rock star friend and millionaire rock star friend’s sister who is an actor (long story) at which point magical Nazi dad does, indeed, come for her.

If you think that’s exciting, you should read the rest of the series.

Each entry in Faulkner’s series is tighter, with more action, and more exploration of really fascinating, well considered characters who yes, have some twisted shit in their pasts but who are leaning that what others have done to you doesn’t make you who you are. And now matter how evil and how vile your blood family is, you can choose something else. You can even use the experiences of cruelty or abuse done to you to become the kindest, most gentle person in the world or, at least, a person who directs violence where it’s due: at those who would hurt the people you love and have promised to protect. That coming from a monster can make you a knight, that coming from death can make you a guardian, and that coming from darkness can make you the light so long as you’re willing to let yourself love and be loved in return.

Also, the magic systems are wild. And yes, that’s plural because of course people who come from different places and different legacies wield different types of magic. And also there is a Big Giant mystery that I feel like we’re going to maybe finally get more of an answer to in the next book and boy, howdy, I can’t wait.

Also, there’s a raven familiar who cusses like, a lot and he learned how to say fucking Nazis in this book so like, I think I might need a tattoo of Windsor somewhere.

Fake Dates and Mooncakes by Sher Lee (Underlined)

I am really fascinated by this trend of class war being the issue in queer romance rather than the queerness and I need to look into it more because this isn’t the only book I read this month where it was one of the central conflicts that interfered with the romance and I’m wondering why it’s becoming a popular touchstone.

This was a very sweet book and a pretty perfect YA romance. I’m not huge on the miscommunication trope generally speaking but I think it works very well in YA romance and especially in Fake Dates and Mooncakes because 1) teenagers are still building their brains (2) ultra hormones and (3) Dylan and Theo do, in fact, come from two completely different worlds and beyond the usual teenage boy stuff, each of them is talking to a complete alien while one’s family is actively trying to help and the other is actively trying to harm. That they manage to meet in the middle at all speaks to the emotional intelligence and determination of both boys and lets be real, most adults would have given up way before they did.

Also, I’m going to show my bias here, but I enjoyed Theo deliberately getting up his dad’s ass. Adults don’t deserve respect simply because they’re older than you and his father is a dipshit.

So there.

Dark Moon Shallow Sea by David R. Slayton (Blackstone, 10/31)

Full disclosure: David and I are very close friends. That does not, however, prevent me in any way from reviewing his books honestly because if I didn’t like something he wrote I would tell him. Privately.

As it stands, I really loved Dark Moon Shallow Sea, so there.

It’s been years since I regularly read high fantasy (which is a stupid genre label because it implies it’s above low fantasy and urban fantasy on whatever fantasy scale there is. And that’s complete bullshit) because I stopped seeing myself in it. As I very, very slowly pieced myself together, I realized I didn’t fit any of the “female” models, nor any of the queer ones. None of those intended for male presenting folx really worked for me either. Also, everyone seems to think their high fantasy books have to meet the door stopper criteria and news flash, I’m 45 years old, I’m not carrying those fuckers around anymore nor do I have the patience to engage in anything that long unless it has to be that long. And odds are, it doesn’t; i think most books over 300 pages could be at least 50 pages shorter.

After reading Dark Moon Shallow Sea, though, I think I’m ready to start poking around again.

I don’t want to reveal too much about the book since I happen to know that David has some really cool publicity stuff planned between now and its Halloween release, but what I will say is this: you’re going to love the rich mythology and religious systems, with their nods to the ancient world and their evolution into something completely new and innovative. You’ll adore Rafe, Kinos, and Seth, who I’ve adopted as my magical sons along with Adam and Vic (from Slayton’s Adam Binder series) as well as cherishing and wanting to murder various side characters in turn. And watching the magic system unfold as the mystery unspools? The suspense will have you flipping pages and ignoring your clock and you won’t even regret it when your alarm goes off in the morning.

Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley (Henry Holt & Company)

If you haven’t read Boulley’s first book, The Firekeeper’s Daughter, I’d recommend it. Highly. I’ve actually listened to both on audio and really enjoyed the experience but I’m sure they’re just as wonderful via the eyehole method. You don’t have to read The Firekeeper’s Daughter to understand or connect with Warrior Girl Unearthed but I was invested in Warrior Girl from the jump because I had spent time with the characters and the family, because I knew what had happened to them before and felt as though I had a stake in their future. And, because I had listened to Firekeeper’s Daughter, I had done some research on the statistics regarding missing and murdered indigenous women, girls, and two spirit individuals.

That does not mean I understand it. Let’s be clear. I am not indigenous. I looked at some numbers. Numbers that were reported and many, many, many of those numbers do not get reported because local, state, and national authorities have proven time and again that they don’t care.

Nor do they care about the remains and religious items that were stolen by public institutions and private individuals or the repatriation laws they made that have more holes in them than something literally made out of holes. Remember that giant hole in S2 of Daredevil? The hole the entire plot fell into? That hole.

Warrior Girl Unearthed is also a story about the way men manipulate women, especially young women, about how grooming isn’t always sexual but can be. How there are good men. The ways in which women are stronger together. The ways in which sometimes, we do need to look back before we can look forward, and understanding that as hokey as it sounds, sometimes where we are is exactly where we need to be.

I learned a lot from this story, even if it isn’t really mine.

And isn’t that what the very best stories do?

Notorious Sorcerer by Davinia Evans (Orbit)

I do not know how I missed Notorious Sorcerer when it first came out but I’m really very glad that Orbit offered me an arc of the second in series (Shadow Baron, 11/14) because if I’d had to go longer without it, I’d have been real pissed.

Y’all know me pretty well by now and to say this book is my jam is the understatement of the century probably which means if we share jams (and if you’ve kept reading this far, we probably do) it is also yours. It has: a non-Western, urban fantasy setting; queerness (it seems like everyone is sort of bi-ish/pan-ish); a gorgeous, complex, non-Western, cosmology/mythology/magic system; found family; sisters becoming friends later in life; swashbuckling; mythological beings; a charming protagonist who enjoys giving society both middle fingers; his boyfriend who enjoys funding his escapades and using his social clout to support his boyfriend’s middle finger-giving; thwarted cops; well-organized prostitutes who are probably really the shadow government; and unmanageable aunties.

If that doesn’t appeal to you, I don’t know what to say. Go be boring over there.

Evans pulls every single one of these plot points together without dropping a single ball while, simultaneously, somehow, writing a character-driven story that both keeps the reader focused both on the who and the what for the entire length of story no matter who’s “on screen” and whether they’re sitting around chatting and drinking tea or facing down gods. Friends, I can sure you that, as a writer, that is really very extremely hard. And - and - Notorious Sorcerer is also funny as fuck. If I didn’t have other books to review that come out first, I wouldn’t buried myself in Shadow Baron without coming up for air. I certainly hope there are plans for more of these (Orbit, are you listening?). Like, 100 more.

Signing off to go read some more…