Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

I'm sure plenty of us are reading something special for Pride Month!! I'm currently reading a book of poems, Don't Call Us Dead by Danez Smith (it's ... uneven).

Let's recommend books to each other!!

I loved Pink!!! I'm looking for lesbian YA recommendations. Is The Miseducation of Cameron Post good?

And for poetry recommendations, I loved: When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen. I've got a book by Constantinos P. Cavafy lined up to read after Smith, and then maybe I'll pick up Mary Oliver, perhaps a re-read of her Dog Songs, or something else new-to-me. Other good lesbian poets are: Kay Ryan, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Amy Lowell, and possibly Emily Dickinson (I think with Dickinson it's just speculation that she had a relationship with her sister-in-law?)

Nadine wrote:
I loved Pink!!! I'm looking for lesbian YA recommendations. Is The Miseducation of Cameron Post good?

..."

I loved The Miseducation of Cameron Post!

Another suggestion is Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta. It's not strictly YA, but I think it'd be appropriate for younger readers.

From Bustle: 26 New LGBTQIA+ Books To Read This Pride Month

https://www.bustle.com/p/26-new-lgbtq...

Yesterday I made sure to find as many Pride end caps as I could at Powell's, and grabbed some LGBT+ recommendation bookmarks. I'll probably compare tomorrow, but there are a TON of books on their Pride page!
https://www.powells.com/pride

Books I have:
Let's Talk About Love
Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World
Bingo Love
Autoboyography
Gracefully Grayson
Two Boys Kissing
Blackfish City
The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue
They Both Die at the End
The Song of Achilles
Plus a stack of David Sedaris I got at the library sale

I don't have:
The Black Tides of Heaven
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Amberlough
The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives
Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story

Nadine wrote: "I loved Pink!!! I'm looking for lesbian YA recommendations...."

Lesbians seem to be much more common in speculative YA, off the top of my head I can only think of:
Other Words for Smoke
Out of the Blue
Girls of Paper and Fire
All the Lonely People
On A Sunbeam

Juno Dawson's All of the Above is pretty good if you're looking for female bi characters in YA.

I'm just getting around to reading This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel. I've also got the following ideas:

Call Me By Your Name
A Single Man
Every Heart a Doorway
More Happy Than Not
Carol
Fingersmith
Brokeback Mountain

As usual, I'll probably only read one or two this month, but this is some of my ongoing list to work from.

It looks like The Black Tides of Heaven is free on Tor for the next week.

Edit: I thought I should copy the j formation from a different post.
the free Tor book of the month is

https://www.tor.com/2019/06/04/happy-...

The Lamb Will Slaughter The Lion by Margaret Killjoy
Passing Strange by Ellen Klages
A Taste of Honey by Kai Ashante Wilson
The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang

Pride page from Audible

https://www.audible.com/ep/pride-audi...

It's the 50th anniversary of Stonewall this month, so I'm thinking about one of these, unless someone has a better suggestion
Stonewall: Breaking Out in the Fight for Gay Rights
The Stonewall Reader: Edited by The New York Public Library

Karen wrote: "It looks like The Black Tides of Heaven is free on Tor for the next week.

Edit: I thought I should copy the j formation from a different post.
the free Tor book of the month is

h..."


Yes I got the free Tor bundle too! I've been wanting to read A Taste of Honey forever now, but my library doesn't carry it. Voila! I may now read!! :-)

I thought Tor my have a more sophisticated way to stop none US/Canada people from accessing the free ebooks...but all you have to do is not select other. Shhhh ;)

Yeah I am Canadian as far as Tor knows ;)

A few LGBTQ books I've read and liked:

My Most Excellent Year
Rethinking Normal: A Memoir in Transition
Fingersmith
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
The Wild Swans

A few on my TBR:

The Music of What Happens
I am J
The Art of Starving
The Summer I Wasn't Me
Proxy
A Really Nice Prom Mess
The Lost Language of Cranes

Nadine wrote: "I'm looking for lesbian YA recommendations. Is The Miseducation of Cameron Post good?"

Here's a blog post (not mine) with a lot of lesbian recs, mostly YA:

https://thebookishactress.wordpress.c...

Karen wrote: "It looks like The Black Tides of Heaven is free on Tor for the next week."

ooh thanks for the reminder! I think today's the last day to download it, and I nearly forgot.

The Miseducation is Cameron Post is great read, especially for anyone nostalgic for the 90’s. But it’s tough to read in moments (things happening in the narrative itself).

My all-time favorite is Her Name in the Sky, although this one veers a bit into New Adult. Some people might find the amount of religion/Catholicism too much for their liking, but I’m a sucker for a religious queer fic.

Not lesbian, but definitely ff/wlw/queer is Leah on the Offbeat, which blew me away when I read it this year. And bonus as it’s the sequel to Simon vs...

I can also recommend Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruits.

Coincidentally, these are all set in the South. Hmm...

My LGBT+ Books so far this year are:
Iron Gold
Beartown
Us Against You
What If It's Us
The Music of What Happens
Tin Man
Red, White & Royal Blue
I'll Give You the Sun
Bloom
I Wish You All the Best
Naturally Tan
A Little Life
The Stonewall Reader

Just a heads up that a couple of books on the Book Riot on sale list are lgbtqia:

Guapa by Saleem Haddad
Edinburgh by Alexander Chee

I haven't read wither but I usually like Book Riot suggestions.

I plan to read these this month (or soon after, depending on library holds):
George
If I Was Your Girl
Karamo: My Story of Embracing Purpose, Healing, and Hope
Naturally Tan
Less
I Can't Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I've Put My Faith in Beyoncé

I recently finished these, and recommend them:
The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali (@Nadine, this is a lesbian YA novel)
There Will Be No Miracles Here: A Memoir
This is How It Always Is

Halftime update!


Finished so far:
They Both Die at the End - So good! I put this down as my book I think should be turned into a movie.

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue - Historical adventure. It was fine, I'm just not into the petticoat era right now I think.

The Music of What Happens - Both guys are dealing with things a lot bigger than whether or not they like each other. Each thing is something I don't usually see in books, so I appreciated that. Chapters alternate between the two guys POVs. I did the audio, which was OK but I didn't love the voice one narrator used for the other character, especially since it was nothing like the other narrator. Trigger Warning: (view spoiler)[Date rape - It's not really explicit and I think was handled pretty delicately, but he does deal with it throughout the book (hide spoiler)] It's set in June so this is my Set in the season book.

Two Boys Kissing - THIS BOOK! I thought it would be yet another YA story about gay boys, but it is so much more. 20 pages in, I walked into my friend's shop and was all OMG HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK? Probably my favorite narrative voice in all of books. It is now on my favorites shelf. - No chapters

Currently Listening:
The Song of Achilles - inspired by myth or legend


So it is turning out that so far all of my books have been primarily about young gay men. I want to read Let's Talk About Love (LOVE in the title) next but I can't find my copy. I have Autoboyography (two female authors), Gracefully Grayson (clothes on the cover), and Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story, which is my friend's next book club book. Maybe I could go to that. I also just got Blackfish City and am anxious to get to it. My problem is I have all of these books in print and I don't get through those nearly as quickly or easily as audio.

ALSO, I downloaded The Black Tides of Heaven (thank you!) BUT it was the day I got a new laptop, and I didn't know Chromebooks basically can't do anything. I have the file but cannot read it. Maybe I can figure out how to get it onto my phone? Or perhaps my old laptop won't die before I can read it there...

But DANG my reading slump sure broke with a vengeance!

I haven't been doing very well with my Pride Month reading! I did read the book of poetry by Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead, and I am currently reading the collected poems of C. P. Cavafy.

In fiction, I read Autoboyography, which is not the sort of book I would normally count since it's not own voices, but rather than hunt down the orientation of each author, I've decided to go with subject matter alone with my fiction this month.

I have both The Miseducation of Cameron Post & The Price of Salt currently queued up on my kindle app, but the books I'm currently reading have been moving soooo slow, I'm not sure if I'll get to these before June is over.

I'm reading Aurora Rising right now (my "set in space" book), and one of the characters is pansexual, so ... I guess I can say it is part of my Pride month reading. I'm also currently reading The Water Knife (my "cli fi" book) and one of the characters is a lesbian, and a supporting character was gay. (I say "was" since he's dead now - this book is brutal and gross and I think I'm giving it one star because of all the gratuitous violence. I recommend this book to exactly no one.)

I've actually been doing pretty good this Pride Month! This is what I've read so far:
Princess Princess Ever After
Tipping the Velvet
Albert Nobbs
Boy Erased
The Witch Boy*
Nine Last Days on Planet Earth
English Animals
STET*
Pages for You
An Unkindness of Ghosts
The Wolf in the Whale
The Proof of Love
Indistinguishable from Magic*

* = not explicitly LGBT+ themed, but the authors are LGBT+

I'm currently reading The Great Believers and should be able to fit one or maybe 2 more books. Most likely either Autoboyography or The Gustav Sonata. Perhaps Gentleman Jack: A biography of Anne Lister, Regency Landowner, Seducer and Secret Diarist since the Gentleman Jack TV show is concluding soon.

My best friend just recommended Mama's Boy: A Story from Our Americas by Dustin Lance Black, so I picked it up from the library. Mr. Black is the screenwriter for the movie "Milk" and is a prominent LGBT rights activist, and this is his memoir of growing up as a gay Mormon in Texas. Not sure I'll get it done by the end of the month, but we'll see.

I had hoped to read more than two books by or about the LGBT community, but it didn't quite work out.

What about Carry On? The sequel comes out later this year making it the perfect time to read it! Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda is another favourite of mine.

I've also got Red, White & Royal Blue on my reading list.

that is an awesome photo!!!

Nadine wrote: "I haven't been doing very well with my Pride Month reading! I did read the book of poetry by Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead, and I am currently reading the collect..."

I loved Don't Call Us Dead and I'm not necessarily a huge poetry fan!

poshpenny wrote: "Yesterday I made sure to find as many Pride end caps as I could at Powell's, and grabbed some LGBT+ recommendation bookmarks. I'll probably compare tomorrow, but there are a TON of books on their P..."

Wow. Powell's listing is an amazing resource! Thanks for posting that!

As I perused through these posts, I realized that LGBTQ+ (or whatever acronym you prefer to represent non-heterosexual) is now so common that without even trying I have read 11 books with non-hetero characters already this year and am finishing another one this week. That is SOOOOO cool! I am thrilled about that!! Inclusivity is great, but when it becomes "the norm"? Even better!

Monkiecat wrote: "Nadine wrote: "that is an awesome photo!!!"

Isn't it great? I love that picture :D That's me holding the giant rainbow flag, and that's the LDS temple in the background. Back when we were organizi..."

So cool! Are you in Idaho Falls? My step-brother lives there!

Awesome photo/news, Monkiecat!

I'm getting in Two Boys Kissing (based on all the recommendations I've seen on here!) and George real quick before the month is over. :)

Monkiecat wrote: "Nadine wrote: "that is an awesome photo!!!"

Isn't it great? I love that picture :D That's me holding the giant rainbow flag, and that's the LDS temple in the background. Back when we were organizi..."

I love this picture and story. I'm in Utah, so I feel your pain about getting the government (and the church) on board. These issues were the catalyst for me becoming ex-LDS.

Oh, and I love Idaho Falls. I spent a few days staying in the W hotel overlooking the falls, and I adored the sound of the water and the view. And the Collector's Corner Museum was one of my favorite places ever.

I never posted my recap! It went a lot more gay male than I hoped, but what can you do. I did just now find my copy of Let's Talk About Love, so I'll read that later in the year as my Love book.


They Both Die at the End
The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue
Two Boys Kissing
The Music of What Happens
The Song of Achilles
The Stonewall Reader: Edited by The New York Public Library
In at the Deep End
Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story

And a nice dovetail into my July theme, space! Sci-fi with queer protagonists, which kept going further than I thought, so I'll add them all here anyway.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Space Opera
The Sol Majestic

Great pic Monkiecat!

my Pride month reading has definitely slipped into July, too! My only regret is that all the authors I've read so far have been white, so my % of non-white authors dropped below 40%.

I finished the giant Cavafy book and realized I don't like Cavafy as much as I thought I did.

I read Sugar Run by Mesha Maren (my "SUGAR" book!) which is about a lesbian who has just been released from prison. She just happens to be a lesbian, she had a series of relationships, but the book is not about that at all, and I think this might be the first time I've read a book with a lesbian protagonist in which her homosexuality was not the main plot point. I really appreciated that. (I've read books with queer characters in which the plot wasn't about that, but they were never the main character.) I liked the writing but I felt the plot was a bit meandering and the ending was unsatisfyingly open-ended (I like my endings to tie things up!), so I didn't love this book, but I will definitely read more from this author.

Actually, I have to take that back right now. Kristen Lepionka's mystery novels feature a bisexual detective and her sexuality is not the point of the books at all.

I just finished The Salt Line by Holly Goddard Jones. Two of the characters in this book are a lesbian couple, but while they are important characters, they are more "supporting" than "main" characters. (I've decided that instead of just talking about reading all my "salt" books, I'm going to actually start reading them. This was the first one I finished.)

I'm currently reading The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth. I'm about 95% through it, and I really love this book. Reviewers are calling it a YA book, but I don't think it's YA. Yes it's a coming of age story (and I usually do not like those!) and the protagonist is a teen, but this feels like a "grown up" book. It's much darker and more complex than the average YA book I read. I was wondering if I should give it to my daughter to read next, but I've decided that no, it's not really a great book for a 13 year old, it gets too dark. She can read it when she stumbles upon it herself someday. It's such a good book, I'm kind of mystified by the mixed reviews it gets. Some reviewers say it's too slow, and that's usually something I hate in a book, but I find this to be very compelling. I think maybe people who picked it up expecting a fluffy, fast-paced YA book were disappointed.

Still to be read: The Price of Salt (hello, SALT book!) and The Black God's Drums, and I just got The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics from my library.