Book Review FELIX EVER AFTER KACEN CALLENDER

 

I wasn’t sure I was going to finish another book before the year ended, but here we are! Ending 2020 with another finished book! 

Felix Ever After 

Genre Queer, Trans Romance Mystery. Queer scale: Trans! Enjoyment level: Fantastic!

This book was a fantastic rollercoaster of mystery, love, and so much more!

Following Felix love, a gay trans man, who, despite his name, ironically has never been in love!  

He is on the cusp of everything and nothing! He's in art school to try and get into college with a scholarship, but his inspiration to paint isn't there. 

Suddenly someone posts pictures of him to the school gallery, before Felix had transitioned! 

The pain and anger send Felix on a self discover while he try's to sort out the mystery of the Transphobic person that attacked him! 

While on his journey to learn more about his gender, he secretly falls in love, but doesn't know what to do with this!

    If you’re looking for a trans queer romance story that’s a lot more than just that, this book is for you! 

The way this was written, I was on the edge of my seat trying to figure out 'who dunit' and where Felix's love was going to go! 

Just go read it! Because it's fantastic! 

TW: transphobia 

Queer Book Review: Rivers of Eden By R.E Levy

 

Rivers of eden

 

Rivers of Eden. ARC. Genre: historical fantasy/fiction. 

Queer scale: Flaming. Enjoyment level: Alright.

Rivers of Eden, was set in 1890 in Dakota Territory, however the book doesn’t really mention this except in the description on the back cover. Honestly, it may have been better for my enjoyment if that had not been known, as the description having a more nebulous ‘past date’ would have meant any of the small inconsistencies in the setting, would have been easier to gloss over. Also I know authors have this problem all the time, where the cover artist clearly did whatever they wanted, but I spent a big portion of the book confused over the author’s descriptions of the main characters and the differences on the cover! It probably doesn’t help that the main character, Margaret isn’t really described until you get much further into the book, yet Emma is described on the second page.

This brings me to the actual story. The two women, Margaret and Emma are in love with each other. This is very apparent in the first chapter. 

    However, it is confusing once you hit chapter two, because Margaret is now married to a man, joseph, and has a child. There isn’t much to explain the sudden time jump and it’s a bit jarring. Back to the first Chapter the women do some sort of ritual, and we aren’t really sure where they learned this spell, or what it’s supposed to do. They don’t seem to know why they are doing it other than Emma really wants to do it. These events seem like they are implied to affect the rest of the story, but the reader isn’t really sure if these later events are related to this first chapter. If they are, for example, then why didn’t the bad things happen before Margaret get's married or before she’s had a child?

However despite the above complaints. I enjoyed R. E. Levy’s insight into Margaret’s mind and her thoughts throughout the book. If you are looking for a wlw with a predictable ending, this is a wonderful short read!  And honestly, having more Queer books is something I truly want! For an author to put themselves out there and self-publish a book it's a wonderful thing worth supporting!

So if you would like a copy or are intrigued by the description above, here is where you can find the author:

Patreon: relevyauthor

Twitter:relevyauthor

Tumblr: relevy

Instagram:r.e.levyauthor

Facebook: relevyauthor

Wattpad: relevy

Tapas: relevy

Book Review: Unashamed, A Coming-out guide for LGBTQ Christians By: Amber Cantorna

This book is a must have resource for LGBTQIA Christians to have before they come out to their friends and family!

Amber Cantorna goes through different steps to help a person know if it's a good idea to come out to people.

The Things pointed out in this book will be a life saving resource for many LGBT People of faith! 

Also if you are in a position to help people who what to come out, this book is a great tool to help you give well thought out advice to help it go as well as it can! 

Must read!

 

Book Review: CINDERELLA IS DEAD. By Kalynn Bayron

 

Genre: Fantasy/ Fairy tale. Queer Scale: Flaming Enjoyment level: Fantastic.

Cinderella is dead is a wonderfully crafted Fantasy book! Using the backdrop of the fairy tale Cinderella to weave a new story, while deconstructing how we think of the classic fairy tale was a brilliant move by the author! 

Also making the main Character a POC is a wonderful move! So many stories just assume everyone is white, and it was wonderful that the main character was not white! 

The wlw Romance was perfect! It built super well, and was very satisfying! 

The story wonderfully flowed and I didn't see the twist coming at all! Such a delight!

If you love queer fantasy, this is the book for you! 

More about the story following:

In the book, the fairy tale story of Cinderella is used to subjugate women in the city where Prince Charming once lived. The king requires women to dress up like Cinderella did and go to an annual ball where they get chosen by the men of the land. Failure to get chosen after 3 balls, results in you being a 'forfeit'. However the story of cinderella has clearly been twisted and used as propaganda  (for reasons you learn about). 

It’s worse for Sophia (the main character) because... 

she only likes women! So it’s 

way more awful of a prospect to get forced into a mixed marriage (not that a forced marriage is good for anyone)!

She slowly meets different characters that move her towards making change in the land.

For example:  

The descendant of one of the stepsisters 

and the fairy godmother (who’s actually a witch) 

There’s so many magical mysteries and just plain history that she has to uncover in her desire to change the rules of the kingdom! 

Super delightful and well worth the read! 

Graphic Novel Queer Book Review: Always Human by Ari North

THIS BOOK IS SO CUTE! It is a wonderfully Queer WLW love story! 

It's full of Nonbinary, Queer, Gay, Ace representation! Its a wonderful LGBTQIA+ comic book! 

And the art work is gorgeous! 

I took a picture of a random page to show how beautiful it is, and it's like this through out the whole book! 

I'm not going to do any spoiling for this one, just go get a copy! It's so worth it! The romance is wonderful, the story is real, and the representation is amazing, what else do you need?? 

Go buy it!

 

Queer Review: Book: If I Was Your Girl By: Meredith Russo

 Note: there have been many abuse allegations that have been raised against this author, I'm not deleting this post, due to it not being confirmed. however here's a link for you to decide TW: Abuse

(Spoiler Free) Review: 

Great High school Romance book following a Transgender Girl. Are you curious about the ( fictionalized ) mindset and life of a Trans-woman? This book is a great perspective! Written by a Transwoman it's a great dive into the fears and concerns of a Trans person navigating life! 

(Spoliers) 

The main character (Amanda) was attacked at her previous school where she started her transition. So she moves to live with her father to be able to finish school as a girl (who she is) without people knowing anything about her past (so she can just live through high school). She meets and develops friendships with different people throughout the book. But the most impactful and scary is a boy (Grant) who she (and he) develops feelings for over the course of the book. Obviously many of the concerns she has about this are if he finds out she's trans, what will he do, will he love her still? Due to telling a friend her secret, and it getting out we get to find out what happens if everyone finds out! 

IT's a brutal scary section of writing when a Transphobic football player attacks her after finding out. Luckily most of her friends have come to love her for who she is and after working through all of her own emotions (being attacked again) she decides to finish school with her friends and Grant. 

This was a wonderful book! If you don't have Trans friends and want to get into the mind of a Transgirl this is a good start. If you want a wonderful high school romance story this is also the book for you. I highly recommend! 

Review: Book: The Abyss Surrounds Us by :Emily Skrutskie

 Today marks the start of my doing book reviews! (and maybe a revival of my use of this site)! 

                    (non spoiler) Review:

This was an interesting book! If you like Alternate Future Earth, Pirates, Sea Monsters, Female Protagonists, and WLW undertones this book is for you! For an author's first outing this is a very exciting well written book! I would recommend with one caveat, the setting confused me (more in spoilers) and so it took me a hot minute to get into the actual story. But once the story got going I was hooked and finished it in a couple days. 

(SPOILERS) Review: 

This book starts with a confusing setting, first it's earth, but in the future where the oceans have swallowed most of the land masses (though a map in the front seems to not agree with this) this has forced many governments to break into smaller countries (? not clear) and due to a huge amount of resources now being transported via water (like where did air travel go? IDK there are a type of helicopter in the book so I really don't know) an organization creates giant Sea Monsters that protect boats they imprint to. Why are big expensive monsters something governments fund over bigger weapons, idk but it's just what happened apparently. This setting made it hard to get into this book. Like why didn't the author just make up a new planet/world to have this book set in? The book barely mentions 'earth' other than to use where the main character Cassandra is from as a sort of slur by the pirates. Again once you get over the setting and just let it go, the story is super interesting. Readers follow Cass who has been training with her particular monster and is ready to go on her first mission to protect a ship. The first conflict she encounters is that her beast seems to be getting sick! Right about when her beast is least capable from this sickness is when pirates attack! Cass doesn't really know what to do due to her beast being almost dead, so in her confusion, she gets captured, her beast is killed and her ship is sunk. 

She spends the rest of the book a captive on this new pirate ship. where she feels forced to raise a Sea monster (that pirates have mysteriously acquired)  She is guarded by swift, a girl whom you find is only a pirate out of the need to feed her family, so it probably isn't Stockholm Syndrome (maybe??) when both girls start to have feelings for each other. Fair warning for anyone looking for a fast WLW romance, this isn't that. It's a slow (and feels mostly appropriate) build to their relationship being more than just captor/guard. Eventually people find out she didn't die during her mission and people come to rescue her, but as a prisoner of a pirate ship with a sea monster, she's forced to destroy her rescuers... many different times! The book ends with her realizing she cannot be saved (due to what she's done) and because of her love for Swift, she asks to join the pirate crew. 

This book ended with me wanting more, and surprise, there is a sequel! And I will be picking it up at some point, because I want more of Swift and Cass as equals and ready for love! lol 

Worth picking up? yeah, just don't spend a lot of time on the weird setting!