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!