Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.
First off, apologies for the lack of a book review/Sunday Songs this week. I’ve just been busy with school, and I didn’t have as much time to sit down and write something that wasn’t the draft I’m trying to get myself back into the rhythm of writing. (I’ve been cobbling at this post in advance before this week, so that’s why you’re able to see it now.) Plus, I was just generally exhausted on Tuesday, but it was a good exhaustion, all things considered, because I’d seen Peter Gabriel the night before! Words don’t do justice to how incredible of a show it was. You’ll definitely hear about it later.
Here in the U.S., Asexual Awareness week, or Ace Week, is celebrated from October 22-28! Even though I’m not on the asexual/aromantic spectrum, it’s impossible to not see how much this community gets left behind, even within the LGBTQ+ community; just as any other spectrum of identity, it’s just as valid and worthy of respect as anything else. I’ve been meaning to make more asexual book lists, but this time of year is kind of crazy for me. But this year, I figured I would start early so I would have another book list—we need to shed more light on these fantastic books and authors!
TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! Have you read any of these books, and what did you think of them? What are your favorite books with characters on the asexual spectrum? Let me know in the comments!
Today’s song:
That’s it for this year’s recommendations! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
Here we have the last of my pride month recommendations for this year! This post is focused on contemporary and realistic fiction books, but romance and mystery are included in here as well. And as always with my recommendations: diversify your reading 24/7, but always take this time to uplift LGBTQ+ voices!
(click here for this year’s queer YA sci-fi and fantasy recs!)
So let’s begin, shall we?
🏳️🌈THE BOOKISH MUTANT’S 2022 YA PRIDE MONTH RECS: CONTEMPORARY/REALISTIC FICTION 🏳️🌈
LGBTQ+ REP: Bisexual MC, lesbian, bi, pan/nonbinary, and gay side characters, straight-passing relationship
MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’m saying this as a proud bisexual woman: Perfect on Paper is seriously some of the best bisexual rep I’ve ever read! There’s so many important discussions in this book, from internalized biphobia to how the queer community views straight-passing relationships, all with a sweet and messy romance!
LGBTQ+ REP: Bisexual love interest, straight-passing relationship
MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Sick Kids in Love is such an important book for so many reasons (namely its groundbreaking disability rep), but this is what intersectionality looks like—both protagonists are disabled and Jewish, and the love interest is also bisexual! Always warms my heart to see disabled bisexual characters.
LGBTQ+ REP: Gay MC, bisexual love interest, mlm relationship, trans woman, lesbian, and gay side characters, side wlw relationship
MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’d be remiss if I didn’t include Heartstopper here—such a sweet and heartwarming LGBTQ+ romance comic! Plus, I can say with certainty that the bisexual rep is ON POINT. I adored the Netflix show too! (did anybody else full-on SOB during Nick’s coming out scene 😭)
TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! What are your favorite queer YA contemporary/realistic fiction books? Have you read any of these books, and if so, what did you think of them? Tell me in the comments!
Today’s song:
That’s it for this post! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
We’re almost halfway through 2022 already (!), but I’d definitely say that this month was the most momentous one of this year.
GENERAL THOUGHTS:
Wow. So I really am done with high school.
I got distracted from all that with my AP tests at the beginning of the month (ecstatic that I’ll never have to take them again), but once the middle of the month hit, the realization started to sink in. Then I graduated—in freezing spring snow at an outdoor venue, no less. Certainly a day to remember. But it’s over now—strange to think that those four (very weird) years have come to a close. And now college is on the horizon…
With all that going on, I didn’t have as much time to read. It wasn’t quite as good of a bunch, either—I still had a few gems, but I had a lot more 2-3 star books and a DNF too. Haven’t had much writing time either—I did a little more outlining for the WIP sequel, but I’m turning my attention to something new—I figured that since my brother and friends are starting to suggest edits, it’s probably too soon to start the sequel.
Other than that, I’ve just been drawing, watching Heartstopper and sobbing at the coming-out scene, going to see Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (mixed bag, but it was fun) and Everything Everywhere All at Once (TEARS), seeing Spoon live (AMAZING), and listening to the new Wilco, Smile, and Arcade Fire.
READING AND BLOGGING:
I read 17 books this month! Less than usual, but it was a lot like April in terms of reading—I was super busy with AP tests, graduation, and all that jazz this month, but I was still able to read some good books here and there.
I’ve had this on repeat for almost a month straight not gonna lie
love this album but this song is my favorite
another great album, although I haven’t been able to let this one quite sink in yet
more soccer mommy!!!!
lovely album!
CAN’T BELIEVE I HAVE TICKETS TO SEE THEM IN SEPTEMBER AAAAAAA
not a perfect album, but when it’s good, it’s FANTASTIC—case in point
DID I FOLLOW THROUGH ON MY MAY GOALS?
Get through the AP tests: made it! sucked to have two in one day, but I made it.
Finish high school strong! (aAAA STILL CAN’T BELIEVE I’M GRADUATING—): got straight A’s, so I’ll say I finished strong! and now I’m done with high school! would you look at that…
GOALS FOR JUNE:
Read at least 20 books
Enjoy the first month of summer/pride month!
Today’s song:
That’s it for this month in blogging! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
WHITE CATS: A study showed that 20% of purebred white cats are deaf. Pick a book with great disability rep.
I will never stop singing the praises of Sick Kids in Love—great romance, and even better disability rep!
GINGER CATS: 80% of ginger cats are male. Name your favorite male character.
It’s hard to pick just one character from the entirety of literature, but I love Kal and Finian from Aurora Rising, Baz from Carry On, and Jax from Heart of Iron.
TORTOISESHELL CATS: Nearly all tortoiseshell cats are female. Name your favorite female character.
+ anyone else who wants to participate! If you see this tag and want to do it, then feel free! And if I tagged you and you’ve already done it/don’t want to do it, my bad!
Today’s song:
saw these guys open for Spoon on Tuesday night, and they were pretty great!
That’s it for this book tag! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! Hope this week has treated you well.
It’s certainly been an eventful week on my end! It doesn’t quite feel like summer (especially since we got that Freezing Snow Even Though It’s The Middle of May™️) since it’s been so busy, but it’s been very momentous on my end—I officially graduated from high school! It was freezing cold and snowing the whole time (we were at an outdoor venue), but it was a great morning.
I haven’t had a whole lot of time to read because I’ve been so tired for the past few days, but I got through my library books, and I’m currently going through the books I bought last week. Haven’t written much at all either—maybe I’ll have to get on that next week after everything dies down…
Other than that, I’ve been getting into all kinds of festivities for graduation, listening to Bachelor and Soccer Mommy, reorganizing my bookshelf (it hit critical mass so I had to put a few books away in boxes lol), and looking forward to summer.
I’m so glad that we have a snow day…I was trying to find a good day to fit this post in, and now we have the perfect opportunity!
As some of you know, this week, October 25-31, is Asexual Awareness Week, or Ace Week for short! The whole week is meant to celebrate everyone on the asexual spectrum (asexual, aromantic, demisexual, and more) and spread awareness about the community. All too often, this community is unjustly discriminated against, even in LGBTQ+ spaces, which never fails to break my heart. Well, if I haven’t made myself clear enough, I’ll just go out here and say that everybody on the asexual spectrum is so loved, so valid, and so beautiful!
So for the occasion, I decided to compile a list of YA books with characters all over the asexual spectrum–among them on this list are characters who are asexual, demisexual, aromantic, and more. Thing is, SHAME ON ME FOR NOT READING ENOUGH ASPEC LITERATURE. I try my best to, and I found some examples, but not enough ones that I’ve actually read to make a substantial list. So, the first half of this post is ace books that I’ve read, and the other half is ace books that are on my TBR.
Let’s begin, shall we?
THE BOOKISH MUTANT’S YA READS FOR ASEXUAL AWARENESS WEEK
REPRESENTATION: Ellie (protagonist) is demisexual and biromantic, in a straight-passing relationship
MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Sound of Stars is one of my favorite reads of this year–POC/LGBTQ+ representation, lots of references to YA literature and music, and fighting against the patriarchy!
I’m so lucky to have gotten an eARC of this one over the summer. Besides having great asexual representation, the author is Lipan Apache, and so is Elatsoe! A wonderful paranormal murder mystery with lots of lovely ghost critters.
REPRESENTATION: Zoey (one of three protagonists with alternating POVs) is asexual
MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Another five-star read of mine this year. There’s no shortage of great LGBTQ+ representation from this one; beyond Zoey’s asexuality, and the other two protagonists (Val and Marion) end up being in a wlw relationship.
REPRESENTATION: Nathaniel (one of two protagonists with alternating POVs) is aromantic/asexual
MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Another lovely sci-fi with a bluish purple color scheme on the cover! There’s a beautiful scene where Nathaniel discovers his identity, and it’s so tenderly beautiful. Plus, there’s a wlw relationship between the other protagonist (Anna) and another secondary character as well!
REPRESENTATION: Georgia, the protagonist, is aromantic/asexual
(Sidenote: why does “aromantic” keep autocorrecting to either “romantic” or “aromatic?” The audacity…)
I’ve had most of Oseman’s novels on my TBR for quite a while (Radio Silence was my first exposure), and this sounds like a lovely aro-ace coming of age story!
REPRESENTATION: Luca (secondary character who is supposed to play a major role) is demiromantic/asexual
I put this on my TBR over the summer and completely forgot about it, so hopefully I can read it soon…
TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! Have you read any of these novels? What are your thoughts? Any other books with ace rep that you recommend?
Oh, and one more thing: I just found out a few hours ago that today is also Intersex Awareness Day! I hardly see any intersex rep in literature, so if any of you have good intersex book recs, don’t hesitate to tell me about them in the comments!
Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme created by Lauren’s Page Turners . It’s pretty simple–just pick a book from your Want to Read list on Goodreads, and explain why you want to read it.
Here we go…enjoy this week’s Goodreads Monday!
GOODREADS MONDAY (9/9/19)-LOVELESS by Alice Oseman
Georgia feels loveless – in the romantic sense, anyway. She’s eighteen, never been in a relationship, or even had a crush on a single person in her whole life. She thinks she’s an anomaly, people call her weird, and she feels a little broken. But she still adores romance – weddings, fan fiction, and happily ever afters. She knows she’ll find her person one day … right?
After a disastrous summer, Georgia is now at university, hundreds of miles from home. She is more determined than ever to find love – and her annoying roommate, Rooney, is a bit of a love expert, so perhaps she can help.
But maybe Georgia just doesn’t feel that way about guys. Or girls. Or anyone at all. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe she can find happiness without falling in love. And maybe Rooney is a little more loveless than she first appears.
LOVELESS is a journey of identity, self-acceptance, and finding out how many different types of love there really are. And that no one is really loveless after all.
So why do I want to read this?
As far as YA goes, the 2010’s have been a great year for LGBTQ+ books. I’ve seen an increase in gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, and other queer protagonists in such literature, which I am OVER THE MOON HAPPY ABOUT. I mean, it’s about time for this kind of thing. But one sexual orientation that I haven’t seen often in YA literature–and just literature in general–is representation of asexual and/or aromantic people. This book seems like it’s going to be a wonderful awakening for those who don’t know about these orientations, with Georgia, as far as I know, being aro-ace.
Beyond that, the plot of self-exploration without a love interest always hooks me. It seems that in almost every book that involves a female protagonist trying to discover who she is, there’s at least a 90% that there’s gonna be a love interest. And while that’s cute sometimes, it’s reeeeeally starting to get on my nerves. I mean, seriously, women can discover themselves ALL. BY. THEMSELVES. WE DON’T NEED ANYBODY ELSE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. So I’m glad to see a minor subversion of this trope.
Loveless is scheduled for release in spring of next year, so I’m eagerly awaiting this one! 🙂
Thank you so much for reading! Have a wonderful rest of your day! Take care of yourselves, and keep on reading!
The Bookish Mutant 