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ever since i found my late grandfather's books which he annotated in pen, i started to annotate books i read in pen too. ive always been too scared to do it but honestly, it's so much better than pencil, more concrete, actually more freeing. and easier to find my annotations

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reading is like. i’ve read 5 books in 3 days. i have not read a single sentence in months

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i have the oddest luck

i bought red white and royal blue in german to practice the language (why not use my comfort reread as a way to further Skills) and immediately spilled juice on it

luckily the book is readable

downside, the last few pages are now damp and it smells like a mix of beets and strawberries (not bad, just weird)

upside, the juice coloured the pages pink so at least it matches the cover

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found it !! its They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

theres this book that i heard of a while ago thay i dont remember the title of but really want to read. it takes place at a university. a woman is assaulted and some other woman, maybe a professor or sth, starts going on a murder spree. i think its also wlw. if anyone recognises this book, let me know im actually desperate

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theres this book that i heard of a while ago thay i dont remember the title of but really want to read. it takes place at a university. a woman is assaulted and some other woman, maybe a professor or sth, starts going on a murder spree. i think its also wlw. if anyone recognises this book, let me know im actually desperate

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All of these books are queer, but they all have back blurbs that don’t say they’re queer. While this can be a pain if I’m scouting for queer SFF, it can come in handy for people in a situation where they don’t want to be reading queer books openly. 

Please do note that I don’t have hard copies of the books on hand so it’s possible that an author quote or something mentions one being queer (I feel like this isn’t super likely, but I don’t want to rule it out). Some might also have author biographies mentioning that the author is queer. Also, some may be shelved as LGBT on Goodreads or categorized as queer on Amazon. So if you’re planning on asking for any of these as holiday gifts, I would suggest going to the Amazon page or where ever your relative is likely to buy it from and double check that it’s something you’d be comfortable with sharing openly. 

I wish I had more pansexual books, but the ones I know of tend to mention queerness in the back description. 

With the exception of The Spy with the Red Balloon, these are all books I have read or are currently reading. If you want to recommend others, feel free to do so in the replies!

You can find my other queer book recommendations here.

Links to the queer books database (or Goodreads if the book hasn’t been added yet) are available below the cut. You can find information on content warnings there.

Keep reading

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Why didn’t anyone tell me about this comic earlier?

It is.  So cute.  SpiderMom does her best, and HumanChild makes friends with everything.  There’s only about 20 pages so far, but I am invested.

Here’s page one.  *shoos you off to read it*

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Wench by Maxine Kaplan

Tanya has worked at her tavern since she was able to see over the bar. She broke up her first fight at 11. By the time she was a teenager she knew everything about the place, and she could run it with her eyes closed. She’d never let anyone—whether it be a drunkard or a captain of the queen’s guard—take advantage of her. But when her guardian dies, she might lose it all: the bar, her home, her purpose in life. So she heads out on a quest to petition the queen to keep the tavern in her name—dodging unscrupulous guards, a band of thieves, and a powerful, enchanted feather that seems drawn to her.

Genres: fantasy, romance

Get the book from The Book Depository here!

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second day of escapril

day 2: the exact middle

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“how to love a god: i. stay away from him. legends are never boys. gods were never people. gods do not love. ii. despise him. who does he think he is? the proud jaw, those seaborne arms, fleeting sparrow-feet planted on the earth as if the world belonged to him? iii. watch. the quick turn of mouth, the gold of his hair backlit against the sun shining like a halo. if you get too close he’ll burn you to ash. if you get too close he’ll destroy you. iv. watch him watch you. v. when he kisses you back hold your breath. do not breathe. you are only a small and foolish boy chasing the tail of a meteor destined for the heavens. if you breathe, you will burn. vi. making love to him feels like building a home, doesn’t it? here, the oars of his shoulders. here, the temple of his thighs. here, his mouth whispering your name in worship. vii. when the war comes watch his laughter grow cold and his hands tender themselves red. that is a statue in your bed. that is a man turned to stone from ten thousand stares. viii. you put on his clothes on to save him from himself. you put his clothes on to spend your last breath inside him again. ix. you know what will happen and you do it anyway. you burn because this is what it means to love. this is what it means to fly. x. recall the tale of Icarus. choose to be Icarus.”

—

Natalie Wee // Patroclus Dreaming 

(Achilles Dreaming)

Find my book Amazon / Goodreads.

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“how to love a mortal: i. stay away from him. gods do not love. you are a god. do not love something that will someday die. ii. small-boned, soft-hearted, voice smooth as stones. when he breaks his ankle you think to yourself: oh, how easily the world wounds him. oh, how easily he bleeds. iii. he kisses you first. he is thirteen and human and he will someday die. do not kiss him back. iv. you say: mother, can a god love a boy? thetis sharpens her teeth. she says: well, what good has love ever done? v. you were born a weapon but you kiss him anyway. you kiss him because he is beautiful and temporary and you do not yet understand what it means to kill. vi. making love to him feels like being remade, doesn’t it? here, the knife in his mouth. here, the starlight in his eyes. here, his sweat on your tongue like salt of the river Styx. vii. in this dream, you kill Agamemnon. in this dream, there is no war. in this dream, he lives forever. viii. he puts your clothes on and you forget he is mortal. he puts your clothes on and he forgets it, too. ix. when the world burned, your mother whispered: you knew, didn’t you? i told you not to love something that will someday die. x. you do not say: i knew, but i was selfish. i am a god. it is my nature.”

—

Natalie Wee // Achilles Dreaming

(Patroclus Dreaming)

Find my book on Amazon / Goodreads.

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“Of all my many murders, committed for love and for better reasons, the first one was the most important.”

Lyndsay Faye, Jane Steele

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Quotes I tabbed while reading ‘The Song of Achilles’ (spoilers):

For who can be ashamed to lose to such a beauty?

Now I know how to make you follow me everywhere

Swear it/ why me?/ Because you are the reason (Achilles will be famous and happy.) swear it.

I feel like I could eat the world raw

If you have to go, you know I will go with you

My husband

He no longer belongs to me alone

I did not plan to live after he was gone

Bring him back to me

I hope Hector kills you/ do you think I do not hope the same?

When you are dead, I charge you to mingle our ashes and bury us together

He waits for you

Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood, like a hundred golden urns pouring out the sun

Lmk what quotes you found most memorable, it’s the easiest way to look at the heart of a person after all

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WHY I THINK YOU MIGHT WANT TO READ MY NEW NOVEL, FIFTY-FIVE DAYS:

two bisexual rock stars finding love on tour despite major obstacles, both internal and external

the rest of the band = Found Family + Queer Friends mashup

chronic pain/fatigue representation

key romance tropes: “what might have been,” slow burn, secret fling, fling turns real, hurt/comfort dynamic

lots of fun cover songs included for bonus story meaning

HOW YOU CAN GET IT :

find your preferred digital retailer here to pre-order (before 12/16/20) or just plain order-order (12/16/20 on)

the paperback edition is already out, because I couldn’t do pre-orders for it so I just slammed that shiny publish button

low on funds right now, or want to support an indie author with a good deed this holiday season? DM me to get hooked up with a review copy and we’ll talk

IF ROMANCE NOVELS AREN’T YOUR THING BUT YOU STILL WANT TO SUPPORT ME :

(first of all, are you sure? are you sure you couldn’t enjoy a queer rock-star love story led by strong but flawed characters, with a deep thematic emphasis on loneliness and belonging? are you sure?)

but seriously:

reblog this post for signal boosting (esp. since Tumblr is wonky about posts with links)

tell any of your reader friends who do like romance about the book (or even buy them a copy as a holiday gift! who doesn’t love getting books?)

dig into your local library’s website and discover their method to recommend books for purchase – I can’t give you specifics but I found mine with only a little trouble

pay it forward and buy/read/review a book by another indie author in a genre you enjoy more, it’s good karma for everyone and authorship is not a competition :D

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ANGEL ISLAND, a chapbook by tris

A STORY ABOUT LOVE, IDENTITY, LOSS, AND CHILDHOOD INNOCENCE THAT LEAVES YOU ON A LATE SUMMER NIGHT.

sixteen prose pieces about what it means to grow up a dreamer, how to choose which pieces of your childhood to leave behind, and a dragon god that asks you WHY HAVE YOU COME when you had no choice to begin with.

contains snippets like:

humanity was born afraid.

this world is ruthless. it tears at your skin with its teeth and nails like its puncturing the pink sheets of paper coating the walls in something akin to rage, but you know that it has been far too long since you have seen anything akin to rage.

free download here!

Keep reading

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What poetry books would you recommend that are written by PoC?

Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth (Warsan Shire)

Her Blue Body (Warsan Shire)

Night Sky With Exit Wounds (Ocean Vuong)

The Black Unicorn (Audre Lorde)

Floating, Brilliant, Gone (Franny Choi)

Loose Woman: Poems (Sandra Cisneros)

Father, Husband (Scherezade Siobhan)

Howling at the Moon (Darshana Suresh)

Letters from Medea (Salma Deera)

The Burning Ones (Salma Deera)

bone (Yrsa Daley-Ward)

salt. (nayyirah waheed)

How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2002 (Joy Harjo)

She Had Some Horses: Poems (Joy Harjo)

Kingdom Animalia (Aracelis Girmay)

Citizen: An American Lyric (Claudia Rankine)

Bright Dead Things: Poems (Ada Limón)

[insert] boy (Danez Smith)

Madwomen: The “Locas mujeres” Poems of Gabriela Mistral (Gabriela Mistral)

Teahouse of the Almighty (Patricia Smith)

Prelude to Bruise (Saeed Jones)

When the Only Light Is Fire (Saeed Jones)

When My Brother Was an Aztec (Natalie Diaz)

Slow Lightning (Eduardo C. Corral)

The Anatomy of Being (Shinji Moon)

Incorrect Merciful Impulses (Camille Rankine)

Voyage of the Sable Venus: And Other Poems (Robin Coste Lewis)

Our Men Do Not Belong to Us (Warsan Shire) (free PDF via Poetry Foundation)

There are other good books by poets of color but these were the ones that felt most satisfying (or had a high rating on my Goodreads). I would have recommended Warsan Shire’s Her Blue Body but it seems to have disappeared off of Amazon after her announcement of an upcoming poetry book on Twitter.