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[residentlesbrarian]

[residentlesbrarian]

the weird thing is, when I view my job as some sort of background extra it becomes much more palatable. people go to a library and see me shelving a stack of books in my cardigan and glasses (now with glasses chain!) and they go “yeah, that’s exactly right. that’s how it’s supposed to be in a library.” and for some reason, that’s comforting? the work is whatever, and the customers are customers, but sometimes it feels like I’m being paid just to make sure this places looks right, and I find that very fun.

[residentlesbrarian]

the best way to support libraries is to use libraries. go get a card, check something out. not a big reader? they got movies. they got games. yes, like botw and fallout and let’s go eevee. they also have cds that yes, we workers know you take home and rip to your computer. we also do it. 

if you have a well funded library you might even have access to maker spaces that have 3D printers. or video/audio recording equipment. libraries aren’t these tomb silent homes for books any more. they’re community spaces. they’re full of life and things. 

put a middle finger up at jeffrey bezos and support your local library

[residentlesbrarian]

Fandom and Fanfiction Galore

Ship It by Britta Lundin

Aaaaaalrighty...so this was written almost 3 years ago hot out of ClexaCon 2018 and it is...an interesting one. I had and still very much have feelings about this book. Would I write my thoughts the exact same way today as I did back then...probably not! So enjoy this bit of a pre-pandemic pre-a-whole-bunch-of-other-personal-stuff-y’all-don’t-need-to-know-about me talking about a book I still don’t really know how I feel about! Enjoy!

This was another book I found because of the Queering YA panel at ClexaCon 2018. Being able to talk to Britta at the booth after the panel was awesome, because you could tell talking with her that she was a true fan. She knew what being surrounded by fandom was like and it made me pretty excited to read the book.

Unicorn Rating:

Blurb: Living in the environment of fandom can be an insane experience in both good and bad ways. This book delivered a unique experience and look into fandom culture that was surreal to read about outside of fanfiction and tumblr.

Disclaimer: I will try my best to not spoil anything from the book, but my book loving rambles may give more away than a traditional review. Here we go! Ramble time!

Review:

I would say overall this book felt a little weird for me. I didn’t absolutely love it but I also didn’t particularly dislike it. It fell in a very ‘meh’ place for me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have good things to say about it, they are just slightly confusing things.

The plot was actually one of the things I liked the most about it. Even though it was a crazy unrealistic plot, it helped capture the absolute lunacy of being a member of fandom culture perfectly. Sometimes being a fan is a simple life of surfing Tumblr and liking posts but sometimes the craziest things happen and change your life forever. In this case the reader is swept up in this craziness with Claire and the unrealistic aspect of it all made it feel more realistic as counterintuitive as that sounds. That is what the fandom experience can feel like at times, everything makes so little sense it actually circles back around to making sense, but enough about that...time for some character rambles.

Now we have two perspectives explored in this book. That of Claire, the fangirl, and Forest, the actor who has never had to deal with fangirls before. Let’s start with Claire. I am of two minds on her. Part of me really doesn’t like her, mostly because she is a person that in real life I probably wouldn’t spend time around and, as I’ve stated in a previous review, I have a hard time separating myself from characters and remembering that they are only teenagers. Multiple times I actually physically facepalmed, while reading a hardback book! That isn’t easy to do, but I did it, because she was doing things that just seemed so illogical from my perspective. But I am an adult, so of course I have a completely different perspective than a teen who is away from home and feeling a little out of control for a plethora of reasons. Now the other part of me really liked her, strangely enough for those exact same reasons, she was so real that I went full ‘Mom’ mode and wanted to sit her down and have a talk about what she was going through before she did something she was going to regret. Even if I found the character to be unlikeable the fact I was still on her side and wanted to help her really shows the depth that was written into her.

Now moving on to Forest. Oh, Forest. He was a character that I was very intrigued by at first because his was a perspective I, as a fangirl myself, had never seen in a book before, but damn if he didn’t make it so hard to like him. Some of the things he said and did made me want to throttle him. I could excuse some of the stuff Clarie did because of her age and the craziness of everything going on around her, but Forest is an adult and should know better. He would improve and his actions would start to win me over, but then he would overreact to something and make me want to put on my throttlin’ gloves again. I felt like that Tyra Banks ‘I was rooting for you!’ reaction gif while I was reading this multiple times. Again, though, there were parts that I was glad Forest called Claire out on her actions when it was called for, but overall they both needed an intervention to have them sit down and just chill for five seconds.

I actually genuinely liked a majority of the side characters in this as well. I actually have less of the weird mental confusion when it comes to the side characters. Rico was cute and great around the fans. Jamie was a total asshat but he was written to be that way to foil Claire in her mission to make ‘Smokeheart’ cannon. One of my favorite scenes in the whole book was actually between Claire and the social media consultant, whose name I totally remember and am just choosing not to put in because I think that’ll be all avant garde...okay fine I forgot her name and I am not digging the book out to find it. Anyway...I can’t really go into detail about the scene because, you know, spoilers but it was so well done in the context of the story.

Now for the last big character I want to speak on, the love interest, Tess. Now I really liked Tess and even understood how she wanted to keep her nerdy hobbies a secret from her small town friends. I was lucky that I grew up in a family and a circle of friends that let me embrace my passions no matter how off-the-wall they may seem to others. Tess obviously didn’t have that kind of support but she was still so passionate just privately. I will say though, ironically given the title of the book, I don’t ship it. Tess and Claire definitely share an instant attraction and the chemistry is there but they have so much growing to do before they are anywhere close to having an actual healthy functional relationship. Maybe if we saw more of them it would feel more compelling but it just wasn’t for me.

So my final thoughts on this book are just...a little discombobulated. Part of me was really happy to read a book that portrayed a part of my life that is so hard to put into words at times. I have never been a rabid fangirl, but after Lexa’s death I had to try and explain my utter devastation to people who just didn’t understand why a fictional character mattered to me so much. This book captures at least a layer of the fandom experience in a way that I’ve never seen before. The problem I have in the end though is how problematic everything that happens was, and then the ending just felt so sudden. We didn’t see any of the characters address their issues on the page. I hope this review made some coherent sense, because this book still doesn’t really make sense even in my brain, but I need to wrap this up now.

Queer Wrap-up: Okay, so, for our rep we have a questioning main character who definitely has some queer tendencies, but overall her realizing her feelings took such a back seat to her mission to make a fictional ship cannon on a show that was already filmed it took away from the rep as a whole. It just felt like the focus was so split that the actual rep gets lost in the pages. There is no argument by the end of the book that Claire is queer, which earns the three unicorns on that alone, but some of the tropes that played parts in the book were just so cringey that I couldn’t rationalize giving it more than that. Even with a couple side characters who were revealed to also be queer they weren’t enough to cover for the less stellar parts of this book.

Links:

Britta Lundin’s Website

TheStorygraph

Amazon

Okay, so if you couldn’t tell by that train wreck of a review this book just confused me. It kept me just interested enough to pick it back up after I’d put it down, but also wasn’t that bad. It lives in a weird oxymoronic vortex in my brain that honestly gives me a headache if I focus on it too much. There were aspects of this book that I did genuinely like but it all gets swirled together with the parts that made me put it down and need to take a break. If any of you want to discuss those more spoiler-filled aspects please send an ask and I’ll welcome you into the cyclical nature of whatever this book is doing in my brain. And as always if you want to read this but don’t want to spend the money without knowing for sure you are going to like it, go to your local library. You’d be surprised what they have on their shelves just waiting to be discovered. Trust me, I’m a lesbrarian.

[residentlesbrarian]

Console-free Camping

If you like to play The Last of Us, then try Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

If you like to play Beyond: Two Souls, then try The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

If you like to play Call of Duty: Black Ops (Zombies), then try World War Z by Max Brooks

If you like playing Grand Theft Auto, then try American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

If you like playing Sid Meier’s Civilization, then try A Game Of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

If you like playing Final Fantasy, try playing Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa

If you like playing Mass Effect, then try Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

If you like playing Alice: Madness Returns, then try Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis

If you like playing Halo, then try Starship Troopers by Robert A Heinlein

If you like playing Portal, then try House Of Stairs by William Sleator

If you like playing Mario Kart, then try The Lovely Reckless by Kami Garcia 

If you like playing Dark Souls, then try Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

If you like playing Life Is Strange, then try We Are Okay by Nina Lacour

If you like playing Stardew Valley, then try How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

If you like playing Fable, then try Young Elites by Marie Lu

If you like playing Borderlands, then try Velocity by Chris Wooding

If you like playing Dishonored, then try Airman by Eoin Colfer

If you like playing The Oregon Trail, then try Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee

If you like playing the Elder Scrolls series, then try The Naming by Alison Croggon

If you like playing Red Dead Redemption, then try Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman

If you like playing Bioshock, then try  Dark Life by Kat Falls

If you like playing Fallout, then try Razorland by Ann Aguirre 

If you like playing Assasin’s Creed, then try The Way of Shadows Night by Brent Weeks

If you like playing Dragonage, then try Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

If you like playing The Legend of Zelda, then try Graceling by Kristin Cashore

If you like playing Until Dawn, then try Ten by Gretchen McNeil

If you like playing Sonic, then try Maximum Ride by James Patterson

If you like playing Overwatch, then try Bluescreen by Dan Wells

If you like playing Uncharted, then try Passenger by Alexandra Bracken

If you like playing Pokemon, then try Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them by JK Rowling, and Newt Scamander

If you like playing Mario Party, then try Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

[residentlesbrarian]

[residentlesbrarian]

Happy Pride to everyone!

Now more than ever, as there are people trying to drive a wedge between us, we must stay strong together and support each other as much as we can. All our LGBTQIA+ siblings deserve love, safety and the same rights.

[residentlesbrarian]

The Fourth Book I Read In the Dark: Of Expectations and Other Relatabilities

Of Gryphons and Other Monsters by Shannon McGee

Hey, guys, sooooo...this is aaaawwwkward. I wrote 95% of this review when I wrote the other Books I Read in the Dark series for the blog, but the ADHD hit me and COVID was still you know...a thing! So I am gonna post this review, finished of course, OH, but also pay extra close attention to the conclusion alright! Hmm...this is a bit like a time capsule...here are my concentrated thoughts from 6 months ago while I was slightly delirious on books and darkness. So go forth and uh yeah this one is...you can just feel the feral “I haven’t had access to proper internet so I’ve been curled in the corner like Gollum with my books” energy coming off it so...enjoy?

Okay, so yeah, I really didn’t have a reason to end my last review that way I just wanted to, so sue me for injecting a little excitement into a series of posts about me literally sitting in my house reading nonstop for 2 ½ days, my reviews my rules. Back to manufacturing my own excitement shall we!

It’s Day 2! I’ve just finished my last library book, whatever will I do! I could always reread The Neverending Story for the 1,273rd time, but I have a need. A need for GAY! I rack my brain, there has to be a solution. My town is without power, my local library won’t be open, but then it hits me. It’s so simple! It’s meant to be really! Like the universe knew this was coming and it made sure I was prepared! Like a prepper stockpiling mental SPAM for my stimulus needing ADHD riddled brain! I have an entire shelf of books that I haven’t read yet! Way back in Clexacon 2019 my best friend (Lookin at you @justalifelongphase) gave me way too much money from missed birthdays and Christmases all at once before the con started because the world has deemed it impossible for us to live geographically close to one another. Anyway, I went a little book-buying-crazy and have not had the time or opportunity to read any of them since then. Their time has finally come!

I figured after going full whimsy with The Lost Coast and sci-fi superhero with Dreadnought and Sovereign why not take a dip into more traditional fantasy, also this one was first in line on the shelf, yay for not having to actually make a decision! No more dawdling, let's get right into the review!

Unicorn Rating:

Blurb: Taryn always loves and hates gryphon season. She finds the lesser gryphons more cute than anything but the ever present fear that a greater gryphon might be just out of sight is terrifying, and this gryphon season proves to be the one that will change her and her families lives forever! Just let a girl herd her sheep in peace!

Disclaimer: I will try my best to not spoil anything from the book, but my book loving rambles may give more away than a traditional review. Here we go! Ramble time!

Review:

I genuinely enjoyed this book. It took me a bit longer to get through it than the others, but I think that was a combination of three things: A. I was starting to feel the fatigue of reading so much in such a short amount of time. B. Our local Wal Mart had power restored on Day 3 and our entire household went on a trip to buy non-perishable food stuffs and I was like a solitary confinement prisoner being let out into the yard for the first time in months when my phone picked up a wifi signal and it was a bit hard to get back into the swing of reading after talking to other humans, even virtually, that weren’t imaginary or in my head. C. Our power was finally restored on the afternoon of Day 3 so yet again I was inundated with the draw of technology and all of my friend-os I hadn’t talked to, but the book had drawn me in enough I did the most unmillienial thing and left my phone in a different room to charge while I finished this book before going back to the land of technology and interwebs. That should tell you something.

McGee was able to write this story in a way that pulls you in so you care about what happens to these characters and this little mountain town. You learn just enough about the world to understand where they fit within the overall weave of it, but you aren’t given a Tolkein-esc dissertation on the world lore. I felt the worries and the fears. I was concerned when the routines had to change. I mean she made me care about the freaking sheep! Sheep, people! One of the reasons I think this works so well is we are so firmly rooted in the head of our protagonist, Taryn. Imma use that lovely bridge I just built to skip right on over the plot section of the review to get to the characters first, don’t worry we’ll circle back round to the plot. I always do, but I just wanna talk about my newest set of brain babies.

Taryn is a character that, if the title of this post is anything to go by, I found very very relatable. Now I know relatability can be pretty subjective, some people can latch onto something with the all consuming, “It me!” While others just stare on dead eyed not understanding the appeal. I feel like Taryn could be that kind of protagonist. You are either going to really relate to her or you won’t understand where she is coming from at all. I obviously fall in the former category. I was the quintessential middle child, still am really, though my relationship with my parents has shifted now that I’m an adult. More mutual respect and friendship than parent to child. I always did my best to pick up the slack, if ever there was any, and just tried my best to be as little of a burden as possible to my parents. I see so much of that aspect of myself in Taryn and how she sees her place at the farm and even in the town, she has her place and her role, but those expectations are heavy. One of those expectations being that she will inevitably get married and help take over the farm from her parents and have kids to continue the line. The fact she finds the lesser gryphons that flock near the farm far cuter than any of the local boys that she will eventually have to choose from to fulfill that inevitable expectation is just...sad at best and down right tragic at worst. And her family doesn’t help matters either. They won’t let her forget that she will have to settle down with one of these local boys, a boy who would make a good husband and take good care of her and the farm. She knows that, logically, but she also wants to be in love, like her parents, and she just doesn’t feel like that for any of the boys in town. She doesn’t know how to make those two things line up. It’s a struggle between her head, the obligation of what she has to do, and her heart, what she really wants for her future, to be happy in doing what she has to do. Wow, I went off a little bit there, but this was my long winded way of saying I have never read a protagonist that really captured the utter confusion of being raised in a heteronormative environment without it being drenched in internalized homophobia and fear. Protagonists like this seem to always know something is off but just don’t have the words for it so they just hide it because they know it’s “different” and out of the norm, but Taryn is just livin’ her sheep herding life and ain’t got no time for these boy crazy fools. She knows her mom wants her to find a good boy to court her so she can marry someday but she’s still young. She’ll think about that tomorrow, and she just repeats that ad infinitum. The thought that maybe she doesn’t fancy any of the boys because well...girls...never even occurred to her. It's not how things are done in this small mountain town, not because of homophobia reasons, but just stubborn tradition reasons. We are even told there is a gay couple living in town who are staples in the overall dynamics in town, instrumental even, but the idea of having a lineage, being able to pass your land down is so ingrained no wonder poor Taryn was so in the dark about her own probable gayness till it slapped her in the face. As someone who was raised in a medium sized Oklahoma town...girl I feel you. I was 22 and in the middle of Appalacia, way up in the mountains for college when my gay awakening popped up and said “Hello!” Everything that never quite made sense in my life came into perfect clarity. Not quite what happened with Taryn, but the arrival of Aella surely helped, as pretty girls are want to do. Oh look a segue, good, cause I could talk about Taryn for literal hours and I’ve already gabbed about her too much for this review.

Aella, you smooth motherfucker. Like I wish I could possess a quarter of the smoothness that you do. Like I’m lucky to string sentences together around a pretty girl, but here you are just strutting about being the smoothest of smooth. Honestly, I just...I can’t with you Aella. On a serious note though Aella is a character that served as showing Taryn a glimpse at the world beyond her small mountain town, as much as she had no desire to leave, unlike her brother. Nope, sit down, we’ll get to you, Michael! Oh, we’ll get to you. She’s traveled and has stories from all over and she is fairly open about the fact that she only likes girls, but she doesn’t have land, responsibilities, and a family line to continue. She just gets to live her life the way she choses. And y’all know I am a sap for the hard dark characters that are totally softies underneath that rough exterior. I think Aella was a great foil to Taryn and great at showing her what she could have if she was willing to leave, to stretch what she was allowed to wish for, but of course the biggest issue with her wishing for anything was...Michael.

Michael was such an interesting character. I loved him. I hated him. I wanted to hug him. I wanted to punch him. Again as with the town and the people of the town I was so deep seated in Taryn’s head and feelings that her conflicted feelings about Michael and how he was acting became my feelings on the matter. Not enough to not separate a tad and see what was coming or at least try to predict it as I always do when reading, but emotionally I was right with Taryn the whole way. The one thing that really pushed Michael from just a character I was conflicted about to one I really wanna give a swift kick in the nads to, is that he knew. He knew all about Taryn’s absolute lack of romantic inclinations toward any of the boys in town and her doubts that she would ever find someone to love and marry to take over the farm. He was the only person she confided these fears in and he still selfishly followed his own pursuits with little regard to her or her worries. You sir, are a terrible brother and overall a shit human, so sit your ass down and shut your mouth.

The plot for this book was so embroiled with the characters and their journeys that I can’t talk on it much but the twists at the end and the final climax was very satisfying for me and left me excited to dig into the next book. Also something of note that I didn’t talk about in the character section cause I felt it was dragging on a touch, I really only talked in depth on our three biggest players but there is a very colorful cast of side characters ranging from Taryn’s nervous pony to the boy-who-cried-gryphon neighbor no one can stand to the troupe of hunters led by Aella’s mother to Taryn’s best friend Nia, all of whom play important parts in building that sense of caring about the people of this town and the town itself, which in turn made me deeply care about the outcome of the plot at the heart of the story. And the sheep! The god damn sheep!

One thing I do want to say before my final thoughts is that whoever designed the cover of this book in a genius because as I dug into the story I found myself constantly closing it to spout off about theories of what I thought was happening on the cover and what it all meant, I was kind of reader fatigue delirious for most of those theories but some of them I was right! I might have reenacted the Captain Holt “Vindication” gif IRL just because it felt too good not to. I just love when a “cool” cover turns out to be so much more than that once you’re “in the know”. So yeah, now y’all know to pay attention for that.

My final thoughts on this book are pretty positive. I can tell the author is building us toward so much more, hence the name of the series, Taryn’s Journey, and it feels like it. This is only the beginning and I honestly can’t wait to take the next steps with her.

Queer Wrap-up:

Hey it’s me from the future...present...whatever...so, this is when I stopped writing the review six months ago and there is a reason for that. I, kind of, agonized over what to rate this book on the scale. Multiple times having to call my brother and go back and forth just to then repeat the same arguments with myself as soon as I got off the phone. Now why was this such a hard terrible no good awful back and forth well...SPOILER WARNING...seriously anything past this point will be spoiling some character beats for the majority of the book...okay? We understand one another. DANGER ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE...or you know scroll on.

So, Taryn is never confirmed to be queer in the text of this book. Now you would have to be wearing the tightest hetero goggles in known history not to see the heavy HEAVY subtext saying THIS BITCH GAY! It’s basically a full grown elephant painted sparkly rainbow trying to hide behind a dead shrub aka not hiding at all. I so desperately wanted to give this book four of those darling unicorns but in this rare case I just don’t think I can justify it. We have a protagonist that is still figuring herself out, which is amazing that we get to see that and go on the journey with her. Some of the things Taryn does and thinks are queer coded as hell, especially if it involves Aella who is explicitly gay on the page, but Taryn herself never express whether she herself is queer. Which, fair, other really important and traumatizing things were going on and I love that about her as a character, she didn’t meet Aella and suddenly that was all she could think about. Aella, of course, is representation who I’m counting because even though she shows obvious interest (you smooth motherfucker) in Taryn she is so much more than just a love interest and her character isn’t just boiled down to her sexuality. Now in this wrap up I’m also including the doctor and his husband in the town. They are very minor characters but they give us interesting insights into the town and the people. They are accepted and treated well in town even if some do almost, pity isn’t the right word, but they seem sad that they won’t be able to have any kind of legacy or lineage. As I said in the review it’s not homophobia it’s being stuck in your ways and it’s an interesting take.

Links:

Shannon McGee Website

The Storygraph

Okay so this one is a bit of a mess. Pieces of it were written 6 months apart and most of it was written while I was kind of delirious but hey at least I can say it’s honest. I still stand by everything my past self wrote and I still really enjoy thinking and talking about this book and am excited for whenever I get around to reading the sequel to continue on Tayrn’s journey with her. This is a book I probably would never have known even existed without ClexaCon and trolling through artist alley for literally every table that had books on them. I guess, moral of the day is maybe you won’t just find great books on library shelves but on unassuming convention tables too and it never hurts to look. Trust me, I’m a lesbrarian.

Oh bet you thought this post was over. I did the sign off and everything but oh no no! I have some info and such to impart. I am WELL AWARE these reviews have been fairly inconsistent to down right sporadic. Well, this is just a little info dump letting you guys know I am gonna be putting up one more review after this one that I wrote ages ago and I mean AGES (think years, as in multiple) and just never got around to posting and then the old blog is probably gonna be going through a PLANNED dormancy while some pretty big stuff is coming down the pike. You may notice visual changes and other stuff before anything else is announced but just keep an eye out. To quote the Fates from Hercules, “It’s gonna be big!”

Okay now for the actual sign off, I got shit to do! No one look behind the curtain, it’s a surprise!

[residentlesbrarian]

I actually have a review of the second book already and I loved it even more than the first!! 😃

The Second Book I Read In the Dark: Another YA superhero novel for me to squeal over forever…YES, Please! Gimme Gimme!

Dreadnought by April Daniels

So Day 1 in the dark continues onward and I have already finished 1 of my 3 library books with still so much day left so what else to do but soldier forward and continue without pause. Well there was a short pause for delicious chicken soup cooked on a blessedly gas powered range (never gonna live in a house with an electric range; I swear this thing has saved our butts in so many power outages), but I digress; I was ready! This time I was taking a break from the whimsical and witchy and diving head first into all things super with an extra heroic twist. 

I had heard so many good things about this book for so long but again it had fallen to the wayside of other distractions (a rainbow montage of movie and TV show gays runs back and forth through my head like the migrating fandom flamingoes). What finally made me make the decision to buckle down and do the thing was a video review done by one of my favorite YouTubers, Dominic Noble (Video Linked below). I love his series Lost in Adaptation, because as an avid reader I too find myself appalled by what Hollywood often does to my favorite books. Hearing him talk about Dreadnought was just the push my flighty brain needed to say, “Fine! Alright! We haven’t utterly obsessed over a teenage superhero book in like 6 months since we near bludgeoned our girlfriend with Not Your Sidekick! Fine! Let’s do it!” So…yeah if this intro is anything to go by this should be a fun one! Let’s dive right in shall we!

Unicorn Rating:

Blurb: She just wanted to paint her toenails in peace but then a superhero had to go and die and give Danny the one thing she never thought she’d have…her proper body. Now if only everyone else felt that way too. Life just got awesome and really really complicated all at once! Oh yeah and she can fly now. Bonus!

Keep reading

[residentlesbrarian]

The Third Book I Read In the Dark: You mean there's more and this time it gets GAY! Sign me the F*** UP!

Sovereign by April Daniels

As Day 1 of my time in the dark ages was coming to a close so did my second library book and even though it was late and I should probably go to bed (and by bed I mean the couch in the living room closest to the fireplace because sweet sweet crackling warmth) I couldn’t help but at least crack open the sequel to the phenomenal book I’d just finished. I was set to have wisdom tooth surgery the next day bright and early but with the state of the world I had doubts it would happen so, you know...YOLO.

Now, I know what people say about sequels, never get your hopes up too high because usually they will let you down, but I was so pleasantly surprised to know that the curse of bad sequels passed over Sovereign without leaving its mark. I loved this just as much if not more than the first book. If my review of the first book is anything to go off of this is gonna be a mess so let’s get this love fest on the road!

Unicorn Rating:

Blurb: Danny is finding her feet as Dreadnought but things are far from easy especially with curve balls coming from every angle. Things are getting harder, darker, and maybe a bit...gayer!

Disclaimer: I will try my best to not spoil anything from the book, but my book loving rambles may give more away than a traditional review. Here we go! Ramble time!

Review: 

Diving right into this I genuinely liked this book just as much if not a bit more than the first book. Now there are a few reasons for that, one is that we don’t have to deal with Danny’s parents much, my feelings on them were made very clear in my last review. The second was that, although we were introduced to a few new characters, we were mainly focused on characters we already knew and just got to know them more so it did what I think all sequels should do; build on what you already know while adding just enough new stuff to keep you coming back for more. 

The plot of this second book is a multi-layered beast that I had a blast peeling back piece by piece, while also not being too difficult to follow. It is for sure a much darker plot than the first book, but as someone who’s second book looks to be pretty dark and emotionally...well, ouch, I can really get down with this kind of character heavy story that really depends on the reader being invested in the struggles of the characters more than an overly complicated plot. The twist also still got me there at the end. Comeuppances sure are fun to see. Okay, I behaved for a whole two paragraphs and talked about the plot now to really let ‘er rip!

Oh boy! Oh jeeze! How do I want to do this!?! Ummm spin the wheel-o-characters and see where it stops? Sure! That's a solid way to write coherent and professional reviews (I know logically I should start with Danny but I’m saving her and a particular western themed vigilante till last for GAY reasons)!

The Wheel has chosen and I am going to talk about Karen first! So, Karen, this was a character that when she first showed up I was utterly confused and then got so freaking excited so freaking fast when I figured out who she might be! I literally closed the book and went, “That ain’t a backpack!” Now I am gonna try and be extra careful about how I word this next part to try and not spoil anything, but please someone ask me questions about it so I can gush about it more in a spoiler filled response! So, if you read my Dreadnought review I genuinely liked Valkyrja and I was so sad we weren’t going to get to see more of her after the ending of the last book, but then Karen quite literally broke on in to make my day. She honestly fascinated me. The struggle she is going through reminds me so much of something from one of my favorite animated shows, RWBY, that has been an ongoing struggle since Volume 4 for the character of Oscar. (I won’t say anymore cause I don’t want to spoil the book or the show, you should read the book and watch the show, they are both awesome and then come into my ask box and we can talk about how interesting it is). She was a character that I felt deeply for because of her struggle, but also was conflicted on because of reasons that I can’t get into but man...just Karen, why, Karen why?

So next up we have more from the local literal wizard, Charlie, who is as sleep deprived and as eclectic as ever. He is a good example of what I meant when I said I was glad we were able to spend more time with characters we already knew. He was instrumental in the plot even if he was mostly a background player, but I cared about him when the crew got into big fights because I already knew him and knew that he wasn’t a fighter. He was a friend in a world where there weren’t a ton of those to be had.

 Oooo let’s do another newcomer, Kinetiq, who admittedly has a bit of beef with our girl. Danny has been getting a lot of press for being “the first transgender superhero” which is not at all accurate she is just the first pretty white superhero with Legion-sized support and funding behind her and Kinetiq never lets her forget it. They are a non-binary Iranian-American superhero that has been capin’ way longer than Danny has but hasn’t gotten nearly the recognition. They are such a cool character and really rounds out the team of superpowered teens.

Let’s dig into our villains next. I still hate Graywytch with every fiber of my being and the burning passion of a thousand suns, but that isn’t ever gonna change, so we can move on before I have another melt down like last time. We wouldn’t want that now would we? Maybe you do. I don’t tell you how to feel. So now we can talk about Sovereign (I know we got his civilian name in the book but I have forgotten it because I read these books in 2 ½ days and I have the memory of a brain damaged goldfish so we’ll just go with that), he was a character that we met him and I immediately went “Sooo, he’s the bad guy right?” Everything he said just oozed “entitled asshole” and “I’m more important than you.” And I don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing. Now I do like to have some more complications in my villains, some grayness and not all black and white, but in a story so hinged on Danny struggling internally with so much I think having a really deep complicated villain would have been too much to handle at the same time. 

I’ve contained this as long as I can and I can’t contains it no more…*runs to the top of the nearest mountain* I LOVE DOC IMPOSSIBLE!!! I know in my last review I said she gave me kookie grandma character vibes even though she didn’t really fit into either one of those categories, but she still just fits like a puzzles piece into a hole in my heart of characters I love. The reveal at the end of Dreadnought that she was an android only made me love her more and then to see how much she is struggling with what Utopia used her body to do against her will just makes me want to give her all my love and support even more (Maybe I just have a thing for characters breaking away from controlling abusers and fully accepting and owning themselves for who they truly are *cough* Yasha from Critical Role *cough*). And no spoilers but the ending scene with Danny and her made me squeal/tear up with happy tears.

So now on to the main event or well...the main character and her grapple handed revolver wielding bandana wearing paramore. Now I’ve alluded to it in the other character opinions but Danny, well, Danny goes through it in this book. I remember while I was reading it thinking how tired I was, part of that was probably because I had been reading literally non-stop for two days but also I think I was really picking up on Danny’s fatigue in that it just never ended. As soon as one trial or tribulation ended she had little or no time to rest before she had to force herself back to her feet and say, “Alright, whatcha got?” Danny also goes to some pretty dark places, and as someone with some experience with PTSD it was really compelling to read a character who was working through those kinds of thoughts and...not handling it well. She was rash and angry and lashing out, she was far from the perfect picture of composure her publicist/lawyer wanted her to be, that’s for sure. Danny is yet again a fascinating character to follow along in her journey because she has so much depth and is so compelling because she is so flawed. 

Now Danny’s dynamic with Calamity/Sarah this book was just...so good. Now do I think they are perfect and amazing and gonna go off and have a perfect little capin’ life together...honestly, no. But that is why I love them so much. I was convinced Sarah had the budding start of feelings for Danny all the way back in the first book but Danny had SO MUCH going on she didn’t notice and Sarah wasn’t gonna push the issue and probably didn’t even really know what she was feeling herself. I am a connoisseur of gay media after all, but the hints were there. When nothing came of it I didn’t feel let down because it wouldn’t have made since in the story of the first book especially with Sarah losing her arm and everything else. Then this book came around and turned everything up a notch. Danny is realizing she is soooo much gayer for Calamity than she thought, and Calamity/Sarah is really being the only person who isn’t letting Danny slide when it comes to the self destructive behavior she has been kind of reveling in which I am so here for. In relationships, good relationships, you have to be able to call each other out, call bull shit on one another, without it getting personal. We see that in real time develop between Sarah and Danny. We also see that Danny really depends on Calamity and her wit and know how in battle situations because, lets face it, Danny is the muscle, but Calamity is the brains. The fact they are able to work together so well is just a testament to the fact I think they will have a good relationship going forward. Maybe not all sunshine and roses all the time, because that isn’t realistic, but they will support each other and protect each other in the way that matters and counts. And I am a soft bitch when it comes to stuff like that. 

My final thoughts on this is that I really liked the way, after such a hard and trudging journey (I say that with as much love and admiration as I can), we were able to have an ending that radiated such softness, such hope for a future that wouldn’t be full of so much pain and struggle. I needed that ending. I needed that exhale to be able to just settle with Danny, and Sarah, and Doc, and the rest of the crew after the holy hell storm they had to go through in this book. I know there is supposed to be a third book in the Nemesis series but I would be okay with it ending here. Sure, there are some unanswered questions plot-wise, but I am happy with where our characters landed and by now y’all know me, I’m in it for those sweet sweet character driven stories so I’m good. That doesn’t mean I won’t read the third one when it comes out, but I’m in no rush. My reading list is currently lording over me with a baseball bat and looking mighty threatening so I should probably start on that. *nervous sweating increases* 

Queer Wrap-up: Let’s jump right into this tally. Of course, we have our protagonist Danny who is living her best life, well not really but it’s a figure of speech, as a transwoman and trying to shine a light on trans superheroes and doing an ‘eh’ job at it but at least she is trying. Now we did get to see another side of Danny’s identity in the fact she is not only trans but also a lesbian. Now this wasn’t hidden in the first book, but it wasn’t the focus by a long shot, and I gushed a tad in my review about Danny’s irrefutably adorable gay panic at meeting her celebrity crush, Valkryja, but other than that and a few lines here or there the focus is definitely on Danny’s identity as a transwoman in the first book but this one brings her lesbian identity out more and I loved to see how the two mixed and how there was never any questioning there. Danny is a woman who is attracted to woman, so she is a lesbian...easy peasy. Love that for her. Now onto what moved this from a four unicorn rating for the last book to five for this one. We get the lovely romance between Sarah and Danny confirming that Sarah falls somewhere on the spectrum, though she never defines herself in any way other than loving Danny, and we know her and Charlie have dated in the past so we can assume she is also attracted to men. She could be bisexual, pansexual, we don’t know and she never says and honestly it doesn’t matter. I’m just gonna sit in my happy little queer bubble and watch her and Danny be cute. We also have the additional rep of Kinetiq, the kick ass nonbinary superhero that joins the team. They give us additional gender identity rep outside of just Danny and they are snarky and awesome to boot.

So yeah this more than earns that last unicorn by building and expanding on what the first book started and I also believe for the amazing rep and deep dive into the mind of someone being trans and just living their life as super powered and fantastical as it maybe, which is something I cannot personally speak to, I think this earns a place in the Sparkly Unicorn Hall of Gay! I swear this won’t only be YA super hero series, remember Raven: Pirate Princess is in there too!

Links: 

Goodreads

Dreadnought Review

So this book took slightly longer than the others to read mainly because I had to go to the next town over to maybe have wisdom tooth surgery. Well, that didn’t happen cause the whole state was one day out of an ice storm and was still walking bow legged but hey I got to eat something that wasn’t reheated soup for the first time in 2 days. French fries have never tasted so good! Once I dug into this book though it flew by like the rest. Remember that I found all three of these books in the library I work at so check the shelves of the ones near you, you could be surprised what they have on their shelves just waiting to be discovered. Trust me, I’m a lesbrarian.

But now I was sat most of the way through Day 2 and I was officially out of library books! Whatever would I do? Find out next time on...The Books I Read In the Dark!

[residentlesbrarian]

The Second Book I Read In the Dark: Another YA superhero novel for me to squeal over forever...YES, Please! Gimme Gimme!

Dreadnought by April Daniels

So Day 1 in the dark continues onward and I have already finished 1 of my 3 library books with still so much day left so what else to do but soldier forward and continue without pause. Well there was a short pause for delicious chicken soup cooked on a blessedly gas powered range (never gonna live in a house with an electric range; I swear this thing has saved our butts in so many power outages), but I digress; I was ready! This time I was taking a break from the whimsical and witchy and diving head first into all things super with an extra heroic twist. 

I had heard so many good things about this book for so long but again it had fallen to the wayside of other distractions (a rainbow montage of movie and TV show gays runs back and forth through my head like the migrating fandom flamingoes). What finally made me make the decision to buckle down and do the thing was a video review done by one of my favorite YouTubers, Dominic Noble (Video Linked below). I love his series Lost in Adaptation, because as an avid reader I too find myself appalled by what Hollywood often does to my favorite books. Hearing him talk about Dreadnought was just the push my flighty brain needed to say, “Fine! Alright! We haven’t utterly obsessed over a teenage superhero book in like 6 months since we near bludgeoned our girlfriend with Not Your Sidekick! Fine! Let’s do it!” So...yeah if this intro is anything to go by this should be a fun one! Let’s dive right in shall we!

Unicorn Rating:

Blurb: She just wanted to paint her toenails in peace but then a superhero had to go and die and give Danny the one thing she never thought she’d have...her proper body. Now if only everyone else felt that way too. Life just got awesome and really really complicated all at once! Oh yeah and she can fly now. Bonus!

Disclaimer: I will try my best to not spoil anything from the book, but my book loving rambles may give more away than a traditional review. Here we go! Ramble time!

Review: 

Holy crap! After the last book this was exactly what I needed! This book was just...so good! The plot...the characters...the world...everything about it just pulls you in and doesn’t let you go. Now I may have felt that way because I didn’t have anything trying to pull me away from this book but I don’t think I would have been easily pulled away if there had been distractions. And so many facets of this story were things I didn’t expect because I had never seen them portrayed before. Like the fact Danny having to deal with the rampant day to day sexism of being a woman now that her appearance matches who she really is. I’ve never seen that in a book before and I absolutely loved it! I was so dedicated to Danny’s story from page 1 it’s ridiculous, and look at that, a perfect segue into the phenomenal characters of this book...look what I did there switching it up going out of order on ya...gotta keep ya on your toes.

Our protagonist Danny is such a phenomenal example of a genuine kind caring person who is also deeply scarred and angry. It was so amazing to read a character that was flawed and struggling and doesn’t see how much a hero she really is and the small moments when others take that double take and go, “You’re the real deal, huh?” But those moments just confuse the living hell outta Danny cause she’s just Danny, she got super powers as a fluke. She is also hilarious and courageous and smart but knows she isn’t perfect and has weaknesses. She may be the strongest person on earth physically now but she acknowledges that that isn’t everything someone needs. Danny is such a good bean, but she has issues and that isn’t glossed over which is so rare. Now the next thing I want to touch on is a very tough subject but is very prevalent in the book so I wouldn’t be a very prudent reviewer if I didn’t bring it up. Danny is, without question, an abused child. This isn’t even really a spoiler, it alludes pretty heavily to it in the blurb, but what I’m gonna touch on next does dip into that territory so I’m gonna break it into a new LONG paragraph so just scroll on by if you don’t want to read this bit.

So at one point in the book Danny mentions a health screening at school that revealed she had hearing damage in her right ear that has now been healed by the mantle of Dreadnought. At the time of the screening she didn’t realize why until her dad had another Mount Vesuvius day and she assumed her usual position of curling in on herself and turning her head to the left so he would yell into only her right ear. Now how loud and how often do you have to yell into someone’s ear to cause permanent hearing damage? I don’t know and honestly I don’t want to know. Why am I highlighting an overall tiny moment...because for me this moment jumped out and gut punched me. Brought literal tears to my eyes. Tears of pain. Tears of rage. Tears of hate. I’m a weepy bitch when I get emotional. I’ve read a lot of books that try and portray abuse and how Daniels wrote Danny’s abuse from her father took my breath away because it felt so real. There weren’t really any good days, there were bad days, there were really bad days, but most days were just anxiously waiting for the next bad day, because Danny knew there would always be a next bad day. Something that did surprise me was my feelings about Danny’s mother. I knew going in I would hate her father, before even meeting him I hated him, but her mother, that was a hate that lay dormant until it exploded onto the scene and froze me to my core. I’m not gonna get into my own demons here but there is one thing I cannot abide by and that is people turning a blind eye while someone abuses another. Danny’s mother is the textbook definition of someone who “goes along to get along”, she will do just about anything to keep the peace, but at what cost? Instead of protecting her child from someone who literally screamed so long and so loud at her child that it damaged her hearing she just sat back and let them. That’s not the worst though, no, after Danny’s transition her mom seems to be understanding of the fact she is happy being a girl and is buying her things she needs like bras and undeniably feminine shoes, only to reveal it was all to keep Danny docile so she wouldn’t cause more fights with her dad. That to me is unforgivable. Not worse than the abuse of the father, but still undeniably selfish. She never cared about Danny or listened to her and what she was really saying. She just didn’t want there to be anymore fighting. Well I’m sorry, but sometimes, as a mother, you should fight to protect your goddamn child when someone is hurting them. The last thing I’ll say before going back to the more spoiler free and fun part of the review is that the fact Danny can never make herself say she is being abused hits so close to home for me. As a reader looking in from outside, there was a scene with a member of the Legion that I felt like, as an abuse survivor myself, I was standing there begging Danny to accept her invitation. To get out of that house. To get away from her father. To see what he was doing for what it was. But I knew she wouldn’t, she wasn’t ready, and it broke my heart to watch her fly away.

Anyway moving on from all that heavy stuff lets talk about other things like some freaking superheroes and one particular vigilante. We have the Legion members: Doc Impossible, Valkyrja, Magma, Graywytch, Chlorophyll, and Carapice. Now How do I want to talk about these characters...in what order...hmmm...how about from best to worst. Okay? Okay. Great! 

I freaking love Doc Impossible! She is a character that from the moment I met her she gave me ‘kookie grandma’ character vibes and I get DOWN with kookie grandma characters. Now I know she isn’t a grandma character nor is she particularly crazy in the way she acts; it's just a vibe I get from her that I love. Now one thing I do want to say without spoiling anything is how Doc is one of the few characters that never tries to take away Danny’s agency in everything that happens around her in all this superhero craziness. Danny can always be her own person and most importantly a kid around Doc, and I feel Danny really needed that. I will stop myself now because I could go on for hours about Doc and how much I LOVE HER!

Next up we get a two for one, Valkyrja and Magma. We don’t see much of them but what we do get is pretty good. They are adult superheroes who have their own priorities surrounding what is going on with Danny, but aren’t mean or cruel and seem to genuinely care about Danny. Valkyrja is funny and surprisingly down to earth even though she is basically a scandinavian goddess of sorts. Also the hilarity of her being Danny’s long time celebrity crush never gets old. Oh Danny, you useless little lesbian. Magma is a precious big hot boy that seems like he’d give good hugs. Yeah, that's about all I got to say about him that won’t spoil anything. 

Now we have another two for one with Chlorophyll and Carapice. These two I'm between dislike and indifferent on.  They weren’t outright mean to Danny but they treated her more like a means to an end or down right refused to acknowledge she was the new Dreadnought whether they liked it or not, but we didn’t really get to see them enough to really learn more about their motivations. 

Finally to round out the Legion we have Graywytch. Excuse me while I get this out. *Exaggerated throat clear.* First of all, Imma slap that stupid robe of ya stupid head. Then Imma stab you with your stupid fancy atheme you like to wave around all the time. And don’t even start on your “Typical male, always resorting to violence” shtick, cause guess what, I’m a ciswoman and I still wanna stomp a mudhole in your ass. And for that...Imma slap your dumb bird too. *Deep breath in. Looooooong exhale.* Sorry about that. Mama had to express some rage. I have never had a hate-sink character that made me feel the fiery flames of rage quite like Graywytch...obviously. Her treatment of Danny had me gripping the book tightly and growling about slapping birds and “shanking bitches” more than I should probably admit. She is one of those characters that I love how much I hate her. She served the exact purpose she was meant to and it was never cast in a light that she may be right in her treatment of Danny, we are always aware that her mindset is ridiculous. Like the fact outside of her parents Graywytch is the only character to blatantly deadname and misgender Danny. To go off on a small tangent here I may relate too much here because I have a younger brother who is trans (don’t worry he is fine with me discussing it in reviews and such) and I went to a graduation party when my best friend graduated medical school and he was out to the family but not extended friends yet. After only referring to him by the proper pronouns for so long at home hearing the wrong ones caused legitimate eye blinking record scratch cognitive dissonance for me. I had the same feeling anytime Graywytch opened her stupid mouth and blatantly misgendered Danny. Because the way this is written Danny is Danny, she is exactly who she is meant to be. Suck it Graywytch!

Okay, I know you probably want to hear about the plot I know, but we have one more character we have to talk about and that is Calamity, the rootin’-ist tootin’-ist vigilante that ever did come through these here parts. Sorry, I have to talk like this now, it’s part of the persona, you have to commit to the persona. But real talk, I absolutely love Calamity as a look into “graycapes” and the real dive into the world of superheroes beyond the big heroes. We get to see how someone who doesn’t have the backing of the Legion goes about helping people, the little people, those that maybe the Legion way up in their tower can’t see from so high up in the clouds. And y’all know me, I love a morally gray vigilante with a heart of gold.  She had me at “You wanna go capin’?”

Now obviously I couldn’t get enough of the characters but the plot was pretty darn good too. It was so intricately woven in with Danny and her inheriting the mantle from the previous Dreadnought that she had no choice but to be an integral part of it. Now I obviously don’t have as much to say about the plot as I did the characters but know if you come for the plot you won’t be disappointed. It kept me guessing and threw me for an absolute curve ball at the end that I did not see coming! You won’t be disappointed.

So final thoughts...there isn’t much more I can say without going on an hours long squeal fest about how much I freaking loved this book and the characters and the intricacies of how Danny’s powers work and how she was written and how she interacts with different characters and just everything that would mean massive untakebackable spoilers! So I will end on this note; Danny is a character that it would have been easy to lean into the superhero aspect and let the reader forget that she was trans, but April Daniels didn’t want that. Danny was gifted the easiest transition in the history of the world. What takes most people years of HRT and surgeries and therapy Danny did in the passing of a mantle, but it never took away the fact she is and always will be trans. It was a unique reading experience that I have only been blessed with once before but that’s a story for a different review on a different day.

Queer Wrap-up: I would give my left kidney (that’s my good one btw) to give this book five unicorns, but alas I cannot, a one off conversation in an elevator hinting that a certain improbable doctor may have a one sided thing for a particular sadly straight scandinanvian god being is just not enough to count as additional rep. As much as I love this book, and I love it A LOT! We only have Danny as our queer rep and she is fantastic rep and our protagonist so a 4 unicorn rating was a no brainer on this one. Danny is the kind of trans rep I want to see more of in the world of books, YA and otherwise. Being a trans lesbian is a huge part of her character but she gets to do so much more than that in the breath of the story and that’s what I look for in great representation, so Danny easily earned these 4 unicorns on her own merit just being her amazing self.

Links: 

Goodreads

Dominc Noble’s Review

Alright so...this one got long. Ah hell, I ain't gonna apologize for it! This is a damn good book and I wanted to get my fangirl squeal on y’all. 

Oh no, I think I’ve been thinking about Calamity too much I slipped into the persona without meaning to! This book was just far too much fun to read to the point I started reading it out loud with a full cast of voices (hint: the Calamity parts were my favorite) because it flowed so well and was genuinely so funny at parts and heart wrenchingly sad in others and so action packed the next moment. I finished this book in less than a day and if I had been more present and not under a pile of blankets and wearing a headlamp I might have thought to keep a timer to tell you the exact number of hours it took me, but alas know it didn’t take me many. 

So the adventures reading in the dark continue on to the next review after this one but as always if you want to read this but don’t want to spend the money without knowing for sure you are going to like it, go to your local library. You’d be surprised what they have on their shelves just waiting to be discovered. Trust me, I’m a lesbrarian.

[residentlesbrarian]

The First Book I Read In the Dark: Queer Witches and a Whole Bunch of Redwood Trees

The Lost Coast by Amy Rose Capetta

Let me set the scene...we start Day 1 of this experience curled up next to the white painted fireplace desperate for warmth with two blankets, an extra hoodie, a stocking cap, and my trusty lazy husband for that much needed lumbar support. 

Now The Lost Coast was a book I had checked out multiple times over the past year of silence on this blog because every time I saw it on the shelf I would pick it up, flip to the blurb, read it and go, “Man, that sounds so good! I gotta read it!” Then I’d check it out and it would sit in my locker, or in my car, or on my desk for three weeks and I’d turn it in completely untouched. But this time...this time I swore I was reading this damn book! Even if I was reading 10 pages a day during my breaks at work I was gonna finally read this book, it wasn’t going unread sitting somewhere for three weeks again. Little did I know how right I would be! 

So as a bit of a precursor this is the only book of those I read in the dark that I had already started. I was 90 pages in when I started reading on Day 1 and I only get more incoherent from here so let’s do this!

Unicorn Rating:

Blurb: Our protagonist is pulled across the country to the yawning redwood forest of northern California and discovers more than she could ever imagine. Her mom  thought Danny kissing girls was the worst of her problems but now she has to deal with witches and magic and is that a dead body! This non-stop ride is just getting started!

Disclaimer: I will try my best to not spoil anything from the book, but my book loving rambles may give more away than a traditional review. Here we go! Ramble time!

Review: 

Okay so I would say this book pretty firmly falls in a middle ground of okay for me. It was some really great escapism for me in a time when I really needed it, but the way the book was structured and written just didn’t really jive with my usual reading tastes. It felt to me like it was trying so hard to be poetic and artistic that it got a little lost at times, no pun intended with the title of the book. 

Now for the plot, which I think was maybe the strongest element of this book. The driving plot of the book never changed and was always consistent and I really liked how the author wove the magic of the world and the unique structure of how she was telling the story while never losing the plot in that unique structure. It was always peeling away one layer at a time and showing us just a bit more without holding our hand. It was very well done and kept me guessing and trying to figure out what was going to happen and how it was all going to end. Next we have what is usually my favorite part of a review but this time...isn't. 

I have so many conflicted feelings about the characters in The Lost Coast. On one hand holy giant redwoods I haven’t read a book since Not Your Sidekick that had this many casually queer characters just strutting about doing their thing, but on the other hand I feel the way the story was written leaves so much to be desired. The characters feel so thin and lacking when they had the potential to be so rich and diverse. Don’t get me wrong they are diverse in the bare bones definition, but we know so little about them at the end of the day it feels like it doesn’t really matter. We have our protagonist, Danny, who we know has a strained relationship with her mother but is close enough with she was willing to move her across the country in an attempt to try and give her a fresh start. Now there are somethings that take place in the story that explain a lot of the odd things about Danny’s character and made me a lot less unhappy with her by the time the book ended but it was really hard to get behind her as a protagonist at the beginning not because I didn’t like her but because I wasn’t motivated to follow her into the story. She was just going along from one event to the next with no real drive of her own, which brings us to the Grays: Hawthorne, June, Lelia, and Rush. They at least have a consistent motivation, but they had such potential to be really interesting characters but each one fell just short for me. The closest one to a compelling for me was Rush, we learned the most about her and I think that was mostly because Danny paid the most attention to her for obvious gay reasons. Now I can’t really expand too much more without going into massive spoiler territory for the plot which I don’t want to do, because the book is good and is an experience I don’t want to take away from anyone it just fell flat for me.

So yeah, this book wasn’t what I expected and I think a huge part of that was because the blurb is so much different than what is in the book itself. And I know, as a lesbrarian I should know not to judge a book by its cover or its blurb...but that is your first exposure to the story you are going to be reading and in this case the tone was so much different. Now let me reiterate this book wasn’t bad. There were parts that were so beautifully written I had to reread them several times to take in the layers of imagery and sheer poetry of the prose, but I feel like at times that style took away from the story itself and most of all it took away from the characters so that by the end of it they just fall a bit flat for me. I do recommend you give it a shot though because you won’t find a book with a queerer cast out there and maybe it will speak to you more than it did to me. 

Queer Wrap-up: Alright lets look at the this stellar tally shall we. Even with my own lack luster feelings toward the characters from a story perspective you can’t over look the fact that all but one character we interact with on page regularly is queer. That is something I have never seen before, so it more than earned its five unicorns, even if the quality was a bit lacking on the tail end the quantity really pulled it out. So we have our protagonist who is unapologetically kissing girls from page one and doesn’t ever shut up about it but also doesn’t shy away from the fact she also finds boys undeniably adorable and cute. In a scene that makes this tally easier than most she defines herself as queer so we are gonna stick with that. Within the Grays we have Lelia who is a tiny nonbinary gray ace person who will get in your face and is not afraid to be called a weirdo, June is a “femme as fuck” lesbian who is also not white (I belive Danny describes her as vaguely pacific islander at one point. I swear it was more specifically stated what her ethnicity was somewhere later in the book but I didn’t write it down at the time and couldn’t find it in my quick flip threw the book when I grabbed it to jot down their stated sexualities, but she is definitely not white), Hawthorne is a bisexual black witch who states she has “a strong lean toward masculine folks” which is refreshing to see bisexual representation that isn’t just “gay but guys exist I guess”, then we have Rush who very succinctly sums herself up with “Fat. Queer. White. Cello Player.” She is also some add rep in the form of having synesthesia where she can taste words. We also have some disability rep as June has an injury to her leg from a fall out of a tree that never healed properly and it does cause problems for her throughout the book, not the greatest rep but it’s there and shouldn’t be forgotten or not included. Man, oh man, this is the longest wrap-up I think I’ve ever written but I am still not done yet. We have Imogen who is the missing Gray mentioned in the blurb and brought up pretty quickly in the story and without spoiling anything we do get confirmation she is also undeniably queer as well as another character that I can’t even begin to talk about without a giant redacted stamp for spoiler reasons, but just know this book does have queer rep coming out its ears. 

Links: 

Amy Rose Capetta’s Website

Goodreads

So yes here we come to the end of the first Book I Read In the Dark it was a whimsical journey through redwoods with witches and more queerness than you could shake a widowmaker at (if you don’t get that reference read the book). I finished this book on Day 1 and immediately dove right into Book 2 because well I didn’t have anything else to do and I was kinda reeling from the confusion of this book and wanted something to ground me. The next book was one I had wanted to read for a very long time. You’ll see whether it did the job or not. 

As always if you want to read this but don’t want to spend the money without knowing for sure you are going to like it, go to your local library. You’d be surprised what they have on their shelves just waiting to be discovered. Trust me, I’m a lesbrarian.

[residentlesbrarian]

Sooo It’s been a while…

Man this place got dusty while I’ve been gone...oops. But I am here and I am ready to dust off this blog because despite 2020’s best efforts I am alive and well...ish. Okay...I’m as well as can be expected when a year looks Murphy’s Law in the eye and says “Hold my beer.” Anyway, the most important thing is I am still the same lesbrarian with the same passion for finding the queer rep on library shelves where it may be hard to find otherwise. It’s just been very hard to sit down and read and then take the time to write up the reviews the way I wanted to, so as many a thing in my life I put too much pressure on myself until I stopped doing the thing all together, well at least until recently when the universe said, “Hey, remember how much you love reading and then screaming about the books you read and that passion project you brushed under about 50 rugs last year...yeah, you should go back to that little passion baby and give it some love. Oh, you have too many other things to do and too many YouTube videos to watch and too many fictional lesbians to obsess over on Tumblr...then how about I take away all other forms of entertainment and plunge you into the dark ages for days and force you to do nothing but read...no, you don’t get a choice...kisses!”

Sooo...yeah. In case you all aren’t aware I live in the lovely state of Oklahoma and we got utterly railed by an ice storm. Just one more thing that 2020 decided was just fine and totally appropriate for us in this year of...occurrences. So there I am 2 days into a week-long ice storm, but hey my house is weathering well...we’ve still got heat and power and internet, so rage on storm, I don’t care. I’m just chilling in my little desk nook neck deep in my newest obsession, Jamie and Dani from The Haunting of Bly Manor, wrapped in a sensible blanket and enjoying that I have a job that pays me not to go to work when the weather is shit when suddenly I am plunged into darkness! Computer - Dark! Room - Dark! Jamie and Dani being adorable and tragic on my YouTube screen - Gone! Pleasant warm air blowing behind me from the heater - Gone! Suffice it to say I was not a happy camper. My happy little hyper fixated fangirling bubble had been very rudely popped and now I was getting cold and cranky, but it was just before midnight so I thought it’s fine I’ll go to bed and maybe we’ll have power back in the morning. Oh, how naive I had been, fair reader!

I awake to a freezing house and still not even a sniff of power being restored. I am yet again not having to work during this trying time (Thank you library for being the best job ever!) but I am faced with the conundrum of what do I do with my time. No internet, no data on my phone and very limited power on said phone even if I had data and no way to charge it. I really have very few options. But luckily because of the lack of central heat in the house for many a year until recently we have a gas-powered fireplace insert that only needs a light to get going in a power outage. So at least we weren’t completely without heat. And as far as light goes...we basically own a camping good store because one of us has an obsession with hiking and climbing mountains, but this isn’t about that. Essentially I have heat and I have light and...I have three library books I checked out because I was determined to get my ass reading again not knowing this newest apocalypse was coming. 

Long story short I am gonna jump start this blog back to life with a series of reviews in the same style as what I did before my long hiatus, but these are all the...Books I Read In the Dark!!!

That sounds a lot more ominous than it was. Mainly it was me curled up on the couch or in front of the fireplace with my nose in a book and a blanket over my shoulders. As one of my best friends insists on describing it, “it’s like you were going back to your pioneer roots reading by candle light with your shawl and everything”, though those aren’t her exact words she has a much better power of description and is much more...irish. We were only without power for 2 ½ days but in that time I managed to reignite the voracious reader I once was and inhaled 4 books. So stay tuned for the four posts to follow this one that will outline my whirlwind 2 ½ days of classic escapism while I couldn’t do much else but read by literal (electric) lantern light.

[residentlesbrarian]

Pride Flag Book Recs! 🌈

Have some f/f book recommendations corresponding to the pride flag colors, just in case you might want to have a rainbow on your bookshelf!

Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow, Beneath the Surface by Rebecca Langham, Girl Mans Up by M-E Girard, Better Off Red by Rebekah Weatherspoon, Daughter of Mystery by Heather Rose Jones

Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth, Poppy Jenkins by Clare Ashton, Taking Flight by Siera Maley, Ask the Passengers by A.S. King, An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows

The Fletcher by K. Aten, Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee, Perfect Rhythm by Jae, Forgive Me If I’ve Told You This Before by Karelia Stetz-Waters, Banshee’s Honor by Shaylynn Rose

Storm Season by Pene Henson, Adaptation by Malinda Lo, When Women Were Warriors by Catherine M. Wilson, A Story of Now by Emily O’Beirne, Marian by Ella Lyons

Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrutskie, You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour & David Levithan, Dreadnought by April Daniels

Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde, Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time, Our Own Private Universe by Robin Talley, Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova, We Awaken by Calista Lynne

Happy Pride Month Reading!  ❤️💛🧡💚💙💜

[residentlesbrarian]

Juicy backstory all wrapped up in a love triangle burrito!

Raven the Pirate Princess, Book 3:  Two Boys, Five Girls, Three Love Stories by Jeremy Whitley

As with the last volume’s review lets catch up and keep track of where our girls are before diving in, shall we. We join up with our girls on the high seas headed for the ancestral base of the original Pirate Queen. We have some fun shenanigans with climbing the rigging and Sunshine being horribly sea sick. Jayla is a bit unruly but comes in for the win with a cure to said sea sickness and our girls try to learn how to sword fight under Raven’s democratic system of rule aboard the ship. When they reach the Island of Free Women the girls split in three groups to gather everything they need before setting sail to chase after Raven’s brothers, yay for time efficiency. Each group is in search of specific things that the crew needs for their journey. Ximena leads the group for specialty supplies for Jayla’s experiments and other miscellaneous purposes, while Katie is sent in search of more rudimentary supplies like rope and bulk goods. Raven takes a group with her to try and suss out info on her turncoat brothers, while Sunshine stays back on the boat with those on the crew that aren’t ready to go ashore an island full of pirates. Fairly quickly all of our groups run into issues. Katie and Raven’s groups are caught while Ximena’s manages to evade capture with Science! Sunshine and the girls on the boat manage to also capture some of the pirates trying to capture them. These pirates tell the girls that Raven and the others have been taken to the fortress that is now under the control of Magpie and Crow. They use Cid’s technological genius and Jayla’s explosives to get into the fortress fairly easily while Raven and the others are harried by crocodiles while bound back to back. They manage to escape with help from Sunshine and everything seems to be going well until Ximena is captured and seriously injured. The brothers use the distraction of the hurt girl to escape. The crew heads back to the ship morally defeated even though they were victorious from the battle.

Okay so that kinda keeps everyone up to date but now into this next volume also known as...that sweet sweet angst! Let’s go! Bring it!

Unicorn Rating:

Blurb: Our girls are on the search for an island healer to save Ximena, but will this person help pirates? How will the girls help Ximena hold on? Story time, of course!

Disclaimer: I will try my best to not spoil anything from this volume, but my book loving rambles may give more away than a traditional review. Here we go! Ramble time!

Review:

Oh boy! The end of the last volume left us with a big ole angst bomb! I do love how it was built up the entire volume that something was going to happen because of Ximena’s stand on not carrying a weapon or learning how to use one. Now this is probably my favorite volume yet. It just felt so well balanced between the different stories that were told and the events happening in other places.

The plot for this particular volume was so fun but also really interesting. We were able to see pieces of Raven that have been hinted at but really shined in this volume but mostly this gave us some really great information about two of our main girls. Strangely enough this is the only time I have read a love triangle and not just wanted to pull my hair out. The dynamic between Raven, Ximena, and Sunshine may fall into the trope of a love triangle but it is done in such a way that it makes me route for every side of it.

Now we didn’t learn much about the other girls this go around, but what we did learn was excellent and really explained a lot about Raven and Sunshine. Without spoiling too much I love how the art style noticeably changed depending who was telling the story. It was an ingenious way to give the reader a look into these two character’s heads.

We do meet a new character in the form of Leilani, an island healer. I love this new character and hope we get to see more of her in the future. She is feminine but also this bad ass tatted up warrior. Also another good character moment we had was a conversation between Sunshine and Katie that reveals Katie is bisexual, so we have another girl to tack on to the queer count!

As I stated above, this volume is my favorite so far! We had badass fight scenes, touching back stories, tender moments, funny moments, and just so much more.

Queer Wrap-up: Okay so we now have yet another of our lovely lady crew to add to the tally. Katie, welcome to the party! Also from certain scenes we now have more confirmation other than subtext that both Sunshine and Ximena are at the very least not straight which makes this volume more than ever earn the five unicorn rating.

Links:

Jeremy Whitley’s Website

Goodreads

Amazon

Comixology

There isn’t much more to say without just gushing about anything and everything  to do with this series, which I am totally willing to do just not as part of the review. Please start the discussion and I probably won’t shut up about it. And as always if you want to read this but don’t want spend the money without knowing for sure you are going to like it, go to your local library. You’d be surprised what they have on their shelves just waiting to be discovered. Trust me, I’m a lesbrarian.

Tags: Princeless, Raven the Pirate Princess, Two Boys, Five Girls, Three Love Stories, Jeremy Whitley, resident lesbrarian, five unicorns, 2 lesbians, 1 bisexual girl, 1 queer girl, wlw rep, ya graphic novel, adventure, pirates, go to your local library

[residentlesbrarian]

This is ALWAYS what happens when you split the party! D&D 101 guys!

Princeless: Raven the Pirate Princess, Book 2: Free Women by Jeremy Whitley

Before we dive too deep into this volume let’s do a recap of the last one (spoilers galore so if you haven’t read the first volume go do that and then come back to read this). So we meet our heroine, Raven Xingtao, trying to fix her ship when she realizes she can’t sail it all by herself. Into town she goes to hire a crew and literally runs into a pretty stranger who promptly kisses her and steals her coin purse. A chase ensues ending in a bar owned by Cookie, the ex-cook from Raven’s dad’s ship. Raven loses a fight with a bottle of booze to the back of the head and wakes up a day later to learn the name of the strange girl who pick pocketed her is Sunshine, a half elf dancer who works part-time at Cookie’s bar.  After her favorite breakfast of salmon and eggs and seeing Cookie’s daughter, Jayla, they make a plan to try and find her a crew. Most of the patrons of the bar are annoying at best and down right pigs at worst. Raven almost misses the only good candidate because she is too gay to not stare at a dancing Sunshine, but a quote from her great great great grandmother manages to break through the gay haze and we meet Katie. One excellent suggestion, a bar fight, and some science later the girls split up to hire the rest of the crew. Katie and Sunshine are off to recruit her fencing/survival/adventure/dnd club members, while Raven goes to recruit the navigator Ximena. One meeting goes well while the other is complicated. Katie and Sunshine manage to recruit a full crew and through blunt honesty Raven convinces Ximena to come with her. Through some quick thinking and a bucket of pig’s blood Ximena manages to keep the guards from burning down Cookie’s bar. Jayla decides to get away from her father by also joining Raven’s crew and with that they load up and are ready to start there adventures!!

Okay so that wasn’t really a brief recap but I really needed it for myself to keep the volumes straight...haha straight...yeah right! Okay, okay, onward to piracy!

Unicorn Rating:

Blurb: A group of girls sets sail and pirate ship and what happens? Shenanigans and democratic voting, that’s what! Drama, action, and angst to come!

Disclaimer: I will try my best to not spoil anything from this volume, but my book loving rambles may give more away than a traditional review. Here we go! Ramble time!

Review:

We get to see our girls taking on the ocean and headed towards Xingtao Island the once home of Raven’s ancestor, the first pirate queen. The first volume gave us our cast of characters, while this one gave us the opportunity to really get to know more members of the group outside of the five we met in volume one and delivered on some fantastic dynamics.

I don’t have much to say in the way of plot simply because this volume was so character driven  that any plot there was is rife with spoilers. You know what that means, time for the deep dive on our fantastic crew of pirate ladies.

We already know Raven, Sunshine, Ximena, Katie, and Jayla, but this volume we get to meet the rest of the gals. We meet Helena, a blonde firecracker; Quinn, a girl in search of a good fight; Zoe, a nerdy talker; Verity, oldest of three sisters; Trisha, the short red head of the crew; Dezzy, is the probably a vampire goth prep; Cid, the deaf mechanical genius; Melody, who just wants to make sure everyone has hugs; Pirate, a poignantly named card player; Ophelia, a snarky pragmatist; and Amirah, a hijab wearing woman and Cid’s best friend.

Now I know that is a lot of characters to take in. Especially a lot of female characters to take in. Give it a minute. Really soak in that ratio of 16/0 female to male characters. You good? Alright, moving on with the review.

None of these girls are just filler or fluff either. Now, are some of them more useful than others? Of course, but it establishes wonderfully that some of these girls have never done any adventuring outside of a D&D campaign. It gives them the opportunities to show what they are good at though and how working together as a group is really what saved the day. I can’t really say much more without spoiling major plot points in the volume but I will say that this is excellent character building from the debut volume.

There isn’t much more for me to say except that this is an excellent second edition of a truly fantastic series.

Queer Wrap-up: So going off of what we were presented with in the first volume we do see the dynamic between Ximena, Raven, and Sunshine change a bit. We still have no hints towards any of our other pirate girlies being queer but with the overall quality of the story and scenes. This volume still earns the five unicorn rating by having not one, not two, but three queer characters who are all written and portrayed as much more than their sexuality.

Links:

Jeremy Whitley’s Website

Goodreads

Amazon

Comixology

So much happened in this volume that I would love to just sit down and squeal about the minuta of the scenes and how they were illustrated, but spoilers are a thing. So please give me the opportunity to squeal about this by asking me questions. And as always if you want to read this but don’t want spend the money without knowing for sure you are going to like it, go to your local library. You’d be surprised what they have on their shelves just waiting to be discovered. Trust me, I’m a lesbrarian.