Queer Book Review

I started this blog because I love books with LGBT+ characters but sometimes I have a hard time finding them. Hopefully, if you're like me, this blog will help you find what you're looking for!

[queerbookreview]

Geography Club by: Brent Hartinger

4 out of 5 stars

I knew that any wrong action, however slight, could reveal my true identity… Russel is still going on dates with girls. Kevin would do anything to prevent his teammates on the baseball team from finding out. Min and Terese tell everyone they’re really just good friends. But after a while, the truth’s too hard to hide - at least from each other - so they form the “Geography Club.” Nobody else will come. Why would they want to? Their secret should be safe.

Keep reading

[queerbookreview]

Geography Club by: Brent Hartinger

4 out of 5 stars

I knew that any wrong action, however slight, could reveal my true identity... Russel is still going on dates with girls. Kevin would do anything to prevent his teammates on the baseball team from finding out. Min and Terese tell everyone they're really just good friends. But after a while, the truth's too hard to hide - at least from each other - so they form the "Geography Club." Nobody else will come. Why would they want to? Their secret should be safe.

If you’re looking for something fun, a bit cheesy, and light-hearted with a bit of angsty realism, Geography Club is for you.

The book is set in a pretty average high school setting, starring a pretty average high school guy named Russel. He’s not very popular but neither is he an outcast. He has two close friends but even with them he doesn’t share his biggest secret: he’s gay. Instead, he turns to gay chatrooms where he meets a guy he likes enough to meet in real life, only to find out that guy is the popular baseball star from his school, Kevin.

This of course means drama.

While the novel displays some of the usual angst of a closeted gay teen, it also shows how support can come from unexpected places. Russel’s friend Min turns out to be bisexual and dating a girl on the soccer team. The school outcast, bullied relentlessly by the jocks, turns out to be just as gay as Russel. In the beginning, he thought he was the only non-straight teen at his high school but as Russel begins to explore and accept his sexuality throughout the story, he realizes that there’s just no way that’s possible.

By creating the “Geography Club”, this group of queer teens manages to find a creative and safe way to share their own experiences with each other and support each other when they feel like they’re all alone. It’s such a nice portrayal of queer people helping other queer people in a time of discover and introspection. 

Yes, the novel is a bit cheesy, and yes, the writing is nowhere near fancy but it’s an easy, relatable read with fun characters and a happy ending about individualism and being proud of who you are.

I believe that Geography Club is a great novel for younger audiences, especially those who are just discovering their preferences for themselves. It’s a great reminder that we’re never alone and you can find support somewhere, even when you think it doesn’t exist.

[queerbookreview]

Hey, there is an interesting book called Karma and Fear by Dom Drake that does have queer characters in it. If your interesting in having a look then a quick description would be that a teen (non-binary) is dumped into a group of people that are going between the futuristic earth that they are at, to a world that has floating island and dark monsters. Within the group there is a confirmed gay couple as well. I hope you enjoy it if you do have a read.

Oh hmmm…that sounds interesting. I’ll add it to the list! 

Thanks (:

[autostraddle]

Like, Guy Gavriel Kay, but queer. Tolkien, but queer. Melanie Rawn, but queer.

8 Queer High Fantasy Books For Your Epic Sword-Wielding Needs

[queerbookreview]

Hey Guys!

Sorry I haven’t posted a review in forever (I knew this would end up happening because I am in fact a lazy person). I have been reading new books (I have like 4 finished ones ready to be reviewed in my drafts), but I just haven’t written their reviews up yet. I’ll definitely try to get on top of that within the next week because I’m really loving these books and would love to share them with ya’ll. I appreciate the book recs and such so keep ‘em coming!

Thank you!

(:

[queerbookreview]

There is a new Web-Novel being post on tumblr weekly called Shelter for Strays that seems to be worth a read. It is still very new but from what the author has said about the story in the past it looks promising.

Ooh that sounds interesting!! I’ve never read a web-novel before (is it sorta like a web-comic or just like fan fic type formatting?) but I will definitely have to check that out! Thanks for the rec (:

[lgbtqreads]

Kick off Bisexual Awareness Week with 12 2016 YA Books

Today kicks off Bisexual Awareness Week, the week when all unicorns suddenly become visible and pink, purple, and blue flags wave majestically o'er the land. In the past, we've celebrated this day with a roundup of bisexual books from over the years, but 2016 is such a gloriously bi-heavy

Bi-ing up the B&N Teen Blog, as I am wont to do!

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[image description: the covers of Loving Her by Ann Allen Shockley, In the Game by Nikki Baker, Blacker Than Blue (Vampire Sorority Sisters #2) by Rebekah Weatherspoon, Under the Lights (Daylight Falls #2) by Dahlia Adler, Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld, Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis, Unicorn Tracks by Julia Ember, Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley, Boyfriends with Girlfriends by Alex Sanchez]

Interracial Lesbian Fiction

(More at the Goodreads list)

For more lesbian lit lists, check out The Lesbrary Goodreads Project.

[lgbtqreads]

Twenty LGBTQ MG + YA Paperbacks Under Seven Bucks

Twenty LGBTQ MG + YA Paperbacks Under Seven Bucks

I’ve been doing a lot of hunting for cheap LGBTQ YA lately, as one of the easiest things for people in book world with some disposable income to do is donate. And if you don’t already have on hand to do so, here’s where you can stock up! Store posted will be wherever I found it the cheapest. Any Amazon links are affiliate for this site. Books available under $7 via both BookOutlet and sites that…

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Spotlighting diverse books is also important to me, so I wanted to write up a list of upcoming titles many of my twitter followers and readers might not have on their radars yet!

Here’s the Thing was included in this list!  It’s nice to make a list, because authors like Adam Silvera are right.

Why I’m Interested:

(1) We moved to the UK when I was 10. I attended an international school where kids came and went all through middle and high school. Moving abroad as a teen is a book topic that interests me!

(2) I still feel a bit 3rd culture … I live in the UK again, in Scotland, which isn’t really like England where I grew up, and definitely isn’t Chicago. Figuring out how to balance overseas friendships is HARD.

(3) This promises to be a really cute f/f romance.

[queerbookreview]

Gracefully Grayson by: Ami Polonsky

2.5 out of 5 stars

Alone at home, twelve-year-old Grayson Sender glows, immersed in beautiful thoughts and dreams. But at school, Grayson grasps at shadows, determined to fly under the radar. Because Grayson has been holding onto a secret for what seems like forever: “he” is a girl on the inside, stuck in the wrong gender’s body. The weight of this secret is crushing, but leaving it behind would mean facing ridicule, scorn, and rejection. Despite these dangers, Grayson’s true self itches to break free. Strengthened by an unexpected friendship and a caring teacher who gives her a chance to step into the spotlight, Grayson might finally have the tools to let her inner light shine.

First of all, full disclosure: I am a cis female. While I have some knowledge of the trans community through friends and personal research, I do not claim to know anywhere close to everything there is to know about the trans experience. Still, I will try my best to review this novel. If something I say doesn’t come across right or is just flat out wrong, please let me know.

I was really torn on how to rate this novel. While I appreciate that there’s a novel about a trans character---especially one so young---I had been immediately hesitant to read it when I saw that the author herself was cis and didn’t seem to have much experience with the trans community. Despite that, I gave Gracefully Grayson a shot.

The book follows Grayson, a sixth grader who is struggling with being a girl while everyone around her insists that she is a boy. She’s quite lonely with no true friends and parents who passed away when she was young. Instead, she lives with her aunt and uncle and two cousins, one of which seems to bully her at times. 

Grayson gets a shot at being herself though when she tries out for a school play and gets the lead role---that of Persephone who is a woman. Her teacher, who is directing the play, is shown to be supportive despite the consequences to his own career and life and her fellow cast members are the same. Even so, her aunt can’t seem to accept Grayson as a girl, even as she begins to open up more and more.

While the storyline is nice and interesting as it gets more into Grayson’s experience with the play, I couldn’t help but think still that the novel felt a little off. Polonsky relied on a lot of clichés such as colors assigned to gender and the overused “don’t fit the image in the mirror” proverb. I love seeing new genderqueer characters in novels, but I think stories about being genderqueer should belong to people who are genderqueer. The trans experience can never be completely understood by someone who is cis and so reading a novel about a trans character written by a cis woman really threw me off. The fact that she is cis and not very immersed in the trans community really showed through in her writing for me. 

I’ve seen reviews of Gracefully Grayson that have called it ‘brave’ and ‘powerful’ (another thing I find very unfitting and wrong) and while it is a nice story that does show some of the struggles of being trans, I believe it only really scratches the surface. In the future, I would hope to see more books published that are written by actual trans people in order to share the trans experience.

[queerbookreview]

We Are the Ants by: Shaun David Hutchinson

5 out of 5 stars

Henry knows that his mom is struggling to keep the family together, and coping by chain-smoking cigarettes. He knows that his older brother is a college dropout with a pregnant girlfriend. He knows that he is slowly losing his grandmother to Alzheimer’s. And he knows that his boyfriend committed suicide last year. What Henry doesn’t know is why the aliens chose to abduct him when he was thirteen, and he doesn’t know why they continue to steal him from his bed and take him aboard their ship. He doesn’t know why the world is going to end or why the aliens have offered him the opportunity to avert the impending disaster by pressing a big red button. But they have. And they’ve only given him 144 days to make up his mind. The question is whether Henry thinks the world is worth saving. That is, until he meets Diego Vega, an artist with a secret past who forces Henry to question his beliefs, his place in the universe, and whether any of it really matters. But before Henry can save the world, he’s got to figure out how to save himself, and the aliens haven’t given him a button for that.

Despite the first paragraph in the summary, I went into this novel thinking it was going to be generally lighthearted. I mean, a kid gets kidnapped by aliens and left in random places around town in his underwear? And Henry himself starts off relatively sarcastic and entertaining.

As I continued reading though, I realized that I had been dead wrong. This novel is full of emotion---intense and deep---and really discusses some difficult themes. 

Henry is an average gay teen with a struggling family and one-too-many mean nicknames at school. He doesn’t have many friends, though not exactly by choice, and so from the get go you get the sense that he’s pretty lonely, even if he’s hooking up with one of the very guys that bullies him. This of course is made even worse by the fact that his serious first boyfriend, Jesse, committed suicide a year ago. Since then, he hasn’t seemed to have the energy to put toward social interaction.

Then he meets the new kid, Diego, who is mysterious and interesting and everything that Henry doesn’t want to get involved with. Just the idea of starting a new relationship makes him feel guilty and confused and only reminds him of the first love that he lost in the most tragic of ways.

Henry also ends up reconnecting with an old friend, Audrey, who reminds him too much of Jesse and how she vanished when he died. Things only seem to spiral more and more out of control.

And through all of this, the aliens that have been abducting him since he was thirteen have now given him a choice between saving the world or letting it self-destruct in some mysterious manner.

The ‘end of the world’ plot, for me, felt like an excellent metaphor for Henry’s state of mind and where he was in dealing with his depression and eventual suicidal thoughts. As he falls further and further into his mental illness, it gets harder and harder for him to justify pressing the button that will save the world. There’s also a sense of doubt throughout the book that the aliens even exist from other characters and Henry himself at particularly low times. His constantly wavering decision on what he should do is a good indication of just how strained his mental health is.

As a person who has struggled from depression, I felt a very close connection to Henry and really empathized with his struggle. It was nice to see him rebuild a support network by reconnecting with his family and old friends, befriending new people, and ditching some of the more toxic people in his life. The process is ugly and certainly has its ups and downs, but that’s what felt so real about it.

We Are The Ants is a very thoughtful, informative, emotional, and tough journey and is definitely worth the read.

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Trans | Non-Binary | General LGBTQIA* | Asexuality spectrum

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman

Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block

Huntress by Malinda Lo

The Chaos by Nalo Hopkinson

Team Human by Justine Larbalestier & Sarah Rees Brennan

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

Liar by Justine Larbalestier

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

Artistotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

more book recommendations on my blog The Bookavid

all recs by genre/topic

[queerbookreview]

All For The Game series by: Nora Sakavic

5 out of 5 stars

Neil Josten is the newest addition to the Palmetto State University Exy team. He's short, he's fast, he's got a ton of potential—and he's the runaway son of the murderous crime lord known as The Butcher. Signing a contract with the PSU Foxes is the last thing a guy like Neil should do. The team is high profile and he doesn't need sports crews broadcasting pictures of his face around the nation. His lies will hold up only so long under this kind of scrutiny and the truth will get him killed. But Neil's not the only one with secrets on the team. One of Neil's new teammates is a friend from his old life, and Neil can't walk away from him a second time. Neil has survived the last eight years by running. Maybe he's finally found someone and something worth fighting for.

If you follow my main blog, then it’s probably no surprise how much I love these books, and I figured I probably couldn’t make queer book reviews and not include one of my favorite series. So, here it is!

Straight off the bat, I’m going to warn you--this series is pretty heavy-hitting. Considering it follows a group of miscreant young-adults, each with their own set of problems and tragic backstories, that’s to be expected. Neil Josten, our main character, perhaps has the most mysterious and wild tragic backstory of all.

Neil has been on the run for almost half his life since the night his mother whisked him away from his crime-boss father, and even now that’s he’s on his own, he’s still trying to run and survive. Though he knows it’s a terrible idea, it’s sort of hard to say no when Coach Wymack of the Palmetto Foxes Exy team practically forces you into signing a contract to play on his team with the help of a drugged-out Andrew Minyard with an Exy racket and Kevin Day, one of the last people Neil ever expected or wanted to see again.

Throughout the series, Neil struggles to keep his identity a secret while slowly falling deeper and deeper into his obsession with Exy. Soon, it isn’t even about Exy as much as it is about protecting the teammates he’s slowly grown close to, both of which are firsts for him.

Neil Josten is a great protagonist. He’s flawed but decent, scarred but still trying to survive, and cares more than he would like about his new family and a particular blonde goalkeeper. Sakavic takes her time with building his relationships with each character which only serves to add realism and feeling to their interactions and to where they end up. 

The plot on its own was enough to keep me reading, but the characters are what really make these books so lovable. They are all unique and intense and Sakavic does a great job at fleshing each and every one of them out rather than sidelining them to Neil’s story.

When I went into this series, I honestly didn’t know that it had a M/M romance, so for me, that was a nice surprise. The romance is pretty atypical and definitely has it’s tragic components, but it doesn’t fall into any cliché gay stereotypes. Neil and Andrew have issues not because they’re gay (or in Neil’s case: “doesn’t swing”) but because they just have shitty lives and some pretty terrible families. 

I wholeheartedly enjoyed this trilogy, and I’m happy it’s decently popular. If you’ve been looking for something that felt a little more like an everyday YA novel that just happened to have some characters that aren’t straight--then these are the books for you.

**Note: I’m putting this series under the Demi/Grey/Asexual tag. Even though it’s never explicitly said that Neil Josten is Demi/Grey/Asexual, it’s safe to assume that he’s on the spectrum based on his repetitive “don’t swing” comments.

**You can learn more about Nora Sakavic and the All For The Game series at her tumblr: @korakos

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If you're looking for YA fiction books with bisexuality or bisexual characters, here are 7 great reads.

And I’ll add an eighth to the list, Waking for Hours by Connie Anne McEntee (that’s me!).

[queerbookreview]

Heroine Addiction by: Jennifer Matarese

5 out of 5 stars

Vera Noble belongs to a long line of famous superheroes, but she's done quite enough lifesaving in her time. Now, she's perfectly happy to serve pie and coffee in her small-town cafe, far away from the bright explosions and enormous radiation-spawned monsters of the big city. However, no life ever stays safe and quiet forever, and one simple request from her family's former mortal enemy upends Vera's semi-average existence.

If I’m being honest here, I originally got this book because the Kindle edition was being offered for free for a limited amount of time. But, I ended up loving it so much that it’s actually one of my favorite books now!

If you’re a fan of superheros and supervillains or just superpowers in general, you’ll probably be a fan of this book, too! The novel follows Vera Noble whose famous superhero parents and brother couldn’t be more different from her. They bask in the attention and genuinely want to save people where as Vera just wants to live a normal peaceful life at the cafe she owns, where her biggest stress is her quirky employees and trying to figure out how to snag a date with the scholarly, nerdy regular, despite his obvious shyness. 

The plot quickly devolves into chaos, in a good way, when a famous supervillain, one who has close ties with her family in more ways than one, shows up asking for help at the same time as Vera’s ex-girlfriend, with whom her relationship had ended in a not too friendly place.

The most interesting part of Heroine Addiction for me was seeing just how superpowered people fit into the normal world and realizing that not much was really that different except for the regular millions in dollars of property damage. Superheros and villains are treated as celebrities, though in different ways, and live accordingly. It was fun to read as Vera re-immersed herself into their world, reconnecting with her family and some old superhero friends.

Another thing I enjoyed as well was that Matarese explicitly told the audience of Vera’s bisexuality right from the get go. Not too often do we get characters actually saying the sentence, “I am bisexual,” so it was a nice refresher.

The plot, while pretty action-packed, was relatively easy to follow and full of twists and turns. It went at a well-thought out pace and managed to include small changes in relation to superpowers that weren’t overwhelming or hard to understand.

Honestly, just writing this review is making me want to read the book all over again!

[quietya]

Books with Asexual Main Characters

Hello! Your local mod here. A few months ago, I spent a lot of time researching books with asexual main characters and made a list of YA books with explicit rep. While making the list, I found lots of books that didn’t fit my requirements and had lots of requests to know what other books I found. I linked people to sources I used, but none 100% matched and there are at least four books that could be added. So I wanted something that had a wide range, could be updated, and could be shared easily. Hence, even though it doesn’t fully fit this blog, it’s going here!

This is a list of books in all age ranges. Some of the books have explicit representation - using the words or giving the definition without using the word - and some don’t. Some of them could be considered problematic. If you want more details on any of the books, feel free to message me privately. I’ll also be linking to the goodreads page for each book [links tk], so you can check reviews for feedback (it can be tricky, but see what shelves people add it too). I’ll also link my sources at the end of this post in case they update with things I don’t catch or they have details I didn’t include. And, as a final note, sometimes the asexual main characters aren’t main characters until later in a book series. In those cases, I’ll link to the first book and leave a note about which book has the main character.

YA Books

This Song is (Not) for You by Laura Nowlin

Ultraviolet by R.J. Anderson (Ace character is a side character in book one, main character in sequel)**

Sabriel by Garth Nix (Ace MC in Clariel)

Seven Ways We Lie by Riley Redgate

Deadly Sweet Lies by Erica Cameron** [#ownvoices]

Taken by Chance by Erica Cameron and Lani Woodland (Demisexual side character, confirmed in book 3, MC in book 4)** [#ownvoices]

The Beast of Callaire by Saruuh Kelsey

The Second Mango by Shira Glassman

We Awaken by Calista Lynne**

Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld

The Clinic by Charlie Care

After I Wake by Emma Griffiths

Stranger by Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith

The Last Chronomancer by Reilyn J. Hardy

A Word and a Bullet by Rachel Sharp** [#ownvoices]

Sea Foam and Silence by Lynn E. O’Connacht [#ownvoices]

Feather by Feather and Other Stories by Lynn E. O’Connacht [#ownvoices]

New Adult Books

All the Wrong Places by Ann Gallagher**

The Life and Death of Eli and Jay by Francis Gideon

Fourth World by Lyssa Chiravari** [#ownvoices]

From Under the Mountain by Cait Spivey [#ownvoices]

How Not to Summon Your True Love by Sasha L. Miller

Carrie Pilby by Caren Lissner

Crush by Caitlin Ricci

Endless Days of Summer by Stacy O’Steen

The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic

Coffee Cake by Michaela Grey

Into the Blue by Pene Henson

Bone Diggers by Tiffany Rose & Alex Tauber** [#ownvoices]

Adult Books

The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon

The Sheepfarmer’s Daughter by Elizabeth Moon

Dreams of Shreds and Tatters by Amanda Downum

The Oathbound by Mercedes Lackey

Banner of the Damned by Sherwood Smith**

How to Be a Normal Person by TJ Klune** [#ownvoices]

Rescuing Jack by Caitlin Ricci (Asexual MC in sequel, Of Monsters and Men)

Torque by Charley Descoteaux

Blue Steel Chain by Alex Beecroft

Blood and Clockwork by Katey Hawthorne

Breakfire’s Glass by A.M. Valenza

Flesh and Fire by Laura Ann Gilman

The Heart of Aces (anthology)**

The Bone People by Keri Hulme [#ownvoices]

City of Soldiers by Sam Burke**

Sere From the Green by Lauren Jankowski [#ownvoices]

Sinners by Eka Waterfield

Chameleon Moon by RoAnna Sylver [#ownvoices]

Mindtouch by M.C.A. Hogarth

The Pardoner’s Tale by Morgan Ferdinand

Dragonoak by Sam Farren

Dust by Elizabeth Bear**

A Date with Angel by J. Judkins

The Mystic Marriage by Heather Rose Jones

The Deadly Nightshade by Justine Ashford

More Than Enough by T.T. Kove

Shock and Awe by Abigail Roux (Demisexual MC comes out in book 3, Part and Parcel)**

A Gentleman’s Position by K.J. Charles

Aces by Kathryn Burns

The King’s Peace by Jo Walton

A Promise Broken by Lynn E. O’Connacht [#ownvoices]

Novellas

As Autumn Leaves by Kate Sands**

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire** [#ownvoices]

To Terminator With Love by Wes Kennedy [#ownvoices]

Ely, Jesse, and Robin’s Guide to Asexuality by R.J. Seeley**

The Asexual Equation by R.J. Seeley**

Cold Ennaline by R.J. Astruc**

The Alpha and His Ace by Ana J. Phoenix**

The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz

The Faerie Godmother’s Apprentice Wore Green by Nicky Kyle [#ownvoices]

At the Edge by Alden Lila Reedy

We Go Forward by Alison Evans

Sing to Me by Becca Lusher

High and Tight by Vanessa North

The Galloway Road by Catherine Adams

Texture Like Sun by Ils Greyhart

Accepting Me by Jo Ramsey**

Upcoming YA Books

27 Hours by Tristina Wright

Tash Hearts Tolstoy by Kathryn Ormsbee**

Daughter of the Burning City by Amanda Foody

Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann**

Assassins: Discord by Erica Cameron (Ace MC in book 2) [#ownvoices]

Interface by Lucy Mihajlich

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman (released already in the UK)**

Running with the Pack by A.M. Burns and Caitlin Ricci

Upcoming New Adult Books

Overexposed by Megan Erickson

Daybreak Rising by Kiran Oliver [#ownvoices]

Empty Net by Avon Gale

Upcoming Adult Books

Hello World by Tiffany Rose and Alex Tauber [#ownvoices]

Resources

https://lgbtqreads.com/

https://justloveromance.wordpress.com

http://fuckyeahasexual.tumblr.com/post/140769292653/actually-asexual-in-fiction-30-i-get-a-lot-of

http://aroaessidhe.tumblr.com/aroacebooks

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/96867.Books_With_Asexual_Spectrum_F_F_Romances

As I said, this will be a continuously updated list. I’ll be adding in goodreads links now that the list is up (as long as tumblr allows), adding books that come up, and can move/remove books if anybody thinks they don’t fit, since most of this was research, not my actual reading list. So, feel free to message me with any comments or concerns and otherwise, enjoy!

Update #1: Links added; Running with the Pack, High and Tight, and More Than Enough added; Shock and Awe moved.

Update #2: A Gentleman’s Position, Aces, Into the Blue, The Last Chronomancer, Empty Net, The King’s Peace, The Galloway Road, A Word and a Bullet added.

Update #3: Sea Foam and Silence, A Promise Broken, Feather by Feather and Other Stories, and Texture Like Sun added.

Update #4: I marked books I was fairly sure explicitly used words with **; I added [#ownvoices] to books with out ace/aro authors (and the ownvoices only speaks to them being ace, writing an ace character); Bone Diggers and Accepting Me added.