#bisexual lit

[theloveandthehorror]

An impressive real estate bid on an old run-down mansion pins a corporate lawyer against her attractive ex-girlfriend who works for the town's Historical Society. Forced to have words, after years of avoidance, the two sift through their own rubble, pulling to the surface the dark secret that caused them to prematurely split-up.

*a short and sweet romance*

*free for kindle unlimited and $1 for everyone else*

*paperback also available!*

[thepaperdollsseries]

Does anyone have a song or a playlist that reminds them of the Paper Dolls girls?  Both of us have our own playlists for writing the books and I know that music is always on when I’m trying to get creative. 

[neverendingtbrlist90]

Bisexual Awareness Week Reading List

In honor of Bisexual Awareness Week I’ve created a list of great books with bisexual characters. Feel free to add to the list!

Far from You by Tess Sharpe

Run by Kody Keplinger

Trust Me, I’m Lying and Trust Me, I’m Trouble by Mary Elizabeth Summer 

Under the Lights by Dahlia Adler

Empress of the World by Sara Ryan

About a Girl by Sarah McCarry

Gena/Finn by Hannah Moskowitz and Kat Helgeson

As I Descended by Robin Talley

I’m Not Your Sidekick by CB Lee

Whatever by SJ Goslee

Look Both Ways by Alison Cherry

Been Here All Along by Sandy Hall

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova  

Keeping Her A Secret by Sarah Nicolas

The Imposter Queen by Sarah Fine

Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz

Coda by Emma Trevayne

The Art of Wishful Thinking by Lindsey Ribar

Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis

Over You by Amy Reed

Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

Adaption, Inheritance, and Ash  by Malinda Lo

Love In The Time Of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block  

Cut Both Ways by Carrie Mesrobian

Black Iris and Cam Girl by Leah Raeder

[loveisofthebody-blog]

Review: Run by Kody Keplinger

Well this was a completely unexpected pleasure. Doubly unexpected: when @lgbtqreads sent me the ARC, I hadn’t seen it floating around on any queer YA booklists yet; and since she sent it to me, I assumed I was reading a particularly slow-burning queer romance, but (spoiler spoiler I don’t care) it’s not! It’s got an actualfax self-identified bisexual and it’s not about her figuring out her sexuality/getting together with her love interest! There’s a plot and everything! So, I mean, if you want a romance don’t pick this one up, but if you want a bittersweet little road trip novel about class and disability and sexuality and friendship, man, I don’t know if you can do better than this one.

Find Run here.

What’s it about?

Agnes and Bo are on the run from something to somewhere, we know that much. They’re in a stolen car traveling through Kentucky with Bo’s dog Utah, and their pictures are on the news. Bo is our bisexual, bad-reputation-having, Patsy-Cline-loving narrator-of-the-present. In alternating chapters, Agnes, our straight, legally blind, churchgoing, secretly-rebellious narrator-of-the-past fills us in on how they got there and why it matters.

How is it?

It’s quick, engaging, and manages to be a fun read in spite of the serious nature of the story.

I found Agnes and Bo’s voices to be delightful. I’m not southern. I couldn’t tell a Kentucky accent from a Texas accent, sorry. So all I can tell you is that Keplinger makes them both sound believably southern to my Midwestern ears, and distinguishes their backgrounds in the way that they speak: I found that really compelling. 

How are young queer readers going to feel about it, assuming they like this sort of thing?

As long as they’re aware they’re not getting a romance, I think they’ll find all kinds of positive bisexual and disabled representation here. And who doesn’t love a good road trip novel?

Agnes’s disability is woven into her narration beautifully. It’s not who she is, but certainly how she is, and has affected how she’s grown up with her overprotective parents and a school that’s been reluctant to make accommodations for her. In her chapters, visuals (which for her are blurred to the point of near-incomprehensibility) take a backseat to audible and tactile environmental cues. We know what Bo’s voice sounds like, we know the touch of Colt’s hands (yeah, Agnes gets a love interest), but we don’t know what anyone or anything looks like, beyond smudges of color. Bo’s insistence on treating Agnes like an actual human instead of an object of pity is almost as wonderful as the way Agnes’s personality develops in the presence of a genuinely supportive friend.

Bo is a fascinating character: the daughter of a meth-addicted single-mother, she endures constant verbal abuse from her peers. Because she’s so often the target of rumors about her supposed promiscuity, she’s been too afraid to come out as bisexual, worried it’ll just add fuel to the fire. Her coming out scene with Agnes is touching in its emotional honesty: Agnes has grown up a good Christian girl in a conservative town, but she is a loving friend and a natural skeptic, and embraces Bo immediately, while reflecting on what that means about her faith and the faith of her community.

There’s never any concern over whether the love they have for each other is symmetrical or not. And Agnes’s matter-of-fact response to discussions of sexuality extends to her own sex life: we get a great non-explicit sex scene in which Agnes is totally aware that she’s making a rash and probably-not-great decision because there’s not much chance of the relationship continuing, but she doesn’t feel guilty about it because she’s enjoying herself. Good for you Agnes.

Everyone gets their own happy ending of sorts, and I’m really pleased with the ambiguous note that the novel ends on. Agnes and Bo’s friendship is stretched past the breaking point, and while they both love each other and want each other to be happy, we don’t know whether their relationship is going to continue or not. It’s a very in-the-moment book, and I always find that very appropriate in teen lit.

Trigger warnings for: alcohol use, drug abuse, alcohol poisoning, child neglect, and implied past sexual abuse of children.

[loveisofthebody-blog]

Review: Look Both Ways by Alison Cherry

This is my final #readproud book for the month of June, and it was so much better than I thought it would be. Is anybody else old enough to remember the movie Kissing Jessica Stein? Don’t go looking it up or anything; you’ll be disappointed. It came out back in the early 2000s and was the first queer movie I saw in a movie theater. Imagine a half-empty room of angry Midwestern lesbians watching the protagonist decide she’s straight after all, and you’ll get the idea. So this book is, in many ways, like that movie. The title, and everything else about it, had me expecting a really disappointing depiction of bi-curiosity (ending, of course, in a dismissal of bisexuality). Imagine my delighted surprise, upon finding that this is a very sensitively written and mature exploration of sexual identity that fixes everything that was wrong with the worst lesbian date movie of 2001. It’s also, in my cynical opinion, a very realistic (if not positive) look at polyamory, if that’s a thing that interests you.

Find Look Both Ways here.

What’s it about?

Brooklyn (from Manhattan, wow that joke gets old) is the daughter of a famous family of performing artists, including a beloved Broadway star. She’s not a very enthusiastic performer herself, but she’s managed to be accepted to a prestigious summer theater program in upstate New York. She’s determined to awaken her inner actor while she’s there, to prove herself worthy of her star-studded family. She’s immediately relegated to tech crew, though, and spends most of the summer trailing after her outrageously talented new friends, including Zoe, her beautiful, entrancing roommate. Who’s bisexual. With a boyfriend. Who has given Zoe permission to date girls on the side. Dun dun dunnnnn.

How is it?

I found it completely charming. I honestly can’t think of a problem I had with it, either from a stylistic or plotty perspective. I even (and this is big for me) found the in-book musical numbers worth reading. Brooklyn is a wonderful, maturing, self-aware character and I love her to bits. Zoe is very well-developed, and seeing her change in Brooklyn’s estimation over the course of their relationship was exceptionally realistic. I felt like I was dating her myself. There are a lot of additional characters here I really loved, too, and the world-building of the theater camp was very compelling. I realize I’m talking about it like a fantasy novel, but theater camp is about as foreign to me as a fantasy world, so, yeah.

How are queer readers going to feel about it, assuming they like this sort of thing?

So, there will be a few reactions of note that I’d bank on. Lesbians looking for a lesbian relationship are going to be disappointed. Folks looking for a happy poly ending are going to be disappointed. Bisexuals/pansexuals/other people who aren’t going into the novel looking for validation of their own sexual identity, though, will likely really love this book.

What makes this work so well is Cherry’s insistence that sexuality is not general, it’s specific. Brooklyn is exploring her bisexuality, but she’s doing it with the wrong person in the wrong circumstances. When she breaks up with Zoe, it’s not for a boy, and it’s not because Zoe is a girl, it’s because, while Brooklyn loves Zoe, she’s not sexually attracted to her. She leaves open the possibility that she might be sexually attracted to another girl in the future. She freely and ecstatically acknowledges her romantic attraction to Zoe. Zoe’s just not the girl for her.

The way Zoe’s poly relationship with her boyfriend Carlos is handled is, in my experience, painfully realistic. She means well. He means well. It really isn’t working for anyone, least of all Brooklyn. Everyone’s a good and caring person, no one is a sleazebag, and not everyone is built for polyamory.

There is zero discrimination. No terrible things happen to queer characters. There’s underage drinking and some slightly uncomfortable sexual pressure while characters are drunk, but everyone’s boundaries are respected. Everyone is out and very open about their sexuality, with no negative repercussions. Brooklyn’s mom has dated women in the past and is actually disappointed that things don’t work out with Zoe. But just like Brooklyn has to discover her own creative talents apart from her family, her sexual identity is her own, and everyone comes to respect that. It’s a lovely summer read and for those who aren’t turned off by the not-quite-HEA ending, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

[loveisofthebody-blog]

Review: Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova

As I mentioned, it’s been a Bad Week. Bad things happened in the middle of my reading of this book, which does not make it a bad book, it just made it hard for me to read for a few days. Anyway, I really enjoyed it, and would have enjoyed it even more under better circumstances. Also, this is one of those Under the Gaydar books! It was given to me by a publishing rep with a super vague wink-wink-nudge-nudge and nothing else, but I’m giving an above-the-cut spoiler that our lovely protagonist is hella queer. Yay! Why that doesn’t make it to the back of the book, I do not know but I sure can speculate.

Find Labyrinth Lost here.

What’s it about?

Alex is part of a community of latinx brujas in contemporary Brooklyn. In her family and others, magical powers are hereditary, but don’t usually make themselves known until a child comes of age. Alex has received her powers, and is in fact one of the most powerful encantrixes alive, but she is so terrified of her own strength, and what it might mean for her family, that she’s been pretending to be powerless for years. When she can’t hide her powers any longer, at a ceremony celebrating her coming of age, Alex casts a spell to revoke her magic. It backfires, and her entire family is disappeared into Los Lagos, a magical underworld. A young brujo named Nova offers to escort her through Los Lagos to rescue her sisters and mother, and Alex’s non-magical best friend Rishi sneaks in behind them. Adventures happen, monsters, heroics, etc.

How is it?

It’s good! I like Cordova’s writing style: it’s very lush and descriptive, and works well for a highly-developed fantasy world like this. It’s also very sensual. There’s a romance/love triangle subplot, and while there’s no sexual content in the book, the sexual tension between Alex and Rishi in particular is super intense. There were a few instances of characters making remarkably poor decisions for the sake of the plot, but I can’t say that bothered me much. I had a rough time working my way through all the intricate world-building, but I’m chalking that up to a)not being a big fantasy reader and b)This Week From Hell.

How are queer readers going to feel about it, assuming they like this sort of thing?

So, they will probably like it. I am waffling a little here: it sort of depends on what kind of representation you’re looking for. Actual character fact: Alex is attracted to Rishi, and falling in love with her. Probably-implied character fact: Alex is also attracted to Nova, and has some maybe-proto-romantic feelings for him. That’s all we know. I’m assuming she’s bisexual/pansexual, but she never uses a label. Which is fine. I wish she did, but whatever. Gender and sexuality are effectively a non-issue in this book, which irks me, since, you know, they’re super important in the real world. Also, there’s absolutely no information on the cover that would indicate that Alex is queer. Rishi isn’t even mentioned, which is a really disappointing publisher decision.

However. If we assume that Alex is bi or whatever, and ignore the fact that both the author and publisher are downplaying that, it’s pretty positive representation. It’s basically a F-M-M love triangle, which is pretty tired, but Alex never has an obnoxious internal monologue about “who do I choose” or anything, so I’m okay with it. She’s pretty busy fighting monsters, so I’ll give her a pass.

[loveisofthebody-blog]

Review: Shallow Graves by Kali Wallace

Wowwowwow friends. I don’t know how I’ve managed to miss this one. I don’t think I’ve seen it kicking around on many booklists or anything, and now that I’ve read it I want to know why. I had so much fun reading it and will be recommending it to people lots and lots.

Find Shallow Graves here.

What’s it about?

Seventeen year old Breezy Lin died a year ago, buried in a shallow grave by her unknown assailant. And then she wakes up. Reanimated, by all appearances alive and well and immortal (she’s tested that theory in a number of inventive ways), she takes off to find out why she’s risen from the grave, and who put her there in the first place. Along the way she discovers her ability to identify murderers with a single glance, learns how take them out in an appropriately horrifying fashion, and makes friends with a number of other supernatural types on a cross-country road trip.

How is it?

Well, I loved it. Mostly because Breezy is my new favorite character. I’m only exaggerating a little bit. She’s smart and funny and morbid, and has a real personality. She’s obsessed with astronomy and space travel, not in the way of YA characters who have a random interest because the author needed to give them a hobby: Breezy’s a legit science nerd and that informs the way she deals with the afterlife. I’d have happily followed her around on her murderous, vengeful road trip for ages.

As it turns out, there’s more of a plot than that, involving ghouls and a cult and...I don’t know how to describe a lot of it. It’s pretty weird. It was creepy and scary and I found it much less compelling and cohesive than the character herself. It’s a solid premise that could have used either more world-building or less plot. Obviously, that didn’t put me off the book in the slightest, but I’m not a huge genre reader and I don’t much care if a plot twists around in ways I can’t easily follow. Other readers might disagree.

How are young queer readers going to feel about it, assuming they like this sort of thing?

They should love it. I will make them love it. For one, Breezy is bisexual. Like, actually self-identifies as bisexual and uses that specific word. Which doesn’t happen all that often! She’s sexually active and is harassed about it in the book, but has zero shame, which is awesome. She’s had sex with guys, and is open about being interested in women too. Her attraction to her female best friend and to an older friend of the family are uncomfortable and unreciprocated in a way that feels real and awkward and very much like, what being seventeen and queer is all about. So that’s enough to make me love this.

Somehow I’m even more excited that she doesn’t have a love story here. She’s too busy dealing with her trauma, learning about the rules of being undead, and fighting evil to deal with dating. She’s got some negligible chemistry with one of the ghouls she befriends, but, you know. They’re friends, and she’s doesn’t have the time. Thank god.

She’s also biracial: her dad is Chinese and her mom is Irish (or is it Irish-American? Can’t recall). And they’re a very realistic family! Her parents aren’t interracial-marriage archetypes, they’re oddball hippies who named their kid Breezy: they raised her to be a big geek and I’d love to have gotten to know them better. She encounters some microaggressive racism, and, much like when she’s slut-shamed, acknowledges it angrily but is able to move past it with a great deal of self-assurance.

This is, as you might expect, a very dark story. It’s firmly within the horror genre, and includes scenes of extreme violence, as well as kidnapping, stalking, murder, and one particularly freaky scene in a cave that made me feel super claustrophobic even though I’m not. Wallace is working in a moral gray area: some people will find that upsetting.

[somethingsqueerinthelibrary]

It occurred to me that she was so close to me that we were almost kissing. That if I moved toward her, my lips would be on hers. How would that feel? Lipstick on lipstick?

Fans of the Impossible Life by Kate Scelsa