Hello! My name is Rey. I'm super queer and I have a profound love of stories. I'm a Chicano scholar, reader, writer and grad student. I review books and talk about book related things.
Hi friends. I’m obsessing over PageBound! It’s really inspiring me to read more, and that’s saying something because I’ve already been reading quite a bit and am pretty busy with school/work/life.
Pitched as a goodreads+reddit, but ran independently by two women and is anti-AI, I’m kinda hyper-fixating on it because of features like the quests, which are set challenges in different themes that give you badges based on how many books in the quest you read. (Bronze, silver, gold+). I joined two so far, and you can see I’m at silver on both lol. I also like the list feature, where you can make your own playlist of books basically. I’ve only made one (vamps of color) but I’m loving it.
Hi y’all! Please follow my reading journey and librarian journey on instagram! I’m in library school so kinda busy but been trying to keep up with what I’m reading so pls come hang out!
This past spring I decided to read Interview with the Vampire for the first time. Mostly, it was because I was missing vampires and partly it was because I’d never read it before. So I read and loved it. I actually cried lol After I read it, I immediately watched the movie with my boyfriend. Miss Dunst did her thing. Then, in my post-watch googling, I saw what I’d somehow missed which was that there was a tv show adaptation coming out towards the end of the year. I had a lot going on re: life and school, but we decided to wait ’til after our New Orleans trip to binge the show. Then we were sucked in.
This show was so fucking amazing! I’m like, obsessed. As an adaptation, I thought it was so well-done. They made a bunch of changes (time period, race, and age), and I thought they were all great. The cast was so amazing, I’m obsessed with them. Jacob Anderson as Louis was so layered and amazing. Sam Reid was literally possessed by drama queen Lestat. And Bailey Bass did the fucking thing as my girl Claudia. It was gayer than I excepted and I was already expecting a lot of gay. It was hilarious and heartbreaking and beautiful each and every episode.
I truly don’t care what anyone else says re: it vs the movie but this is MY Interview with the Vampire. I’m gay and I’m screaming and I love it. As for season 2, I am beyond ready. What did y’all think about it? If you haven’t seen it, what the hell are you waiting for? Ahh!!!
I’m working on a book project that involves my favorite show, poetry, and race criticism. The project was sort of at a stand-still for a couple years due to life but also due to me just being unsure about the direction.
I won’t go too into detail but I suddenly realized that what the project was missing was ME. I realized that I wanted/needed to insert myself into it in a more direct way, in a way that the show inserted itself into my life. This thus led me into the direction of some memoir writing.
For my project, at least at this moment, I’ve decided to write about 7 or 8 personal essays. I’ve already began this. I wrote up a layout, wrote some notes for each essay, and have already started a few. It has been a really great but exhausting process.
Writing honestly about yourself or your life, especially your childhood, can be sort of scary or draining. It’s brought up some stuff I haven’t thought about in a bit and also has made me realize things that I missed despite them being so clear in retrospect. I love talking about myself but I feel like I’m really talented at only going so deep. I can tell you about myself in so much detail that you might not realize how surface level I’ve been. Trying to navigate that, especially in writing, has been really interesting.
Do y’all have any tips or experience writing memoir pieces? Let’s chat about it!
I started my grad program and, as I’m in week twelve, I can say that it’s going pretty well so far! I knew I made a great choice when I saw that some of the required readings were gay ass books like this one. Going back into academia was sort of a last minute idea but things seems to be falling right into place. Despite some of the dumbass people who major in English who can be pretty insufferable, it feels pretty good to be reading and talking about reading/writing consistently. Especially after the bumpy road that was the last few years.
For one of my classes we read and discussed Fun Home! I’ve already read it before but it was such an interesting time to not only discuss this book in detail but to also discuss all sorts of scholarly work done about it. I’ll mention school in another post soon but just wanted to say that I’m alive and to wish me luck lol 💖also I’ll post some of the books I’ve been reading outside of school cos I’ve been on a roll 🚀🤖
If you’re not familiar with me, I’m Joseph! I love queer books, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and my dog Hades (that I named after The Dark Wife by Sarah Diemer, lesbian retelling of Hades/Persephone).
I was once super active on this site, where I made so many friends, interacted in many discussions, and posted many book reviews/book photos. I had my queer year in books, where I read only queer books all year and talked extensively about them. I shared book videos I’ve uploaded to YouTube. I talked about my writing, and my experience at a queer writer retreat. And I was just super queer and a lover of books with the internet.
While I was finishing my undergrad degree, my reading slowed down and I lost energy to post online. Once I graduated, I was excited to come back but then we went directly into a global pandemic and my life fell apart. While we’re not completely out of the woods in terms of the pandemic, I now have a hold of my life again. I’ve been reading (which you can see more about on my instagram!), writing, and I’m now in a creative writing graduate program! It’s been crazy!
So, as twitter is burning and I’ve finally found a ground to stand on in my life, I’ve come to my roots (Tumblr) and am asking if anyone is still here! So, are y’all still here? Have y’all been reading? What’s up!?
If you’re interested in diverse reading recs (esp queer ones!) follow my book instagram please. I’m going to be more active on there! Here is the link or just search theboywhocriedbooks!
Would appreciate if you shared this so I can get more love on there! Thank u!!
Here's a longass video you can put on in the background while you clean your apartment or whatever!!! Just me talking about the white gaze for, you know, the usual 40mins!
Everyone on campus knows Remy Cameron. He’s the out-and-gay, super-likable guy that people admire for his confidence. The only person who may not know Remy that well is Remy himself. So when he is assigned to write an essay describing himself, he goes on a journey to reconcile the labels that people have attached to him, and get to know the real Remy Cameron.
Thoughts:
I met Julian Winters in 2019 while I was helping out at YALLWEST. He’s super nice and I was looking forward to checking out his books, mainly because I knew they had queer characters of color at their forefront. I decided to start with this book and I am so happy that I did because it was so damn good! So much of it is about identity, obviously but also the ways identity interacts with things like friendship, love, and school. The characters all felt very fleshed out and were so lovely, and there is a cute dog so that’s always a plus! There were so many important themes/ideas shared throughout this book and some of them were a bit heavy-handed but that’s completely fine. I love heavy-handed things. My view is this: this book is for young adults and many young adults really need to hear these things told to them directly in a way that often isn’t in popular media. That they’re valid, that queerness is okay and comes in many forms, that people of color can be queer, that racial fetishization isn’t okay, etc. ALSO! The main character AND his love interest both are not white and that brings me so much joy (that I’ll go on about later!) The point is, if this sounds a little like it might interest you then you gotta pick it up now! Going to go on about it in SPOILER-Y DETAIL BELOW:
_______________________________________
I loved this. Lucy was my favorite friend but I think I could have liked Rio more had she been in it a little more beyond their fight but Lucy was just generally really good. I loved the cast of characters because most of them felt so individual. Well, I would say that there was a set of twins that really fell on the sideline but aside from that everyone was so fleshed out. I loved his family because they were so warm and felt really close, which was important to his character as an adopted kid. The birth sister, Free, was so good too though. She didn’t even have too many scenes but I felt the connection and I loved it when she would talk about their birth mother. It was just such an interesting and complex situation to be in and I thought it was handled honestly and very well. The other best character was obviously Clover.
Ian was so good. I had a playful friend crush on someone named Ian in high school so I did think of him lol. I really liked Ian and Remy’s relationship though. It was a lot less dramatic than relationships I’ve read in YA and I appreciated that. They were friends and connecting so it was nice. I appreciated the honesty in the book generally but especially between these characters. The lack of drama was really in them being pretty honest during certain moments instead of stewing too much. It was just cute. They had lots of little moments, like the cafeteria whisper, the pool, the walking the dog talks, etc and it felt very natural. As I previously mentioned, it feels so good to see an author of color writing two queer characters of color romantically involved. We all know how white the media can be but even when they do give us, say, a gay Black character, they then give him a white boyfriend. So often, that’s what happens. But not here, and I loved it. It really reflects my own experience as a qpoc and that always feels good since it is so rare.
I did say things were heavy-handed but again, I do think things NEED to be heavy-handed at times. Especially since certain ideas aren’t directly addressed too often that when it is addressed, it can feel almost clunky. I thought it was very well done here though. An extension of that, I really appreciated how diverse the cast of characters was. It felt very natural.
The topic of identity was so big, understandably. I love an introspective narrative and I thought this one was set up well — Black gay guy adopted into a white family, there really are so many identities at play there alone. Then you add his relationships with people (friends, family, birth family) and the pressure of school?! It was intense and I enjoyed watching Remy explore these certain aspects of himself and trying to understand them or how others view them perhaps.
Outside of the heavy-handed comments, I did see a few critiques online for this book. One was the Harry Potter references but I was okay with them despite my current feelings about that franchise but I can understand the annoyance there. He also made Buffy references and I’m obsessed with Buffy so that made up for it to me lol. A lot of more serious critical comments were about the references to the main character getting a boner. It was referenced directly and indirectly a handful of times and it did catch my eye. My response to that, as a person who has a penis, is that boners happen literally all of the time and so that’s life. I just think people are uncomfortable with the writer referencing it because it so rarely is talked about in YA. Like periods or condoms lol. The last big critique I saw was around the outing of a character. After the MC spends the whole book emphasizing he can’t out his love interest, a side character randomly reveals her bother (the school loner) is “demisexual and not straight”. Reviews/thoughts I saw about this question the characters agency over his identity, especially since we never actually see him speak. I did feel like this was a fumble.
Overall, I think it’s a fun and almost perfect book. It made me smile and laugh and I can’t wait for little queer Black boys and queer boys of color to read it. I hope you enjoyed it too!
The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hitchinson
[Goodreads]
A good friend will bury your body, a best friend will dig you back up.
Dino doesn’t mind spending time with the dead. His parents own a funeral home, and death is literally the family business. He’s just not used to them talking back. Until Dino’s ex-best friend July dies suddenly—and then comes back to life. Except not exactly. Somehow July is not quite alive, and not quite dead.
As Dino and July attempt to figure out what’s happening, they must also confront why and how their friendship ended so badly, and what they have left to understand about themselves, each other, and all those grand mysteries of life.
Thoughts:
I love Shaun David Hutchinson’s books and this one wasn’t any different. Well, it was different but it wasn’t any different that I loved it. You get the point lol. This one was a bit darker and heavy though. It’s about a failed friendship, through and through. I have some experience with a failed best-friendship so I thought about that a lot while I was reading. It’s a fun concept and a little more sad of a story but it’s definitely interesting. I think the friend character is really unlikeable for the majority of the book so I wish I understood a little more why they were friends in the first place. Regardless, check it out if it sounds entertaining/interesting because I’m going to go on about it in SPOILER-Y DETAIL BELOW:
As I said, I’ve read a few books by Hutchinson! They’re all very well written and drags you into the story. There's this certain detailed and individual flow his books often have that make reading them both fun and introspective. As for the concept, it’s nothing too crazy. Just your best friend dying and your family happens to be the main mortuary in town. Then she comes back from the dead, right in front of you. Casual. I loved it, it was a funny and interesting way to look at friendships. The friend was dead and gone but not really gone, like actual friend breakups. There but not really until they are and you’re having an exhausting “Why our friendship failed” conversation.
While I found that interesting, I wasn’t really buying their friendship. July was so unlikable and just not a good friend. They had inside joke-type things and bonded over their… lack of popularity/coolness? Or something? Or just their shared history? They stayed friends cos they’ve been friends for a while? Which is never a good sign. July said awful things, was self-centered and was a drama queen. On top of this, Dino tries to help her figure out why she was resurrected and went through her being all annoying and dead. Yet, she still acts messy and like a bad friend. She was mad he was moving on to people who respected him and she couldn’t deal.
Then Dino feels bad for leaving her? And they have a drawn-out “I’m happy you’re my friend, even if we lost our way for a bit” type ending? It was entertaining and I would love a happy ending but I think this one missed the mark. As a person who had to let go of a friend, I wished it was more bitter than sweet. I mean, sure she dies but he could have been full of resolve by understanding they just weren’t good together. Instead, we kind of watch them make up for old time's sake. Maybe she didn’t need to be redeemed? Maybe some friendships are just toxic. That’s not the way the book went but I’m thinking that if it had, maybe it would have been more impactful. Or at least more realistic.
I have a certain thing about mortuaries. I like the idea of them, so I enjoyed those aspects of the story. It was interesting that it was the family business, etc. I liked seeing the sister demand her place in that business. I also liked Dino’s new friends and his partner. I really wished we had seen more of them or at least more of the partner. More of them interacting with Dino and how they really treated him so much better than July ever could.
I enjoyed all the random things that go on, the little car chase, the party, the random girl July uses, etc. The friendship’s resolve just was lacking but it had its moments. Also, I kept reading her name as Julie, so there's that. Overall it was a good and funny book but could have done some things differently!
