LGBTQ

Highlands New Year

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Title: Highlands New Year

Author: Amy Quick Parrish

Year: 2023

Genre: romance, travel

Queer shit: one side wlw couple

Vibe Check: Snowed in at a Scottish bed and breakfast with romance and the warm and fuzzies

Pile of Opinions:

This book was a cute, romantic, snowed-in, Scottish slumber party! It was the perfect read for me during the summer as I prefer the cold weather. This is book two of three (that I know of) and I ordered book 1 and pre-ordered book 3 and am greatly looking forward to reading them as well. This book is less than 200 pages and makes for a great read-in-one-sitting story. Melissa moved to Scotland (I’m assuming in the first book) because she was told she inherited a home from a distant relative. Her best friend, Caitlin flies out to visit her and finds herself snowed in at a hotel with strangers, including one handsome man who plays guitar, sings like an angel, and makes her want to dive head first into the unknown. This book is exactly what I want in a romance that isn’t spicy. The romance was sweet and gives you the warm and fuzzies.

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Other Books by Amy Quick Parrish

Dungeons and Drama

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Title: Dungeons and Drama

Author: Kristy Boyce

Year: 2024

Genre: YA fiction, YA romance, Dungeons and Dragons, Musical Theater,

Queer shit: mlm side relationship, musical theater, D&D

Vibe Check: Musical theater fan fake dates a D&D fan, not only do they enjoy fake flirting but they find their interests overlap in beautiful and magical ways

Pile of Opinions: Soooo cute!!! Adding this to the list of books I wish I’d had as a teenager along with everything Elise Bryant, Michelle Quach, and Anna-Marie McLemore ever write. I’m looking forward to going back and reading the author’s other books. I love all the characters and everything felt so real and believable and raw in the way only good YA writing can feel. This book had me laughing out loud and getting second hand butterflies and I am here for it. A musical theater fanatic gets grounded and her “punishment” is working at her dad’s gaming store for 8 weeks. She is trying to revive the canceled spring play but gets sucked into the world of D&D. What starts as part of her cover fake dating Nathan so her douchey ex boyfriend stops pitying her and so Nathan’s crush will get jealous and finally give him the time of day quickly turns into an “is this real or just part of the act” as the two start to fall for each other. This felt every bit the teenage dream of exploring the world beyond what is right in front of you and finding friends in unlikely and unexpected places. This book is for Dungeons and Dragons fanatics, musical theater enthusiasts, and readers of sweet romance and young love. I am definitely buying the physical copy when it comes out January, 2024, and will be on the lookout for the author’s other books as well. Let me know if you’ve read this and what you thought in the comments!

Professional Reader

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Legends & Lattes

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Book Review (more just a pile of my personal opinions from my personal experiences)

Title: Legends & Lattes

Author: Travis Baldree

Year: 2022

Genre: Fiction, fantasy, gaslamp fantasy, romance, coffee shop

Queer shit: Yup! Lead character, also baked goods, tell me cinnamon rolls aren’t queer!

Vibe Check: Viv is done fighting beasts and ready to open a coffee shop in a new town, but first she has to build it (and teach people what coffee is)

Pile of Opinions: Viv is an orc ready to leave the violence of swords and quests behind and settle down into a new town and build a coffee shop and community. She faces obstacles and has to overcome some local trouble makers but this low stakes fantasy is as cozy as your favorite coffee shop. I recommend this to anyone who likes stories, liking fantasy or coffee is not a prerequisite. I don’t have much to say about this book other than you should read it and it immediately became one of my favorites so go read it then come tell me what you liked. The found family/community aspect of this absolutely melted my heart and the characters were all unique and delightful. There is a character that is nearly non-verbal, there is queer shit, and there is baked goods and coffee. Let me know if you’ve read it and what you thought.

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A Psalm for the Wild-Built

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Book Review (more just a pile of my personal opinions from my personal experiences)

Title: A Psalm for the Wild-Built

Author: Becky Chambers 

Year: 2021

Genre: Sci-Fi. Low stakes, post-industry

Queer shit: Genderqueer, pronouns

Vibe Check: Genderless tea monk sets out on a quest to hear crickets in the wild and meets a robot who becomes their companion

Pile of Opinions: What a precious little piece of a tree pulp! This book healed parts of my soul I didn’t know a book could heal. A genderless tea monk decides to search for crickets to hear their song and on the way meets a robot that lives in the wild with other robots since all the factories were shut down out of respect for the robots’ rights. This book is so wholesome and raw. The world is so broken and it’s overwhelming and this book made me want to make tea and go in search of cricket songs. This book immediately made it to my list of books I get for people as gifts regardless of what they usually read. Very excited to read A Prayer for the Crown-Shy 🙂

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City of girls

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Book Review (more just a pile of my personal opinions from my personal experiences)

Title: City of Girls

Author: Elizabeth Gilbert

Year: 2019

Genre: Fiction, female relationships, building a life, responsibility (idk, these aren’t genres)

Queer shit: One side gay character, a threesome, lesbians, theater (IYKYK)

Vibe Check: Young woman decides to go against the plan her family had for her life and moves to her Aunt’s theater in NYC after dropping out of college in 1940

Pile of Opinions: This book as a whole piece was confusing to me as it felt like the first 250 pages were one book and the last couple hundred were a second book. I enjoyed both books but they didn’t feel cohesive. I felt like the first part felt like what I expected the book to be about and I loved it and enjoyed it. It was very coming of age, finding your purpose outside your parents’ expectations, understanding the value you already have that you can contribute to a community, fitting in without losing yourself. I loved the friendships and lessons learned and observations. I enjoyed the second part of the book, living through the war and building an independent life as an adult in NYC. I loved the friendships in this book and enjoyed seeing how they change over decades. This book was told from the perspective of the lead woman looking back on her life and telling her stories as an old woman. Seeing friendships over a lifetime and how someone can be our everything for a time and out of our life another time and that doesn’t make the relationship any less valid or important. I read this book in a few days and I feel like perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I had read it over a longer period of time. Some shows aren’t meant to be binged in a single weekend and some books aren’t either. I really enjoyed this over all once I accepted it as more than the 250 I expected it to be and enjoyed it for the collection of stories that it was. I love a good found family and there should be more books about the beautiful chaos of a theater community.

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Juliet Takes a Breath

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Book Review (more just a pile of my personal opinions from my personal experiences)

Title: Juliet Takes a Breath

Author: Gabby Rivera 

Year: 2016

Genre: YA fiction, personal growth, coming of age, coming out/queer

Queer shit: Lead (female) is gay, has a girlfriend, and is trying to come out to her family. Lots of support queer characters, lesbians, poly.  

Vibe Check: jumping into the deep end before you are ready and being fine

Pile of Opinions: LOVED THIS BOOK. I needed more of this book the second I finished. Juliet is a lesbian about to go on summer break during her college years in 2003. She reads a book by a lesbian feminist in Portland Oregon who opens Juliet’s eyes to a world of queerness and body positivity that is new for her. She lands an internship with the author, decides to come out to her parents, and heads off to Portland for the summer. This book was empowering and human and made me want to up and go somewhere new and meet new people. This book covers the complexities of being gay in the early 2000’s, family dynamics and varying responses to queerness, intersectionality, white privilege, polyamory, and meeting your heroes only to find out they are human. This book is one I will reread soon and suggest to anyone who will listen (already sent a copy to someone so they’ll read it and we can talk about it). This book felt so real and personal and human and i just loved how Juliet builds relationships with the people she meets, how the characters love and make mistakes, and how the author addresses body image and the intersectionality of Juliet being a queer woman of color. The author portrays whiteness in a way that is both disappointing and incredibly accurate. Rivera uses a character to address white fragility and how queer white women cannot represent queer women very well because the experiences of queer women of color are not only different, but something white queer women cannot understand because they are not queer women of color. This book was light and enjoyable while touching on heavy and complex topics, the author balanced all of this brilliantly. 

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Meet Cute Diary

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Book Review (more just a pile of my personal opinions from my personal experiences)

Title: Meet Cute Diary

Author: Emery Lee

Year: 2021

Genre: YA Fiction/Romance/coming of age

Queer shit: non-binary, ace (asexual), pronouns, trans, gay

Vibe Check: This book is as cute and sweet as the title and cover imply

Pile of Opinions: This book was handed to me the first time I finally got the guts to ask the bookstore experts for a book with a non-binary character since I was still new to being out of the non-binary closet. Shout out to The Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle for not only having a book ready but being so queer friendly always. This book is about a trans character and his journey to coming out, coming of age, but also the journey of how complex coming out is. Living fully into himself while visiting his brother out of state. Balancing freedom and independence, he is the author of a blog that tells the happily ever afters of trans people and his views of what type of boyfriend he wants are challenged as he finds out the difference between stories on a website and real life people. This book does a beautiful job of discussing pronouns (including a conversation that is an amazing example of how to respond to someone sharing their pronouns and I definitely cried). This book was the cute trans love story I hoped it would be and it made my heart happy.

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