Samantha Allen

Samantha Allen, herself a queer person who grew up in a Red State, takes a tour of the country with her Finance's ex-boyfriend (yes, you read that right) to capture the stories of queer people who have carved out spaces for themselves in the very hearts of bigotry and bible banging. Their reasons for not moving to queer bastions such as San Francisco, New York or Portland might surprise you.
It makes a lot of sense that many of these people feel that they can do more good for the community show more by staying and working to change people's hearts and minds or providing a safe place for queer people to gather. Enduring the ridicule, not feeling safe to be who they are in public, having a smaller or even almost non-existent sense of community, these are the prices they have chosen to pay in order to stay in a place they grew up or have come to call home or even are stubbornly committed to shaking some sense into.
I would love to meet and shake the hand of every one of these courageous and inspiring folks, and definitely visit their bars/cafes/community rooms. show less

Winter 2021 (January);
(Non-Fiction Bingo Board Square: LGBT , gender, sexuality and related issues(

This was intensely delightful and educational. I loved the down to earth, awkward humor, and utterly realistic sharing. This book felt like the personal story a friend tells you, late in the evening, when both of you have your feet up on the couch and a third or fourth glass of wine in hand, exchange secrets of the soul.

This was such a poignant look at the journey to realizing you are show more transgender and then to becoming it, in all the ways that can happen, and all the things it ends up impacting along the way from beginning to not-end/but-where-we-are-now. These bite-sized chapter anecdotes and bizarre, yet perfect, analogies will end up sticking with me for a long time to come I bet. Recommending to anyone and everyone. show less

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In this A Midsummer Night's Dream-inspired romcom, Puck is a reality show producer and agent of chaos with a talent for bringing people together . . . and tearing them apart.

Meet Puck: the nonbinary, thirty-year-old mastermind behind "Homewreckers", a dating show that puts troubled couples through hell—with a little help from their exes. Used to being the one pulling the strings, it shocks Puck when their life undergoes a plot twist of its own and show more their college roommate Mia announces her engagement to her ex’s best friend, Damon. Having only recently broken up with longtime-boyfriend Zander, and never having had much in common with Damon (who lovesick Lena has always pined after), Mia’s news leaves her friend group reeling—and Puck’s mind whirling.

When they arrive for a week of wedding festivities at an upscale resort in the Appalachian forest, Puck immediately sees that Mia’s marriage will lead to misery, and takes it upon themself to save their friends by rearranging the couples—without anyone finding out. But as Puck comes up against a type-A maid of honor hell-bent on making this wedding happen, it becomes clear that they will have to deliver the greatest stunt of their career. If only they can take their eyes off the bridesmaid. After all, the course of true love never did run smooth…

Written with Samantha Allen’s signature charm, wit, and an irresistible dose of Shakespearian mischief, Puck is the ultimate romcom for our chaotic era, and a celebration of the friendships that carry us through it all.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I've read reality-TV plots before, and liked them fine. I dislike Puck as much as it is possible to dislike a fictional character.

Controlling and manipulative are the core qualities a producer/director must have. The Creative Types series got uniformly good reviews from me, and controlling manipulative producer/director types abounded. LOVE, HATE & CLICKBAIT had the same. I liked it, too. All these stories were chock-a-block with cynical, manipulative controlling people.

Puck is the first one of the producers to feel sociopathic, actually uncaring in their actions...as in not really interested or invested in a positive outcome of some sort. Their impulse to derail the train heading for a genuine disaster was, it felt to me as I read along, much the same "I will because I can and y'all sort out the pieces once I've had my laugh" as in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I'm glad I read the whole story. I'm supposed to see the easy, wealth-lubricated hum of a stage play wedding as hollow and shallow and doomed to failure. So Puck blowing all those things up? Well, why not they were going to blow up anyway.

I found the idea of Puck's in-universe TV show, Homewreckers, to be as repugnant as The Traitors all y'all seem to lap up. I'm not going off on a rant about how vicious all these craptastic shows feel to me...entertain y'all's selves how you see fit...but absent some tinge of positive motivation, some twinge of conscience or at least awareness that the playing cards being shuffled by Puck are people with feelings, I'm not recommending the read.

The prose is charmingly descriptive, the surfaces ae glossy, the dialogue had a brittle wit to it.

And I disliked every page. show less

Ok, how do you feel about The Bachelor? Cryptids? Horrifically funny violence? This book is so weird and also so, so amazing.