richardderus's twelfth 2024 thread

Reviews 001 through 008 are linked here.
Reviews 009 on thru 017 are linked here.
Reviews 018 to 026 are linked there.
Reviews 027 to 033 are linked there.
Reviews 034 through 040 are linked here.
Reviews 041 to 045 are linked here.
Reviews 046 unto 050 are linked here.
Reviews 051 to 059 are linked there.
Reviews 060 up to 064 are linked here.
Reviews 65 up to 78 are linked there.
Reviews 79 through 87 are linked there.

THIS THREAD'S REVIEWS
088 The Sons of El Rey in post #30.
089 Arthur and Teddy Are Coming Out in post #57.
090 Girls Who Lie Together in post #72.
091 Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Aristotle and Dante #1) in post #80.
092 Victories Greater Than Death (Unstoppable #1) in post #96.
093 Nicked: A Novel in post #102.
094 Gay Science: The Totally Scientific Examination of LGBTQ+ Culture, Myths, and Stereotypes in post #124.
095 365 Gays of the Year (Plus 1 for a Leap Year): Discover LGBTQ+ history one day at a time in post #140.
096 I Never Liked You Anyway in post #142.
097 Dear Cisgender People: A Guide to Trans Allyship and Empathy in post #163.
098 Songs on Endless Repeat: Essays and Outtakes in post #164.
099 Best Supporting Actor (Creative Types #3) in post #186.
100 Four Squares: A Novel in post #191.
101 Park Cruising: What Happens When We Wander Off the Path in post #194.
102 Private Worlds: Growing Up Gay in Post-War Britain in post #197.
103 A Family, Maybe: Two Dads, Two Babies, and the Court Cases That Brought Us Togetherin post #209.
104 Selamlik in post #243.
105 Queer as Camp: Essays on Summer, Style, and Sexuality in post #260.
106 Trans Medicine in post #264.
107 The Fitful Sleep of Immigrantsin post #271.
108 The Savior of 6th Street in post #272.
109 The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen (The Doomsday Books #1) in post #286.

All my threads in the 75ers linked somewhere here
My Last Thread of 2009 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2010 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2011 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2012 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2013 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2014 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2015 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2016 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2017 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2018 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2019 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2020 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2021 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2022 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2023 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.

All previous Burgoine reviews linked here.

THIS THREAD'S BURGOINE REVIEWS:

BURGOINE #025 A Champion for Tinker Creek (Tinker Creek Series #1) in post #232.
BURGOINE #026 Manny Porter and the Yuletide Murder (Tinker Creek Series #2) in post #234.
BURGOINE #027 Devil's Chew Toy (Hayden & Friends #1) in post #239.
BURGOINE #028 Cirque du Slay (Hayden & Friends #2) is in post #240.
BURGOINE #029 Puzzle for Two in post #290.
BURGOINE #030 Come Unto These Yellow Sands in post #291.
BURGOINE #031 Fire from the Sky in post #294.

All previous Pearl Rule reviews linked here.

THIS THREAD'S PEARL RULE REVIEWS:

#014 (@ 33%) Normporn: Queer Viewers and the TV That Soothes Us in post #292.

Seriously...not a great venue for normies here.
My 2023 goals are here, for reference.
2024 GOALS
If I reviewed 222 books in 2023, why not go for at least 250 in 2024?

So I will.

All but 36 of 2023's reviews were from NetGalley and Edelweiss+, the DRC aggregators I use to get my biblioholism fixes. That's 16% of the total actually read and reviewed. In 2024, I think that percentage is just fine to maintain, so I'll settle on 41 reads not from those two sources as my soft goal...I don't much care if I hit it exactly, but I do need to leave room to read and review books I've been gifted over the years!

2023's #Booksgiving review blast resulted in my blog views for the month being 177% of November's total. So that worked. I only used Twitter for all of November, then for #Booksgiving, added Bluesky and Tumblr. That worked, too. The sadness of my #PrideMonth limp, flaccid performanceless unblast made me realize that, if I'm going to get a big project done, I need to break it down into steps. This is new for me, and a result of the actual limitations that the strokes have imposed on me. Like no longer being able to read handwriting or decode graphics like Wordle, this acquired dyslexia is a limitation I need to acknowledge. Not to say I won't keep pushing against it...but it's real, and planning needs to be based in reality.
***
End of Q1 thoughts on goals
I've had to drop Tumblr from my review-posting because the owner/president/head jerkoff posted transphobic maunderings, then the trans employees said "y'all CTFD he didn't mean it" which well totally relate to needing the gig, but no. THEN announced Tumblr would sell to AI scrapers everything users have posted there...so that, plus their porn ban, means they get axed from me creating anything there, posting or boosting things there. And they don't care, or notice, but I get to keep my own moral high ground.

I don't see, or feel, any reason to adjust any of my annual goals. I've posted 51 blog posts in 2024, or on track for 200 annual posts; but that does not account for the heavy months of June and #Booksgiving to come, and there are already eleven reviews banked for those two.

May 2024 anti-AI rant
I posted a status on Goodreads, a site I've used with great regularity for fourteen years, calling out a sudden increase in reanimated accounts abandoned at some past that are suddenly following me, wondering who else I know there who is also a high-output reviewer had noticed this troubling trend. I specfically said "some AI scraper's found a free way to train its LLM" and *poof* I lost my ability to post comments on Goodreads! Two weeks later, an open "help" ticket gets quick responses to my repeated requests for action, yay...but they ALL SAY THE SAME THING, no timetable for our developers to fix the issue.

Put better developers on it, then. Or just admit I hit a nerve and ban me.

See >5 richardderus: for 2023 achievements & 2024 goals.
My January 2024 summary is here.
My February 2024 summary is here.
My March 2024 summary is here.
My April 2024 summary is here.
My mid-May 2024 #PrideMonth launch notice is here.
My May 2024 summary is here.
My June 2024 summary is here.

Very well...this is your chance.

Happy new thread, Richard dear!

Ma'at is a wonderful godess, we need harmony, truth and justice!

Happy new one, my friend!

Howdy!

>8 FAMeulstee: Don't we just, Anita...don't we just.

Enjoy your thread-queen's crown of the Andes!

>9 jessibud2: Greetings, Shelley! Thanks.

>10 laytonwoman3rd: Howdy Linda3rd! Beautiful Tentacled American illo. *smooch*

Happy new one, RD.

Speaking of which I got a lovely little giftie today:

ETA size

>14 katiekrug: Thank you, Deluxe Aunt Katie!

>11 richardderus: Thank you, Richard dear!
A beautiful crown that matches perfectly with the emerald green shirt I wear today :-)

>17 FAMeulstee: I must've found that in my Akashic Records. *smooch*

Happy New Thread, Richard. I like the nifty gift. Still dealing with the LT issues. The newer threads seem to be easier to load. 😒

>19 msf59: Shorter threads would load faster, honestly, because there's so little weighing them down...no as many links, images, etc. Maybe you should start a new thread today, since you're having trouble loading them.

Isn't that Tentacled American cool?

Another new thread, Richard? My poor head is spinning.

>21 ArlieS: Tomorrow's a new review, so what better time? Glad to see you here, Arlie!

Happy number 12, RD.

>23 PaulCranswick: Thank you, PC.

Wow! Brand new thread and I'm already behind! I hope it develops in a good time for you, Richard. *smooch*

HAppy new one, Richard!

Happy new thread, Richard!

>10 laytonwoman3rd: Oo, I like it!

>15 richardderus: That too!

Happy new thread, RD! ((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today and hopes that the foot pain is decreasing.

>15 richardderus: oooh, a lovely octopus pendant!

Happy new one, RD. I hope the bad influencers turn up in droves!

088 The Sons of El Rey by Alex Espinoza

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: From the American Book Award–winning author comes a multi-generational epic spanning 1960s Mexico City to contemporary Los Angeles, following a family of Luchadores as they contend with forbidden love and family secrets.

Ernesto and Elena Vega arrive in Mexico City where Ernesto works on a construction site until he is discovered by a local lucha libre trainer. At a time when luchadores—Mexican wrestlers donning flamboyant masks and capes—were treated as daredevils or rockstars, Ernesto finds fame as El Rey Coyote, rapidly gaining name recognition across Mexico.

Years later, in East Los Angeles Freddy Vega is struggling to save his father’s gym while Freddy’s own son Julian is searching for professional and romantic fulfillment as a Mexican American gay man refusing to be defined by stereotypes. The once larger-than-life Ernesto Vega is now dying, leading Freddy and Julian to find their own passions and discover what really happened back in Mexico.

Told from alternating perspectives, Ernesto takes you from the ranches of Michoacán to the makeshift colonias and crowded sports arenas of Mexico City. Freddy describes life in the suburban streets of 1980s Los Angeles and the community their family built as Julian descends deep into the culture of hook-up apps, lucha burlesque shows, and the dark underbelly of West Hollywood, The Sons of El Rey is an intimate portrait of a family wading against time and legacy, yet always choosing the fight.

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

My Review: The very idea of luchadores is Exotic to me, in the settler-colonial sense. I am as far from a wrestling fan that it is possible for someone to be. So, well, what's the appeal of this story to someone like me?

The very idea of the immigrant journey.

Immigrants are the lifeblood of the US on economic and cultural levels. The country wouldn't exist without us. (The Native Americans would doubtless see this as a plus.) The present cultural conversation around immigrants and their role across the world demands that we see the actual, real humans in these roles not abstractions of Otherness. The best way I know to do that is to learn the stories that immigrants tell us. Author Espinoza, infant immigrant to the US, knows the life he's writing about as a grown queer man.

What he does in this novel is to open the world of men whose lives are lived in the weighty spotlight of expectations. The ones they have, the ones their families—born, chosen, made—have, the ones US culture imposes. Exploring that interplay is fertile ground for stories, for secrets, for endless surprises...mostly the surprise, evergreen, of how very much of a miracle it is that there are any adult survivors of childhood. Fathers aren't usually much good at parenting because, well, where would most men learn it? Immigrant fathers don't even have the acquisition of culture to pass down, so these luchadores are actually very lucky in that they have this familial tie to their fathers. Of course, the links in that chain are all shaped very differently. A gay son isn't going to follow his father into the family trade when it's so explicitly homophobic, is he. And, to be honoest, that surprises me: Lucha libre is vivid, male-centered, and as close to drag as it's possible to be without falsies and heels being involved. (Plenty of wigs, though.) It veers at the last second into that other drag-adjacent cosplay genre, the superhero/supervillain dichotomy.

The women in the story are peripheral, and that is (I believe) by design. If it's going to bother you not to read yet another take on immigrant mother pluckily overcomes cultural and patriarchal barriers story, there's shelves of books that will stroke your needy story parts. The existential stakes aren't, for once, set by the women but by and for men. The women aren't consulted or considered. How very unexaminedly patriarchal. You've been warned.

For #PrideMonth, it's a dads-and-lads custom-made celebration of the bond we either fail to form or miss feeling; it's a clear-eyed look at the gay-son-defies-tradition tale so popular in our group; and a call to acceptance of nonwhite men in our wider community. It's also, in Author Espinoza's award-winning tradition, a delight to read on the language level. Don't expect a deep dive into the world, and language, of the luchadores...our focus is definitely on the people, the family they form and change. They live in the intense, hyperreal fakeness of lucha libre, but they spend little time examining it. As you do. That means as a consequence that the reader doesn't examine it, either. Go in to the read knowing what's on offer and avoid disappointment, says me.

The Mexican backstory is, in my view, scanty. It's not meant to be a knock...it's not the story solely of El Rey Coyote...but it does seem to me that another chapter in Michoacán would've been very welcome. The ending is rushed, and contains a plot thread that's...obscure...for the vast majority of the book. That missing half-star is down to my sense that it was pretty much just sprung on me, though I hasten to say that it did not feel as though it was parachuted in from above. It just wasn't given any oxygen until the ending. Again, best to know now, not come up suddenly upon the end and think, "...wait...".

Not my perfect read, but one I enjoyed very much indeed. A terrific #PrideMonth read.

>25 LizzieD: Hi Peggy! *smooch*

>26 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita...I'm glad you're here.

>27 atozgrl: Morning, Irene! Welcome back!

>28 alcottacre: Merry Hump Day, Stasia. Must disappoint you about the foot pain.

>29 LovingLit: Isn't that gorgeous? I got it from Mary/bell7. I love it!

Tcha! You've moved again. No matter - I have still managed to find you and not too far into your thread.

Happy new thread Richard!

>36 humouress: Thanks, La Overkill! It's a far cry from a hot boy reading a book, but Ma'at informs my reading life so pervasively that I needed to acknowledge her.

My mid-#PrideMonth check-in...as planned, all my reads for the month (which I began after Memorial Day because reasons) are by QUILTBAG authors, and the list grows daily. I once thought I had few, as in almost no, QUILTBAG reads cued up. Was I ever wrong! My #PrideMonth reads all have links to the many, many #BookRecommendation posts...eighteen so far...here: https://expendablemudge.blogspot.com/2024/05/pridemonth-launches.html

>22 richardderus: I'm here more than you see; I only comment when I have something to say ;-)

Happy new thread, Richard!

Hiya, RDear! Happy Wednesday to you. Happy new thread, too.

From your last thread: So 4 hours ago I saw the review for Tomorrowing and thought that it would be the perfect gift from my daughter’s girlfriend, who wants to get me a book, my choice. Off to create an email, but I added two other books just in case, but made sure Jenna knows this is an *OR* situation. And then I had to give Jenna the links for lithops and special lithops planting soil I want, and then I remembered that I hadn’t mailed the audiobook list to choose from for my sister. And then it was 10 minutes before leaving for PT, which went well, and when I got home friend Karen called, and I just ordered Bill a Father’s Day present, and then came back to your thread. Definitely on the wish list now, and perhaps a present for me at the end of the month. Exhausting, aren’t I?

Re Rara Avis. ...if you'd just see sense and start reading terrible books or ones I'VE ALREADY READ, we wouldn't have this issue... This from the man who got me reading MM romances? Seriously???

>1 richardderus: I love Ma’at, love the image.

>11 richardderus: Purty crown.

*smooch*

>39 ArlieS: Okay...clearly I need to be more interesting, then. There are some reviews of non-fiction that earned my Arlie-inspired ire for their utter disregard for source specification coming up....

>40 Familyhistorian: Thank you, Meg!

>41 karenmarie: I maintain my complete Teflonesque trumpian immunity from MM blame.

Good gravy, you've been from pillar to post! I'm glad PT went well...I hope you get Tomorrowing for your birthday. It truly is a browser book, though. It's actually a good one to read when focus is in short supply. Noisy days, nights of discomfort...you know.

Featherheart wishes

>42 richardderus: Excellent!

Happy new one, Richard!

>45 ArlieS: :-)

>46 drneutron: Thank you, Doc!

Happy new thread, Richard. Hope that foot is improving

Hi Richard dear friend, Happy New Thread.

Happy Wednesday, Richard. Your thread opened immediately. Yah! Terrific review of The Sons of El Rey. On the obese list it goes.

>49 RebaRelishesReading: Hi Reba, thanks! I'm in a holding pattern vis-a-vis the foot. Better than getting worse.

>50 johnsimpson: Thank you, John! I'm glad to see you.

>51 msf59: Progress! On all fronts, since I book-bulleted you back for your one on me this afternoon.

Smooches and wishes for less foot pain! Happy new thread. : )

Happy New Thread, Richard. You are one popular fellow and no wonder! I hope you gradually have less foot pain and here's to good reads ahead. Thursday * smooch*

089 Arthur and Teddy Are Coming Out by Ryan Love

KINDLE EDITION ON SALE FOR 99¢!

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: No one in the family is prepared when 79-year-old Arthur Edwards drops a he's gay, and after a lifetime in the closet, he's finally ready to come out. Arthur's 21-year-old grandson, Teddy, has the same secret. But Teddy doesn't feel ready to come out yet – especially when Arthur’s announcement causes shockwaves in the family. Can Arthur and Teddy navigate first loves, heartbreak, and finding their place in their community?

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

My Review: Cute take on the evergreen "coming out is hard" plot. The fact is that there are a lot more late-life outcomers than one would imagine, and we're not told much about them. It's not sexy, I guess...who thinks about wrinkled old people and sex unless they're trying not to cum?

The shocking thing for me is how comparatively few of these stories there are. I'm very glad to see that changing.

New-adult books are what I've always characterized as "YA with pubic hair" books. That still holds true. This is not a romance, or a smexytimes comedic novel. This is a fun, light, unchallenging look at the eternal truth of coming out: It's hard, it's scary, it's often the source of terrible judgmental responses from the most unusual, unexpected places, but in the end it's The Only Way.

Living a lie is often couched in and obscured by the language of love. Especially true for late-life outcomers. Love, however it looked in the past, looks different as we age. The need and desire to offer and accept love in the way that would always have been one's preference does not invalidate or diminish love already offered; it does not invalidate a lifetime's love or "cheapen" an established bond. Love, as Arthur is modeling for Teddy, isn't like pie, only so many slices to go around; it's the bakery, and the wheatfields.

Read this story to be reminded of how extremely abundant the world is. How much it matters to love; and how much loving honestly and openly frees up the giver and the receiver to tap deeper into the limitless supply there is. It won't change your world but you'll smile a few happy smiles as you read.

That's worth a lot in the world we live in.

>55 Berly: Thanks, Berly-boo! *smooch*

>56 vancouverdeb: Greetings, Mme Deborah, and thank you for those kind words. Good reads ahead!

Sweet Thursday, Richard. Still having tech issues. Can't scroll down on Karen's thread. I will keep trying. We have Jackson over so that will keep me cheered up, along with the current reads.

>60 msf59: This is so weird, Mark! I truly can't imagine what's happening. I wish I had some useful thought to offer.

Enjoy the day with Jack!

Good morning, Richard. In fact, Good The Rest of the Day to you too! *smooch*

‘Morning, RDear. Happy day after Wednesday.

>44 richardderus: MM blame, MM joy… it all works for me, and since I don’t have to have a second mortgage on the house because of you, thanks to Kindle Unlimited, you’re forgiven and thanked.

>58 richardderus: New-adult books are what I've always characterized as "YA with pubic hair" books. I rarely read YA. MM romances with HS or college protagonists don’t appeal to me, although college protagonists appeal if it’s an age-gap thing. *shrug*

*smooch*

>62 LizzieD: Thank you, Angel Flower. I'm pretty much mid-pleasant day, so the wishes look likely to come true.

>63 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible! I'm pretty sure >58 richardderus: would gag you, so best avoided. Thursday orisons, dear lady.

>52 richardderus: Indeed, holding is better than worsening but hope bettering is in the near future!

Happy Thursday Ricardo!!

>66 RebaRelishesReading: From your keyboard to the goddesses' inbox, Reba.

>67 Berly: Thursday orisons, smoochling!

'Morning, RD. Happy Friday.

*blinks* Half a cup of coffee and 4.5 hours of sleep don't make for intelligent conversation. I'll go back to sleep in a while and perhaps my next visit will more coherent.

*smooch*

>70 karenmarie: Oh dear, Horrible, bad nights aren't one bit of fun. So sorry, me lurve. I hope more sleep comes, stays, and helps. *smooch*

090 Girls Who Lie Together by Jessa Russo

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Easy summers lead to hard falls in this Grease meets Mean Girls contemporary romance…

When seventeen-year-old Renata Carpenter hijacked her stepdad’s classic car, she hadn’t planned on totaling it and landing her best friend in a cast from hip to heel. She definitely hadn’t planned on being sent to a work program in New Orleans as punishment. And she certainly hadn’t planned on falling in love.

But Ren’s summer of forced manual labor has a bright side: her name is Brit, and she’s everything Ren never knew she needed. First love becomes first heartbreak when their summer romance comes to a crashing close earlier than anticipated. Adding insult to injury, Ren’s break-up with Brit is followed by a big move to a small town.

As if starting senior year completely alone isn’t bad enough, Ren soon discovers that the Hell on Heels mean girl who rules Sun Ridge Prep with an iron fist and a vicious tongue is none other than her first love. Too bad this Brit is far from lovable.

But Ren knows the girl beneath the façade, and she refuses to give up on rekindling their relationship. Secretly, the girls pick up where they left off, falling deeper in love and risking it all to be together. But when their affair is exposed by Brit’s boyfriend, Ren and Brit are faced with the ultimate choice: love or acceptance.

Because they certainly can’t have both.

I RECEIVED THIS BOOK AS A PROMOTION. THANKS!

My Review: The author markets this as a YA title. I disagree. I'd hesitate before I gave it to a sixteen-year-old, or a naïve seventeen-year-old. So let's say it's more a New Adult title.

It's definitely on the money with the Mean Girls comparison. Ren is a classic Mean Girl. She's also a very horny character, and no respecter of boundaries. Brit: "I'm not gay!" Ren: "Get a load of those tits! Such a sweet pair of upperlips!"

Then there's the slur usage. I get reclaiming words, and even use queer myownself these days. That was a nasty one in my youth. But using slurs and only slurs? Not now, not ever. That's reinforcing abuse.

While I thought Brit was toying with Ren's feelings...denying you're gay does NOT absolve you of responsibility for behaving sexually with someone of the same sex...I found Ren deeply dislikable and overbearing. Brit's manipulative. Neither is someone I'd like to spend any more time with.

The main issues above weren't made better by the way the story is structured, with time-gaps that just make the chemistry between these two feel very unlikely for teens to experience. The writing was okay, with flashes of creative interest once in a while. Not a favorite read. Caveat emptor re: sexual content.

Happy soggy Friday! Hope your next read is better than your last.

I’m with Karen: YA is not, for the most part, for me, no matter what genre.

Cheers!

>73 Storeetllr: Cheers, Mary me lurve. I'm delighted to say the next YA read was HUGELY superior to the last. Review tomorrow, with a strong push towards a speedy procurement of same.

The sog is mostly atmospherically borne here...no drops or drips just thick, icky air. *ew* Sun's just come out, so the humidity will go up a lot soon. *more ew*

Happy new thread and hooray that you got your mail! Hope the weather improves soon, too.

>75 bell7: Thanks! I'm very pleased with my mail. The weather's no factor for me now that I've done my one necessary chore outside. I do feel for the floodprone Baysiders, though. I hope you'll get your knittin' all tended to as soon as you go home.

*smooch*

I need all of this.

>77 richardderus: I would be very worried about some personal parts were I he.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** and hopes for a pain-free wonderful weekend, RD!

>77 richardderus: Any time I see naked people in kitchens I say a silent prayer that the stove is off. Thanks re: weekend! *smooch*

091 Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Aristotle and Dante #1) by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A lyrical novel about family and friendship from critically acclaimed author Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common.

But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

I RECEIVED THIS BOOK AS A GIFT. THANKS!

My Review: First love, with another boy, when you're fifteen and angsty and from a Mexican-American family.

Wow, that's a lot. Like, a real, real lot.

Which, as adults, we sometimes do not take into account when dealing with teens. The thing we lose sight of most often is that teens have adult-strength emotions triggered by the same things we get triggered by but without our decades of perspective to temper our responses with. Ari's right...his Dad is suffering. His Dad is right...Ari can't understand this suffering. In fact, no one really can. Adults don't think this is as weird and awful as Ari, not yet used to the helplessness of loving others, does. All Ari knows is that his Dad's refusal to talk about his feelings feels like rejection. So Ari clams up...and doesn't see the irony of this. Perspective: missing.

Dante, being brash and bold, just...does stuff. Ari feels envious, astonished, drawn to this bigness and forcefulness. This feels so intoxicating, so overwhelmingly right, that he and Dante meet each other all the time, talk, think, and in that gloriously uniquely young man way, fall in love. They're on different pages here, too, stunningly. Dante doesn't see this love as weird or ugly...it's the 1980s! Stonewall was in the 1960s! Ari thinks it's another way he's weird. He does think Dante's weird, too, and if Dante...big, bright, beautiful Dante with his strong ideas about Chicanismo...is weird, weird must be okay. Somehow that must be true, but how?

Thus is first love born. That was my absolute favorite thing about the story. It wasn't about the zeal of the organs for each other, in Joseph Campbell's memorable and accurate formulation of sexual desire's essence; it was instead about the addictive rush of communion with the Other, the joy of discovering the Other is not only Other but gloriously beautifully Other. These boys discover, slowly and organically, that Love is the best, the only addictive drug that makes things better.

Or it can. And it does in this story. It does this, you should note, S L O W L Y. And Ari, angry teen with a huge rock on top of his mouth, needs help figuring out what it is about Dante that he is, well, Noticing. Here is where I felt the true beauty of the story comes to the fore. It is Ari's parents, these complicatedly wounded souls who are sources of difficulty for him (as all parents must be) who rip off the bandage and show him that he is in love with Dante.

And they do it, in 1980s El Paso, Texas, with kindness and acceptance. This is how we know it's fiction.

Everything about this read was a pleasure to me. It's been over a decade since the story burst on the scene. There are sequels (I haven't read those yet). This story keeps reverberating through our louding voices of hatred. I hope you and I, readers with mileage and perspective unavailable to its target audience, can help that audience find this wonderful story of honest love and acceptance offered and accepted.

Morning, Richard. Happy Saturday. I may have found a way around my tech issues. I tried the Firefox browser and so far it works fine. Fingers crossed.

We are bracing for a heat wave, that arrives tomorrow. Ugh! You have been having some heavy weather yourself, right?

>81 msf59: Yay for Firefox! I don't have anything better to offer, but this is a good fix.

Don't melt.

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Saturday to you.

>77 richardderus: Naked man, coffee, and tat – I’m in.

>80 richardderus: It is Ari's parents, these complicatedly wounded souls who are sources of difficulty for him (as all parents must be) who rip off the bandage and show him that he is in love with Dante.

And they do it, in 1980s El Paso, Texas, with kindness and acceptance. This is how we know it's fiction. Wonderful and sad, of course, what with Texas and all.

>82 richardderus: Yup. Yes. Please and thank you. Or, rather, why don’t we just call them entitled middle class white women? and not start insulting the Marthas, Anns, and Martha Anns? Is there an equivalent term for Men? And, is it just me, or is there more Karen-name-shaming going on now? I’m also sad to say that I’m finding it in my MM romances on occasion.

*smooch*

>84 karenmarie: There's a broader cultural tendency to use names as shorthand for perceived traits...men are Chads, Kens, Dicks/dicks...that are awkward or time-consuming to explain. We're going with "Martha Ann"s now.

The coffee better be as hot as that guy's ass is, or I'm gonna kick off.

*smooch*

>80 richardderus: Well, I thought I had read that one by Saenz, but evidently not. I will have to remedy that! I read his The Inexplicable Logic of My Life and loved it.

1980s El Paso, Texas, with kindness and acceptance. This is how we know it's fiction. Sadly that is the truth and remains so here in Texas although things are changing, glacially slowly. You know how I know? My local library has more books, fiction and nonfiction, with gay and trans characters and addressing the issues that these individuals deal with than it has ever had before.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today!

>80 richardderus: That looks like a YA offering that I would read, Richard. It is, however, exactly the wrong age to be in my price range at the moment, which is to say over $10 for Kindle or a used copy. It's on the wish list though with thanks.

I wish you a good dose of fiction for your weekend! *smooch*

>82 richardderus: Should I be glad that I'm not plugged in enough to know who "Martha Ann" is and what she is reputed to have done? Not even with a picture.

>84 karenmarie: I'm told that Texas, or parts of it at least, has gotten worse in recent decades. OTOH - I remember the 1980s; it would have been a rare adult in any location who'd have been kind and accepting when finding they had a gay child.

>84 karenmarie: Punishing people for having the wrong name, given to them long before it acquired bad connotations - anyone would think that many humans take a positive pleasure in hurting others, requiring only the feeblest excuse for enjoying themselves in this way.

>78 alcottacre: My first thought exactly Stasia! Yipes!!

>86 alcottacre: I'm guilty of doomerism, Stasia. I just don't automatically focus on positive developments...and there are so very many, and they ARE significant, or the jerks who hate progress wouldn't be fighting them so hard. Change happens. Always. It's just that bending the arc towards better days and ways requires a lot of focus. I myownself lose that a lot of the time.

The ebook goes on sale fairly regularly. I'll try to remember to call that out here. *smooch*

>87 LizzieD: As I mentioned to Stasia, "The ebook goes on sale fairly regularly. I'll try to remember to call that out here."

I think you'll get a lot of pleasure out of the read, Peggy. *smooch*

>88 ArlieS: Martha Ann is Mrs. SAmuel Alito. She got mad when a neighbor of theirs flew a Pride flag. Her response was to fly an upside down US flag, a 1/6 rioters' support gesture. She is a white nationalist, a conservative catholic, and all around scumbag.

Don't forget the 1970s institution of PFLAG, Arlie. They existed, and were public in their support; they've never been all that numerous.

>89 RebaRelishesReading: I really hope the model was in front of a cold stove!

>80 richardderus: This goes on my list. Sounds like a great read.

>77 richardderus: Perfectly sculpted, like Michelangelo's David ;)

>94 figsfromthistle: I agree, Anita, such a charming mug! Though of course Michelangelo wouldn't've known about coffee.

...oh wait...

092 Victories Greater Than Death (Unstoppable #1) by Charlie Jane Anders

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Tina never worries about being ‘ordinary’—she doesn’t have to, since she’s known practically forever that she’s not just Tina Mains, average teenager and beloved daughter. She’s also the keeper of an interplanetary rescue beacon, and one day soon, it’s going to activate, and then her dreams of saving all the worlds and adventuring among the stars will finally be possible. Tina’s legacy, after all, is intergalactic—she is the hidden clone of a famed alien hero, left on Earth disguised as a human to give the universe another chance to defeat a terrible evil.

But when the beacon activates, it turns out that Tina’s destiny isn’t quite what she expected. Things are far more dangerous than she ever assumed. Luckily, Tina is surrounded by a crew she can trust, and her best friend Rachael, and she is still determined to save all the worlds. But first she’ll have to save herself.

Buckle up your seatbelt for this thrilling sci-fi adventure set against an intergalactic war from international bestselling author Charlie Jane Anders.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE AUTHOR. THANK YOU.

My Review: This is, hands down, the queerest YA book I've read.

I really could stop writing now with the injunction for you to go get a copy and read it before setting it loose into the library, the Little Free Library, the bus subway breakroom etc etc. Tina and her found families are urgently needed in a world where the ugliest, most hateful and judgmental people are launching their latest attack on progress, inclusion, and a better world.

Same as it ever was.

What the younger readers will learn from reading Aunt Charlie Jane's book is that there is a future, and it can look the way you'd like it to look...but you have to be willing to move outside your boundaries, you have to embrace your ability to make, find, and accept the world's wildness and surprises. Your efforts will pay off in proportion to your commitment to them.

How Author Charlie Jane accomplishes that is to take one teen girl, one best friend of teen girl, and hurl them into a cosmic battle of good against evil. Do you know a teenager...have you EVER known a teenager...who did not resonate like a struck bell to this plot? And then Author Charlie Jane shakes the soda bottle to fizz up the stakes by making everyone in the girls' expanded universe into some form of different, but without Othering them for the differences...after all, if the way you just are is somehow different from how I am, who says *I* get to decide that YOU are the Other?

This is a truth that permeates all Author Charlie Jane's work. It makes the banners and haters and deniers completely mental. Since I think making those sorts of people wildly uncomfortable is a very worthy cause, I want to support it wherever I can.

While I love a dense, richly textured world, I'm an old man and have been reading since before Author Charlie Jane was born, so I found the expository bits too frequent and a smidge too detailed for my reading pleasure to morph into joy. They seem a touch overdone for today's SF-savvy youth, if I'm honest; but that is a thing I'm happy to see because it means this book can be an onramp into SF for even the most innocent and unworldly young person.

Matching my expectations, then, was not her project...that was what she did with Even Greater Mistakes, her other work from the annus mirabilis that was her 2022...but speaking to her audience, to the future leaders and readers. This is a wonderful thing, an excellent project, and a top-quality execution of it.

Gift it. Read it yourself, then give it to all the young readers you know.

>96 richardderus: Ooh, you hit me with a BB for this one—I’ve got it requested at my lib. Thanks!

Karen O

Good afternoon, RDear. Happy Sunday.

Quiet day, drugs and books.

*smooch*

>97 klobrien2: Oh yay! I suspect it'll be a very enjoyable read for you, Karen O. *smooch*

>98 karenmarie: Oh yay! Drugs! Keep goin' Horrible me lurve.

Morning, Richard. I had a wonderful Father's Day and also got a surprise visit from Jack & Co. We thought they were doing something else yesterday. Our Heat Wave just began and it will be with us for the rest of the week. 96F today. Ugh! No outdoor activities for this guy!

093 Nicked: A Novel by M.T. Anderson
--out 23 July 2024--

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: From the award-winning and bestselling author of Feed comes a raucous and slyly funny adult fiction debut, about the quest to steal the mystical bones of a long-dead saint

The year is 1087, and a pox is sweeping through the Italian port city of Bari. When a lowly monk is visited by Saint Nicholas in his dreams, he interprets the vision as a call to action. But his superiors, and the power brokers they serve, have different plans for the tender-hearted Brother Nicephorus.

Enter Tyun, a charismatic treasure hunter renowned for “liberating” holy relics from their tombs. The seven-hundred-year-old bones of Saint Nicholas rest in distant Myra, Tyun explains, and they’re rumored to weep a mysterious liquid that can heal the sick. For the humble price of a small fortune, Tyun will steal the bones and deliver them to Bari, curing the plague and restoring glory to the fallen city. And Nicephorus, the “dreamer,” will be his guide.

What follows is a heist for the ages, as Nicephorus is swept away on strange tides—and alongside even stranger bedfellows—to commit an act of sacrilege. Based on real historical accounts, Nicked is a wildly imaginative, genre-defying, and delightfully queer adventure, full of romance, intrigue, and wide-eyed wonder at the world that awaits beyond our own borders.

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

My Review: I seem to be on an historical-queerness religion-themed heist novels jag. Remember RECITAL OF THE DARK VERSES?...now this fascinating, also ripped-from-the-history-books tale of Saint Nicholas of Myra's hajj to Bari, Italy. Y'know, the Chamber of Commerce never really changes, "bring on the punters and their gelt!" is their mantra no matter the language or the time period. "King Arthur" at Glastonbury? Heck, they needed a new roof and GoFundMe wasn't a thing yet. Now add the attraction of Octavian Nothing's author writing for adults for the first time, and I'm gaffed through the gills.

I loved the Octavian Nothing duology, so it wasn't like I had some hill of ignorance, or resistance, to climb. Author Anderson's got a deft way with words and a sharp eye for the telling detail (the dog-headed man who's actually dog-headed is a great start). The seamless way he weaves the medieval world-view into the actions and conversations of the characters; the unstressed way they assume things like miracles and visions are remarkable but unsurprising; the effectively limned but never foregrounded way the quest to steal the saint's relics gets justified, all make perfect sense despite being quite mad.

By twenty-first century standards.

Sexuality is part of the picture so limned, but there's no sex to speak of. It wouldn't have added a thing to the story. It's not glued on awkwardly to tick a box, and it does have a bearing on how the innocent and quite trusting Brother Nicephorus deals with the way his vision is, erm, repurposed by the roguish dashing thief Tyun, but it is not made up out of nothing. I like things like this to make sense, and it does. Our Brother, who sets the plot in motion, rides the waves of others' needs and actions. He changes, he learns about his god-given nature, and he changes those he must surround himself with. And it is, for a wonder, all really fun and funny to read.

The wonders of comedy applied to matters of great religious import are many...the idea of a miracle is, inherently to me anyway, funny. The nature of the "pox" afflicting Bari, and the purported miraculous excretions from Saint Nicholas's bones intended to cure it...well, comedy gold! Resurrection, which we see, just...well...I've had surgeries enough to know that there's a lot involved in resurrection and none of it is supernatural. People can and do wake up when it's supposedly impossible. The way Author Anderson does it is, honestly, so affirming, and so full of the joy of being alive inside a body, that I nearly cried several times. "Never forget that your life is a wonder...Never forget that there are miracles everywhere, and you are only present in this world to see them once." This is exactly true, though the miracles aren't religious in nature.

I'd be remiss if I didn't point out how much fun with wordplay there is. Start with the title: Nick (as in Nicephorus, "bringer of victory"), to nick, Old Nick, Saint Nick...you can find more. These grace notes and the general vocabulary Author Anderson uses all flavor the read with an old-fashioned, yeasty head of foam on this draft of literary ale.

Delighted me; will delight anyone who liked Our Flag Means Death, the Locked Tomb series, and Ocean's Eight and its sequels.
ETA pub date

>101 msf59: Oh dear gussie! 96° sounds hellish. Stay indoors and blast the a/c is the best plan for weather like that.

Glad the day was one with good surprises for you. The heat will come here, so I'm just as glad that going outdoors is largely optional for me just at the moment. Y.U.C.K. Good reading is getting done, so I am the (bed)camper happy.

'Morning, RD.

I'm so sad to read about Anita that I don't think I can do any more than a *smooch*

>104 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible. I'm sad, too, so *smooch*

>89 RebaRelishesReading: Great minds and all that, right, Reba? Lol

>90 richardderus: I understand being guilty of doomerism, RD. I often am too. No worries about the e-book - I know that my local library has the book.

BTW - I forgot to mention in my post that one of the librarians is currently transitioning from female to male.

>96 richardderus: Adding that one to the BlackHole - and my local library has a copy. Woot! Thanks for the review and recommendation, RD!

>102 richardderus: Unfortunately my local library lets me down on that one. I will have to look further afield.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today, RD, with hopes that you have a marvelous Monday!

>106 alcottacre: How do, Stasia...give the library until 23 July to get >106 alcottacre: in stock! I didn't have a book coming out tomorrow that I cared to review, so I slotted this excellent read into the spot. I'll go add an advisory to my review to stop that confusion.

Enjoy the Charlie Jane read, and your local transmasc librarian has my mad respect. I couldn't bear being gay there, and trans...well! He's a brave soul indeed.

Off to face tastebud doom...lunchtime.

Well, Richard, I hope that lunch doesn't leave a bad taste in your mouth for the afternoon.

I'm bulleted, especially by Nicked. It puts me in mind of St. Agatha's Breast that I think I read pre-LT and enjoyed. I know there was a sequel, but I don't think I read it. Hmmmmm.

*smooch*

>108 LizzieD: I'm so satisfied that I could book-bullet you. Even twice. Because YOU GOT ME IN MY OWN THREAD with St. Agatha's Breast by by T. C. van Adler, which is only available as a used hardcover!!

*grrr*

Hoping you love >102 richardderus: a lot because it's so very affirming of the magic that is existence.

*smooch*

Remember...this is always a lie. ALWAYS. Promises, vague hints, suggestions of change are lies. Until the narcissist/sociopath has what they want, any lie, manipulation, misdirection will come out and then, WHAM the unchanged reality crushes you.

>77 richardderus: Coffee? Was there coffee in that picture? I must have been focused on something else. : )

Wonderful reviews as per usual.

>110 richardderus: Sad and true.

Missing Anita already. Can't believe it.

Smooch.

>110 richardderus: Yes. I can't quite believe the sad news about Anita either, Richard.

>111 Berly: ...I agree, that is a very nice stove, but simply not to notice that vessel of blessèdness...well, Berly-boo, it might be time to have the Cataract Talk with your vision specialist.

>112 vancouverdeb:, >111 Berly: It won't really sink in until Thursday....

>107 richardderus: OK, I guess I will wait (im)patiently. Sorry about tastebud doom! We are having Blueberry Pancakes here for lunch. Come on down!

>108 LizzieD: >109 richardderus: Go, Peggy, get him. He dodges my BBs far too often, lol.

>110 richardderus: The biggest reason that I hate politics - it is nothing but fabrication. Fabrication that impacts millions of lives unfortunately.

>113 richardderus: I am not sure that the news about Anita is going to sink in with me by Thursday. Maybe by Thursday next. . .

Hard ((hugs)) and **smooches** for one of my best pals here on LT. We have known each other an awfully long time and I love you.

Morning, Richard. Good review of "Nicked". I have not read this author but I have Symphony for the City of the Dead in my audio pile.

Playing pickleball indoors again today. Too HOT for volunteering and birding.

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Tuesday to you.

>110 richardderus: Perfect. Even got the orange thing going, too.

*smooch*

>114 alcottacre: *smooch* back, old friend. I think Nicked: A Novel will prove worth the wait...so rustle up that patience.

The entire fabric of society is a fabrication, sweetness. There is no Truth. Perception
(how and of what exactly remains a mystery) and analysis are the basis of the entire existence of material things. Politics is the thread in the tapestry we weave that determines how we bind ourselves together. Ignore it, and like an untended power cord, it'll wrap itself into a knot to strangle you. And me. And ultimately everyone alive.

>115 msf59: Oh myyy, as Takei would say...book-bulleted in my own thread and entirely unintentionally! Never heard of that one, Birddude, I'm sure I'll pay you back for that assault on my TBR. Go forth and sweat no more!

>116 karenmarie: Ain't that a hoot? The very idea that anyone could rise to power who's that venal, that corrupt, and that vicious repulses me in every single particular.

Tuesday *smooch*

>118 richardderus:
Symphony for the City of the Dead by M. T. Anderson is about Shostakovich and the composing of the Symphony No. 7. It is also a short biography of Shostakovich. It won several YA awards for ooutstanding nonfiction.

>120 benitastrnad: It surprises me how appealing I find that!

Only ten more days before you won't see us everywhere!

...that you know of...

'Morning, RDear. Happy Wednesday to you.

>122 richardderus: I can think of some people I know who are uncomfortable right now. Fortunately they are not in my friends group and the ones that are family-and-family-adjacent are nothing to me.

094 Gay Science: The Totally Scientific Examination of LGBTQ+ Culture, Myths, and Stereotypes by Rob Anderson

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: New York Times Bestseller

Comedian Rob Anderson examines queer stereotypes and LGBTQ+ culture with humorous explanations borrowed from real principles across multiple fields of science.

Class is in session, babe! Discover the inner workings of the LGBTQ+ community with this humorous and informative book. Author and comedian Rob Anderson borrows the familiar science textbook format to skewer ridiculous queer stereotypes with his own version of science.

Using the principles of natural, social, and formal sciences, Rob answers extremely serious questions Why can’t gays sit in a chair properly? Why don’t lesbians have electricity in their movies? Are colleges turning people bisexual? How does gaydar work? Will bottoms survive the apocalypse?

You’ll read about the three subtypes of the gay uncle species, examine the Periodic Table of LGBTQ+ Elements, understand gay crime and punishment, and get educated on the types of bacteria and viruses that exclusively affect the LGBTQs, like the state of Florida.

Inspired by his viral “Gay Science” series, Rob recreates some of his most popular episodes in a literary format, and also tackles completely fresh subjects, presenting them with super empirical and totally evidence-based homosexual data.

Gay Science

Coverage of 60 topics across 29 fields of science including biology, chemistry, physics, genetics, botany, nutrition, astronomy, anthropology, oceanography, sociology, criminology, engineering, computer science, and more!Informative sidebars including Get PrePared, The Tea, Serving Conclusions, The Gloss, Yas or Naur, Fagtoids, and A Lesbian Explains.Diagrams, charts, illustrations, and maps to explain the gayest concepts.

Rob Anderson is course-correcting decades of educational shortcomings by explaining the scientific reasonings behind every aspect of LGBTQ+ life. If you’re looking for a fun book that will probably be banned (if it isn’t already), add Gay Science to your personal lesson plan.

I RECEIVED THIS BOOK AS PART OF A PROMOTION. THANK YOU.

My Review: Do you remember the science textbooks from seventh grade? You will soon...you will forcefully recall the graphic design, the placement of information, the snippets and bullet points and images you sometimes wondered where they came from. It's deja vu only not scary...you're still sitting there book/device in hand, not out-of-body wondering how to escape the nightmare.

Comedy = misery plus time was never more well-aimed. The way we learn how to be queer is often bound up with laughter. Joking, clowning, being the butt of the joke, being laughed at...it's all laughter and all fuel for the deep wells of humor in gay culture. And notice I'm using "gay" not the more inclusive words. If this gigglemaker of a book has a flaw it's that it us very much for, by, and about the gay male. Being one of those I don't find that troubling. I find it more indicative of marketing segmentation than a product of innate malice or even unexamined bias. Go watch his YouTube channel; decide if you think the man's being insensitive or telling his own truth, not trying to generalize his experience into spurious universality.

Of course, as humor, it will inevitably fail to "hit" with some; I am not among them. I got good laughs and lots of snorts and a few eye-streaming fits. My Rob was a little scared by my call during one of those! He thought I was having another, weirder, stroke. He was far more muted in his responses to Mr. Anderson, possibly because I introduced him as "the hot comedian"—might've been a tad prejudicial.

The stereotypes and archetypes Anderson takes on are real, so there will be some butthurt among the people. Laugh at yourself, get over the idea that respect = praise, and most of all take in the scene...get some perspective on how you actually look from the outside. It very much helps everyone when we all do that.

So let me urge the gay guys to listen to this call from inside the house. Let me urge the eww-ick homophobes to splash out for a sale Kindlebook. Let's look at the reality of gay identity in its weird and wonderful strangeness, its wildly obsessive focuses, its deeply human flawed glorious fun-seeking.

And laugh. Together.

>123 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible me lurve. I'm deeply pleased that the uncomfortable ones are uncomfortable. Not for some hifalutin 'good to grow' reasons, just because anything that makes that kind of person uncomfortable and unhappy is happy-making to me.

I'm very Old-Testament when confronted by ignorance. Good thing I've got no power, I'd be AWFUL to those people and gleeful with it. Terrible, but true.

Wednesday *smooch*

"book-bulleted in my own thread." Yep, completely unintentional.

Happy Wednesday, Richard.

>126 msf59: ...why do I doubt your veracity, let alone sincerity...?

>121 richardderus:
I learned so much about the 7th Symphony of Shostakovich from this book. I also learned a bunch about his life. I also think it is important that YA's get good quality nonfiction and Anderson delivered with this one. I read it about the same time that I read Vincent and Theo and I can say that both books were enlightening from an information standpoint, but they were also very good literary quality, considering that the state of nonfiction for much YA during much of my library years.

Another good YA nonfiction author is Steve Sheinkin. His books are very interesting and illuminate forgotten corners of history for YA readers.

You got me with Nicked and then Mark chimed in. *sigh*

>128 benitastrnad: I can't heeeaaarrr you

Warbling your ghastly expensive temptations for new writers and genres

Nope—all is silence in this post.

>129 Familyhistorian: *contented evil purring*

Excellent! You'll absolutely love reading it when it comes out! Do rush right out and preorder a copy...heck, get two, the local library could use a spare!

Brad of NeglectedBooks.com speaketh sooth:
O God, give us the serenity to accept what we're never going to read, the courage to read what we know we should read, and the wisdom to know the difference.

>130 richardderus:
That made me laugh. Thanx! I needed that because I am in the midst of packing my library and appalled at the amount of books I have. Or at least I was until I read Stasia's report that she has 500 books in her bedroom! That also made me feel better.

>132 richardderus: Love it! (painting and quote both)

>133 benitastrnad: There's every reason to feel better that you're not on the high end. Since you're moving, and all.

>134 RebaRelishesReading: Isn't that wonderful? *smooch*

Happy Humpday Afternoon, Richard. For some strange reason, I'm disgruntled and unable to catch up here or do anything else positive. I'll try to come back when I have a gruntle or two. Meanwhile, *smooch*.

>137 LizzieD: Gruntleless visits are fine, too, Peggy. No need to concern yourself about that around here. Heat like we're having here makes me feel much the same way. *eccchhh*

Be well and *smooch*ed

He's a good looking fellow, is Brad. Yes, what to read and what we will never read. * smooch*

095 365 Gays of the Year (Plus 1 for a Leap Year): Discover LGBTQ+ history one day at a time by Lewis Laney (illus. Charlotte MacMillan-Scott)

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH BOOK DESIGN AND PRODUCTION AWARDS 2023

A fun and fascinating compendium of LGBTQ+ icons, one for every day of the year, and a celebration of queer history—or as RuPaul would say; Herstory!

Discover your queer hero and learn something new every day with 365 Gays of the Year, an accessible and fun introduction to LGBTQ+ history through the people that made it.

Carefully curated and thoughtfully researched, author Lewis Laney assigns a person or group of note to each day of the year to form the ultimate LGBTQ+ hall of fame.

Legendary queer icons such as Marsha P Johnson and Freddie Mercury sit alongside lesser known but equally important names such as activist Renée Cafiero, blood donor Barbara Vick, and Sappho the lesbian poet (who was doing her thing in 570BC).

All have contributed amazing achievements to the LGBTQ+ story. Each month also features one ally—inspiring heterosexual people who have all contributed something significant to the lives of the LGBTQ+ community. People like Elizabeth Taylor who “brought AIDS out of the closet and into the ballroom—where there was money to be raised”.

Each entry comprises a short biography plus a brief explanation about why that celebratory date represents an important milestone.

Lewis brings international figures to life (famous and lesser-known) with his witty and uplifting prose which are peppered with little-known facts and accompanied by bright illustrative portraits from the hugely talented Charlotte MacMillan-Scott.

This witty, unique celebration of queer history promises to inspire and empower readers with its wealth of bright stars.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: What a wonderful time this really is. This book, celebrating the existence of, success within, and growth of the great haters' favorite shibboleth: Them Disgustin' Queers, exists and so proves their point for them. We, the queers, are everywhere!

How awful for their ugly little selves. The book tells anyone interested about the success of:

...at bringing stories about us, and stories we are major parts of, into the world;

...at making the stories real to millions;

...at bravely, and without a map to success or even a hint of what success would look like, bearing witness to intolerance's horrible consequences;

...at living the awful truth of talent denied Because You Are You;

...at embodying the immutable truth the great haters know and eagerly desire to enforce: SILENCE = DEATH

So. To anyone who's been made to feel uncomfortable, unwelcome, unheard, unfocued-on, unvalued during my #PrideMonth blogging about QUILTBAGgery: Good. Now you know what your (in)action costs me and my QUILTBAG brethren and sistern. Take it in. Feel it.

And then reach out and do better, now that you know better. People you Other aren't obligated to meet you more than halfway; even at all. In my time trying to shed my vast, unconsidered racism and the jaw-dropping privilege I derive from it, I've learned some people will choose not to see me as the one making an effort but one battening on privilege. Those people have a valid point and an unassailable position. This effort I'm making isn't about me.

It's about changing one part of a whole that badly needs to change, and permaybehaps convince one or two others to join my effort. Consider this your altar call, religious christians; your summons in faith, all religious folk of all traditions, to live the Golden Rule.

Happy Pride Month!

>139 vancouverdeb: Heh...Brad's about 5'9", bald, and rising 70...but I'm guessing he wouldn't mind a bit being conflated with that absolute muffin. I loved the formulation of that truism, so I'm glad it resonated with you, too.

*smooch*

096 I Never Liked You Anyway by Jordan Kurella

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Eurydice is dead, and hell is a school. She has to learn Hauntings, Baking Disasters, Threads of Fate, and all the other classes a newly dead soul needs to master before they're ready for what comes next. Eurydice is still processing the disastrous relationship that sent her into the land of the dead almost as soon as she was married to the brilliant love of her life, Orpheus.

She'll tell you how he swept her off her feet, and how their polyamorous group swept each other up in music and art and art theory and a life of creation from destruction, but mostly just destruction. But, this isn't their story. Eurydice is dead, and failing all her classes, and she knows Orpheus is coming to get her out. Not that he cares, but that's not what she wants. And, she's the only one who truly knows how Orpheus and Eurydice's story ends.

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

My Review: The term "disaster bisexual" gets a lot of airplay in this retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice. It very much fits. Everyone.

That's it. That's the review. In spirit, anyway.

I've heard many times over the years, "why can't They just leave {cultural shibboleth} alone? Why do They need to make it about Them?" Because it is about them, and if changing skin colors, genders, clothes, languages makes it more about them in ways they want it to, so be it. The only They who want things to be "left alone" are the "They" who want closet doors swung shut, schools to lead prayer circles, and women to admit they liked it.

This wildly 21st-century setting for the timeless myth of complicated love and its pangs, pains, and consequences, suits the spirit of the Archaic original in exploring the ways communication and courage fail in tandem. It brings the idea of The Grand Passion, The Noble Sacrifice, The Fame of Great and Good Men into sharp, pitiless relief when it's shorn of its togas and chitons, vivified out of its marmoreal bloodless heft into lively, real banter and passionate, full-throated desire.

Is this the best example of a queer myth retelling I've ever read? That would be Patroclus retelling the Iliad. But it is very funny, fun to read, and more like the way I suspect the mythcrafters intended the entire enterprise to play out in the original Bronze-Age dialect. Thev fussy, sexually neutered Myth we're accustomed to, the one They want us to leave alone, was...I promise you this...not the way it was first told.

So revel in this big, bold, bawdy recovery, this excavation of the graveyard of Literature, and drink the cold refreshment of a real, honest, genuinely felt myth for the first time in millennia.

Happy Thursday *smooches*
Stay cool today!

>143 bell7: *smooch*

Ne'er more than a meter from the a/c until it's under 90°...in September, I suppose.

>122 richardderus: Calm down mate :0) I doubt that applies to anyone reading your thread.

*smooches*

>145 humouress: I'll calm down when the silence gets less deafening. Not until.

>146 ronincats: Roni me lurve! So glad to see you! *smooch*

Sweet Thursday, Richard. I am enjoying Devil is Fine. The guy can write. Hope that continues.

>149 msf59: Hiya Birddude! Happy that you've gone a-Verchering, and are enjoying the trip! I don't think he'll be letting you down. His endings seem like the endings I'd expect, so far at least, for the stories he chooses to tell.

Don't melt!

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Thursday.

>132 richardderus: *smile*

>133 benitastrnad: Hi Benita. I’m sleeping in the Library downstairs on the sleeper sofa after recovering from knee replacement surgery and am not allowed to go upstairs to sleep where I normally do. My Library has 1,840 books, two walls of floor-to-ceiling books.

>140 richardderus: Onto the wish list it goes!

>142 richardderus: The only They who want things to be "left alone" are the "They" who want closet doors swung shut, schools to lead prayer circles, and women to admit they liked it. And I just saw a headline that Louisiana is now requiring all public classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. Nevermind that that’s the Jewish Bible/Old Testament, not the Christian Bible/New Testament.

*smooch*

>151 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible...Thursday orisons. There's a good chance that you'll enjoy >140 richardderus: when you get around to it.

"They" are doing their goddamnedest to roll back the progress we've made, so "They" don't have to see anything they don't want to. Never mind that everyone has to cope with the reality of Others being other. "They" shouldn't have to do that! GAWD loves "Them" best!

The sheer adolescent solipsism and selfishness of Religion is appalling to me, has been for decades, and it's the taproot that has nourished the prejudices and hatreds of Others that have animated "Them" throughout this dark, disgusting campaign.

>142 richardderus: An immediate, affordable BB, Richard, and it's on my Kindle now! Thank you!

I am thinking about my experience with the LGBTQ community in my last high school. The straight kids were confused. On the one hand, they thought that they should be condemning because of their parents' culture, but they were fascinated. I don't think we read a single thing for several years that somebody didn't ask, "Is Huck gay?" "Is Nick gay?" "Is Gatsby gay?" ..... I hope I created a safe place for them to talk a little. On the other hand, they loved and respected their classmates who had the courage to be out, and really, they had known each other all their lives, so they made that split between the individual they knew and the other-in-general. I delighted in my JCo, who showed up the first day of her junior year in a tee that read, "I'll tell it to you straight - I'm not." AND they recognized the closeness and support that the gay community (and it was a community that was also inter-racial - pretty uncommon!) gave each other. In fact, I thought that at least a couple of kids I taught identified as gay simply because the community accepted them when they hadn't gotten any acceptance at all among the majority. Anyway, that's how I saw things 15 years ago.

*smooch*

>153 LizzieD:
I noticed this in the college students I worked with. I think these young people will be the salvation of decency and fair play as they grow older and will force some change simply because they don't care that much if a person is gay. The key to all of this is that we have to get them to VOTE! That is the one thing that they don't do and I was simply flabbergasted about their attitudes toward voting when I would talk to them. They don't seem to think that their vote is important. Their tendency to vote only when there is somebody interesting running is also a concern of mine. They stood in the rain to vote for Barack Obama but in 2020 I couldn't get them to go vote at all, even when they saw Trump as an object of derision.

>151 karenmarie: It's *hard* not to simply Other all Christians in my own mind, blaming them and the Evil Spirit that some of them worship for most of the evil in the world.

The loud ones favor a lot of really vile things, and those who don't support those things rarely mention their own Christianity in combination with what they do support - and when they do, it's mostly while almost literally preaching to the choir. (i.e. I'm not there and don't hear them.)

Inside my own mind, I refer to the God of the evil "Christians" as "Penis" rather than "Jesus." Thus my internal reaction to that Louisiana headline is "Praise Penis." Also, of course the followers who emulate Him by working hard to increase the misery in the world.

That's probably unfair to people whose bodies include a small-p penis, but I make a strong distinction between humans with penises and the Great Cosmic Rapist beloved of many "religious" people.

>153 LizzieD: Yeah, at $2.99 it's hard to see why you'd say no isn't it?

Creating a space is the best one can hope to do in a school setting. What happens after that is outside one's control; and often distance (physical and/or temporal) militates against it remaining open. The one thing I've learned the hard way is that there are some meatheads that treat openness as a wound to closed up quick. But a lot more have little scars from the brief opening that can and do remain...often reopening at surprising times.

*smooch*

>154 benitastrnad: I think you're exactly right, Benita, and that is what the great-hate crowd fears the most. Their Nazi methods came too late this time, I hope anyway. The openness of minds can always go into reverse. The good thing is that they can never go back to the same shape as before.

>155 ArlieS: *stiffly*

One does not heap contumely upon the Object of Worship and (literal) Veneration in this space. It Is Verboten.

The Cosmic Rapist is a stunning, accurate epithet for their object of worship, and I salute you for coining that one! I'll be appropriating it! The choir I listen to and preach for will no doubt like it, as well. The incessant demands to "submit to the will of god" and "enjoy the fruits of obedience to his will" etc etc and nauseam reinforce the violation and the powerplay being enacted on one's psyche.

Thursday cheer, RD! Hope you’re coping with the furnace temps. Must be somewhat better there with the sea breeze.

I am 40+ posts behind again. . .

((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today, RD!

>159 Storeetllr: Thank you. Mary! My west-facing blinds are closed and the thermostat is set to "Martian Winter" setting.

*smooch*

>160 alcottacre: There's nothing to it, smoochling. Stay current by sitting with my thread open and hit "refresh" every two minutes. You'll be current all the way through! See? Simple!

097 Dear Cisgender People: A Guide to Trans Allyship and Empathy by Kenny Ethan Jones

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: A powerful call to arms to empower cisgender people to be better allies, blending memoir, detailed research, and interviews.

The trans experience is all too often the subject of fierce debate in the media and online. While we’re having more and more conversations about the trans experience, the stark reality is that hate crimes against the trans community have quadrupled over the past five years and that two in five trans young people have attempted suicide.

But behind the shock headlines and the distressing statistics, what does it really mean to be trans?

In this powerful, extensively researched, and deeply personal book, Kenny Ethan Jones, a trans activist and writer, offers an authentic and in-depth insight into the trans experience. From gender dysphoria to surgery, from being outed to finding love and considering parenthood, Kenny Ethan Jones draws on his own life and the stories of others from the trans and nonbinary communities to create discussion around the complexities and reality of the trans experiences in today’s society.

Dear Cis(Gender) People is a powerful call to arms, equipping people of every gender with the tools to step forward as allies in order to bring about meaningful change. Through acting and speaking out, we can create a safer, fairer world for trans people—a world in which all of us can exist as our most authentic selves and celebrate who we are without fear.

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

My Review: I can not say this loudly, often, or long enough (all of these are links to sources in the blogged version of the review): PAY.

ATTENTION.

TO.

WHAT.

THEY SAY THEY WILL DO.

You can start here, with this book made up of trans peoples' words. It's addressed at all cis people, a group I am very much part of. I needed to hear these trans voices. These voices are not heard in any systemic way even in the QUILTBAG community. Trans people can and should speak up...and all too often, risk the direst imaginable consequences for doing so. I think the best way to learn is to ask, and if the silence imposed on trans people in F2F reality is blocking that avenue, then we can read! This book marries asking with reading because Author Kenny Ethan Jones has spoken to his fellow trans folk and used their own words to address us cis people, regardless of our sexual identities, about the nature of being trans.

The ball is in our court, cis folk. We possess the information, now we need to listen to what trans people want us to know. There is no more fig-leaf for our ignorance. Now it is a choice to remain ignorant. I think almost everyone who reads this blog, being readers themselves, will take this chance to lift the veil of unknowing and see what the most Othered people in the QUILTBAG rainbow of identities want to get in the way of support and acceptance.

I hope this compact, unchallenging read will make its way into your reading this #PrideMonth. There are so many ways to offer the gift of acknowledgment. The price is, honestly, negligble to the giver; the gift is precious to the receiver, as the stories told here will show you. Please do the whole angry, shouting world this favor:

Sit and listen to what your Othered siblings would appreciate you offering to them.

098 Songs on Endless Repeat: Essays and Outtakes by Anthony Veasna So

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: By the New York Times bestselling author of the award-winning AFTERPARTIES comes a collection like none other: sharply funny, emotionally expansive essays and linked short fiction exploring family, queer desire, pop culture, and race

The late Anthony Veasna So’s debut story collection, Afterparties, was a landmark publication, hailed as a “bittersweet triumph for a fresh voice silenced too soon” (Fresh Air). And he was equally known for his comic, soulful essays, published in n+1, The New Yorker, and The Millions.

Songs on Endless Repeat gathers those essays together, along with previously unpublished fiction. Written with razor-sharp wit and an unflinching eye, the essays examine his youth in California, the lives of his refugee parents, his intimate friendships, loss, pop culture, and more. And in linked fiction following three Cambodian American cousins who stand to inherit their late aunt’s illegitimate loan-sharking business, So explores community, grief, and longing with inimitable humor and depth.

Following “one of the most exciting contributions to Asian American literature in recent years” (Vulture), Songs on Endless Repeat is an astonishing final expression by a writer of “extraordinary achievement and immense promise” (The New Yorker).

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: There are very few things I am more moved, saddened, and affected by than the early death of a promising artist. Basquiat, Heath Ledger, Anthony Veasna So, all dead from random bad luck. All gay guys (yeah, I said it about Legder, my gaydar goes DEFCON-5 every time I see him) who didn't get to finish their rough-edged bumptious growing processes. That is very much the feeling I had reading this collection of the gone-too-soon Author So's bits and bobs.

There's a kind of youthful arrogance, a judgment-passing superior smirk that shades into a sneer, in all the essays. It's to be expected, he was lionized early and often. He wasn't wrong, or wrong-headed; he was cocksure and unaware, in his youth, that being unsympathetic in your judgments doesn't make them stronger. In time perhaps that would've worn off, and he'd've reserved the sharpness of his eyes for more worthy opponents.

His fiction fragments in here point to an idea for a novel that could have turned into something interesting had he had time and some very good guidance. The fact is there was raw talent here, there was a Voice, and that loss is horrible. That it was down to self-destructive behaviors makes me think that the work we have now might have been all we ever got, living or dead. Many many addicted folk with powerful talents lose the war in themselves.

Not really recommended on its own; the reason to read it is that it feels like an act of mourning for what we all lost when he died of an overdose.

>163 richardderus: I checked both my local library and Hoopla but neither has a copy of that one yet. As someone who is genuinely trying to learn more about the trans community, I really want to read that one.

>164 richardderus: the reason to read it is that it feels like an act of mourning for what we all lost when he died of an overdose.

Oh, that is too bad! I think I will pass on this one for now and see if I can track down a copy of Afterparties instead.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** and hopes for a fantastic Friday, RD!

>165 alcottacre: Happy Friday, Stasia! I'm sure your local librarian would have a hard time explaining his choice to add that to the collection...plus it only came out on the fourth so it probably isn't on their purchasing horizon for not-bestsellers yet.

Enjoy the day, smoochling.

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Friday to you.

>152 richardderus: Straight religious men, whether Christian/Jewish/Muslim/other, whether white or POC, seem to think it’s their inherent right to subjugate everybody else to their their beliefs and position vis-à-vis men – i.e., lower. They are stunned that their power is eroding and lash out and try to force their beliefs. We’ll get there eventually, but these next several decades are going to be tough.

>155 ArlieS: I am a liberal theist, Arlie, which means I am neither an atheist nor do I adhere to any organized religion. There are good men in every religion and agnosticism and atheism and bad men in every religion and agnosticism and atheism. I believe that there are many ways to get to God if you want to get to God, and those who do not believe at all are just as valid in their belief.

*smooch*

>140 richardderus: Got me with that one, and I've asked my library to purchase a copy. (As a Board member, I usually get pretty quick action on those requests.)

>167 karenmarie: Straight religious people of both sexes and all genders are a pox on the Earth.

No, of course I don't hate a person just for who they are! Why would you even think such a thing?!

*sigh* I tolerate all things except intolerance...the other formulation of that eternal conundrum. Proof that all things contain the seed of their own destruction, one supposes.

>168 laytonwoman3rd: Oh good, Linda3rd! I think you'll enjoy the artwork, as well as appreciate the information.

>170 richardderus: Your thread is providing a wealth of information, discussion, and OH YES...visual stimulation...this month even more than usual. Thank you for that.

>166 richardderus: The collections at the local library are improving but yeah, I am not sure we are quite there yet. I live in hope though especially as we do have a librarian who is transitioning from female to male. We shall see.

>169 richardderus: Well, you manage to tolerate me anyhow. . .

>167 karenmarie: Thank you for reminding me of this once again. My head knows it, but my guts are just as prone to human irrationality as those of any other human being. Reminders that there are sane theists, even sane monotheists, really help. They particularly help when non-abstract, e.g. your "I am a liberal theist".

>155 ArlieS: >173 ArlieS: Arlie, here's a surprise for you and for me too most days. I'm going to quote Paul! (Philippians 2:12) in what I think is from a deep source of revelation whatever the man may have meant by it when he wrote it. That is, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." You are responsible for you. I am responsible for me. We can support each other, ask for help or not, but in the end all of us get to decide for ourselves. Peace.

Hi, Richard. Here comes the weekend again. *smooch*

>171 laytonwoman3rd: *smooch*

>172 alcottacre: ...and you are...?
XD

>174 LizzieD:, >173 ArlieS: We're all as Heaven made us...the issue is always to improve. And therein the challenge.

Weekend! *gaaak* Howinahell'd that happen?! Y'all's god pressed the spin-faster button too often.

THERE'S A (polite) WORD FOR ME!

Hi Richard! Its nice to see you and to get caught up a bit (I also loved Aristotle and Dante and listened to Lin-Manuel Miranda's exuberent narration).

I am becoming bad at summer myself, which is too bad since I am on break. But we are havigng ductless split/European style air conditioning installed RIGHT NOW so relief is on the way. Our guy thinks the units will be available by tomorrow, but unfortunately the smaller units for the girls' rooms are still back ordered. We thought we'd be in the clear for the installation schedule since June is usually not so how, but then along came 2024. Ugh. I'm sorry the girls will have to suffer a bit longer.

So... wishing you cool air and a happy summer!

>179 AMQS: How do, Anne! Happy to see you here! I'll cross all my crossables that the a/c units work their magic soon. My a/c is keeping the sticky nasty from oppressing me, less the heat. I'm getting ill, I think, because I actually feel a bit chilly.

Be well, all there!

We just have a couple of portable A/ C in the upstairs of our townhouse,Richard, which Dave set up today. One is our west facing bedroom and the other in our East facing living area. The downstairs seems to stay reasonably cool. Year ago we never needed AC here, but climate change has changed that. It is definitely a lot warmer in the summer and the winter as well. I'm glad you are staying cool.

>181 vancouverdeb: The rate of change feels like it's speeding up, too...I am disgusted with our generation for not listening to the crunchygranola hippies. /sigh/

Well, would ya looka that!
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/21/weight-loss-drug-could-e...

>183 richardderus: Not terribly surprising that weight loss can improve sleep problems of all kinds...but there's anecdotal (at least) suggestion that those weight loss drugs can help with several inflammatory processes, even before they result in significant weight loss. Stringent testing hasn't been done, but some people have reported abatement of severe arthritic symptoms, among other things. I'd love to share the article I read in the Scranton Times/Tribune this morning, but it was originally reported in the NY Times, and is behind a paywall. I thought I might be able to sneak it in through a link to the Scranton paper, but it doesn't appear in their on-line edition.

>184 laytonwoman3rd: The one I like the most that hasn't been peer-reviewed is the lowering of hypertension more than solely can be attributed to weight loss. All the yay! There will be some horrible side effect, naturally, gawd being the sadistic Mengele clone she is, but this is some great stuff this compound is doing.

099 Best Supporting Actor (Creative Types #3) by Joanna Chambers and Sally Malcolm

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Lights, camera…attraction!

When Tag O’Rourke, struggling actor-slash-barista, meets Jay Warren, son of acting royalty, it’s loathing at first sight. Loathing…and lust. Tag’s dream is to act, but it’s a dream that’s crumbling beneath the weight of student debt and his family’s financial problems. If his career doesn’t take off soon, he’s going to have to get a real job. After all, feeding his family is more important than feeding his soul. Luckily, Tag’s about to get his big break…

Jay never had to dream about acting; he was always destined to follow in his famous mother’s footsteps. But fame has its price and a traumatic experience early in Jay’s career has left him with paralysing stage fright, which is why he sticks to the safety of TV work—and avoids relationships with co-stars at all costs. Unfortunately, Jay’s safe world is about to be rocked…

After an ill-judged yet mind-blowing night together, Jay and Tag part acrimoniously. So it’s a nasty shock when they discover that they’ve been cast in a two-man play that could launch Tag’s career and finally get Jay back onto the stage where he belongs. Sure, it’s not ideal, but how bad can working with your arch-nemesis be? All they have to do is survive six weeks rehearsing together and navigate a cast of smarmy festival directors, terrible landladies, and vengeful journalists. Oh, and try not to fall in love before the curtain rises… Break a leg!

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE AUTHORS. THANK YOU.

My Review: Well, whatever one expects from a romace novel, this book hands it over...enemies-to-lovers, second chance at love, soulmates discovering each other, all here. And all as much fun to read as fun gets.

Authors Sally and Jo don't exactly waste one's time with silly obfuscations. The story's pacing is neither rushed nor dilatory. The main duo are not in any danger of being relegated to juicy side characters...though Jay's mother could be a fun broad to follow around for a few hundred pages, hint hint...and the Others on the page still manage to make their presences felt. The playwright-cum-pal is another really good character I felt I knew enough about to get the story in gear, yet could also fill up her own book.

So there's absolutely every reason to go buy one. Go on! Go get a copy.

But you're only giving it four stars! I need a fifth one to autobuy!

Having heard this kind of statement on multiple occasions, I'll say this: The series is wonderful and fun, and funny, and endearingly honest about its characters' icky bits. All of those are good things. Tag irks me. He's a whiny little pisher whose chip is so big it needs both his shoulders to carry it so blocks his view straight ahead of him. Jay is quieter in his overplayed self-doubt but still manages not to hook me. Them together? I wanted to reach into the book and crack their heads tpgether, tell 'em to STFU and get back to having the kind of sex most of us don't dare believe exists because we ain't gettin' it.

So yeah. Four's where the star train stops.

It gets all those stars for the way I'm dragged into the story, the way my emotional investment is picked out of my readerly pocket. They mugged me in my own back alley, that pair of author/attackers! I encourage anyone with a taste for contemporary romances, for second-chance, artist-centered, and enemies-to-lovers romances, to get this entire three-book series.

Happy Saturday, Richard. I got to see Jack yesterday for awhile. We are heading to our niece's graduation party today. It will be another HOT one. Not sure there is much relief in sight. Ugh! Keep cool and enjoy your day.

>187 msf59: Hi Mark! Glad for your grandson time, that's got to see you up for the rest of the weekend's outdoors-in-the-heat stuff. I hope the graduation goes fast because it won't be cool.

I'm huddled up and have no reason to go out today, so I won't. Books will keep me company.

>186 richardderus: But you're only giving it four stars! I need a fifth one to autobuy!

Pondering this thought. I don't doubt folks have said it - and, when their reading aligns with yours very closely, I don't doubt it's a wise move, either. But for my own response to your reviews, I've added some 4 stars or even 3.5 to the TBR list if I thought the *reasons* it was knocked down wouldn't bother me as it did you, such as overuse of the dreaded w-word. Which is, of course, why you proceed to give your reasons. I probably won't add that one just because I'm picky about romance and prefer sex-on-the-page to be towards the end and built up to as the relationship grows.

Anyway, it just struck me to think about, not least because I just gave 3.5 stars to a book you gave 5 stars to. It's the hardest part of reviewing/recommending, to me, to try to convey my own impressions of the book while leaving other readers room to figure out if it would be a better/worse read for them.

Wishing you a happy weekend with wonderful reads ahead! *smooch*

Hiya, RDear! Happy Saturday.

>173 ArlieS: You’re welcome, Arlie. Besides some very wonderful Christians here in this group, I have some Pentacostal cousins who walk the walk and not just talk the talk.

>186 richardderus: I read the first in the series, Total Creative Control, last November and gave it 4*. I have the 2nd in the series on my Kindle, just waiting for the right time.

Oh, and re climate change: I wouldn’t even consider living here in the South without air conditioning because of both heat AND humidity.

*smooch*

100 Four Squares: A Novel by Bobby Finger

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: From the beloved author of The Old Place comes a tender, funny, and fresh novel spanning the 1990s and present day, about a young writer and the community he builds in New York City, and his lonely life 30 years later when an unexpected injury lands him at the local queer senior center.

Artie Anderson wouldn’t call himself lonely, not exactly. He has a beautiful apartment in the West Village, a steady career as a ghostwriter, and he has Halle and Vanessa, who—as the daughter and ex-wife of his former partner—are the closest thing he can call family. But when the women announce a move across the country, on Artie’s 60th birthday no less, Artie realizes that his seemingly full life isn’t quite as full as he imagined. To make matters worse, a surprising injury strips Artie of the independent lifestyle he’s used to and pushes him into the hands of GALS, the local LGBTQ senior center down the street.

Since the death of his ex-boyfriend, Abe decades ago, Artie’s intentionally avoided big crowds and close friends. So, he’s woefully unprepared for the other patrons of GALS, a group of larger-than-life seniors who insist on celebrating each and every day. They refuse to dwell in the past, but Artie, who has never quite recovered from Abe’s death and the loss of his dearest friends, can’t shake the memories of his youth, and of the chances he did, and didn’t, take.

Stretching across the 1990s and the present day, Four Squares is an intimate and profound look at what it means to create community and the lasting impressions even the most fleeting of relationships can leave. With Bobby Finger’s signature warmth, humor, and wit, it is touching reminder that it’s never too late for a second chance at truly living.

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

My Review: Well! Was this ever an exercise in feeling seen! I *am* Artie. I though this would be a bubbly and effervescent flute full of story-champagne. More closely resembled a mug of authentic, bean-based xocolatl as opposed to, say, Swiss Miss.

Artie did what I've done with this life, cocooned himself in search of safety in a world he does not like interacting with all that much. He's been lucky, relate to that, he's got a solid basis for his existence at last, relate to that, and the family he's made takes the place of the non-family of origin, relate to that. All of this is balanced on a knife-edge, of course...all of life is, we just don't think about it until the balance is upset. Way big relate to that! So I vibrate like Annie Dillard's struck bell to all of these story points...what could possibly keep this from being a five-star read?

GALS.

I did not love these big, loud people anywhere near as much as I'd need to for me to rate the book five stars. I think the reason I don't adore them is that I felt unable to buy into them as people. They're perfect *characters*, of the sort we see actors create for film or stage roles; they're the kind of characters I'd love to see a film about, in fact. I was expecting to be given a more nuanced and investment-able character in a novel, where there is so much more room to develop them. Artie, as a superb example, is developed to a solidity and dimensionality that demonstrates the author's considerable command of the skills needed. His found-family gals were also briefly but memorably limned...I understood they felt deeply their effect on Artie, and still had reasons for the action they took that hurt him.

So it wasn't lack of skill, then; what happened? I don't know. I also don't think I've seen any other reviewer bring this up as an issue, so permaybehaps it's just me being crotchety...? A very real possibility, not to be discounted or dismissed. I don't know how to test for it, or I would.

None of which is meant to be a warn-off, or even much of a caution. Bobby Finger writes good, solid stories, told in deft, enjoyable prose. I think the book belongs on your TBR if you liked his previous book, or of you liked The Guncle, or Nearlywed, or...does it need saying out loud that the world we live in is so immensely superior to the world we grew up in, fellow oldsters? We're able to choose from a huge variety of ways to feel seen and entertained that were, simply put, impossible to find in our youths.

Which is why the great haters so badly want to gain control of society's levers. If you see yourself as you could be, you'll try to become that; this means you won't be like them, and that is an existential threat.

Good. I've said it often, will say it often in future: Whatever it takes to make the great haters feel threatened and unhappy deserves our support.

>189 bell7: I agree, Mary, about the complexity of conveying something without being prescriptive...as though that is possible! reading is not a science, it's a participatory art...that will give others something to go on making their own time and money allocations.

It's really funny to me how often I get jabbed for "mansplaining" that accepable, but nasty and sexist, insult leveled only at men, while also Hearing Their Mouths when I don't offer reasons for my ideas about books: "so only you get to have opinions we should all just accept them, huh?" Need I mention it is ALWAYS a woman saying it. I literally cannot win.

>190 karenmarie: Saturday *smooch* Horrible me lurve. You won't go wrong with Jo and Sally's books, together or separately written. Hoping your reads are going to give me an intense pain on my ever-flattening wallet. Good reading for you does give me intense pain, but I Soldier On *noble profile*

Climate change, well, in effect I've moved to Virginia as it was in 1900 without moving an inch. YUCK

101 Park Cruising: What Happens When We Wander Off the Path by Marcus McCann

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: An intimate look at one of culture’s most enduring taboos: public sex.

Park Cruising takes a long look at the men who cruise for sex in urban parks. Human rights lawyer Marcus McCann uses park cruising as a point of departure for discussions of consent, empathy, public health, municipal planning, and our relationship to strangers.

Prompted by his work opposing a police sting in a suburban park, McCann’s ruminations go beyond targeted enforcement and police indifference to violence to examine cruising as a type of world-building. The result is a series of insightful and poetic walks through history, law, literature, and popular representations of cruising in search of the social value of sex. What McCann ultimately reveals is a world of connection, care, and unexpected lessons about the value of pleasure.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: The book takes a "pro" position on this fraught topic, and uses rgetorical flourishes to distract from the difficulty of the central issue having no easy solution. Had he made his argument solely about entrapment I'd be all over it; but I do not, in the most intense possible terms, want to encounter straight people or lesbians in the throes of passion.

No.

YEEECCCHHH


So why should they want to see what I'll avidly watch? The book's strength is its weakness; complaining that they do it, why shouldn't we, is very much an adolescent attitude. Confine yourself to the cruising, and I'm supportive; but the minute someone's genitals come into public view for sexual use, and that's a hard (!) no from me.

Nudity doesn't seem to me to be shocking, so public nudity, while *I* ain't doin' it...sunburned balls sound horrifying to me, and the peeling process is too grisly to contemplate...I agree that the laws around it are clearly designed to make purseylipped prudes safe from the vapors, and should be repealed. Body shame is a major source of social control. Best to jettison it, and the case for this bit is a good one. Unlikely to succeed, though, because the Vaporous Vanguard will screech about their little no-neck monsters being corrupted and that ends any and all discussion. Otherwise you who oppose them are A Pedophile, and once those screeches start, you are toast. Does not matter in the slightest if they are true or not, these screeches are stickier than blood, and utterly indelible.

The book is an interesting read but not a how-to manual or even an advocacy guide. It will shift no one's position. It's good for starting conversations about how society enforces a standard of conduct that is inherently judgmental, and unfairlt enforced, and clearly the laws are written to give gay men nightmares about their sex lives being judged and punished in a way y'all straight people's are not.

Useful, then; just not effective as a tool for short-term attitude change.

Happy Sunday, Richard. We stayed inside during the graduation party. They couldn't even set up tents outside because of the steady winds. At least I did my family duties.

Still processing Devil is Fine. It didn't reach the heights, it promised early on but is still an interesting read.

I am meeting Joe today in the city. It has been a few months and we are due. Always a good time.

‘Morning, RichardDear! Happy Sunday.

>192 richardderus: Which is why the great haters so badly want to gain control of society's levers. If you see yourself as you could be, you'll try to become that; this means you won't be like them, and that is an existential threat. Yup.

>193 richardderus: I live to give you BBs…

>194 richardderus: Body shame is a major source of social control. *sigh* I’m almost 71 and STILL rarely look in a full-length mirror, clothed or unclothed.

*smooch*

102 Private Worlds: Growing Up Gay in Post-War Britain by Jeremy Seabrook

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In 1950s suburban England, a friendship bloomed between Jeremy Seabrook and Michael O’Neill—two gay men coming of age at a time when homosexuality was still a crime. Their relationship was inflected by secrecy and fear; the shadows that had distorted their adolescent years were never wholly dispelled, long into their adult life. Lyrical, candid and poignant, this is a tale of sexual identity, working-class history and family drama. A memoir of unparalleled authenticity, Private Worlds is an elegy for a doomed friendship.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: The US class system impacted me far less than the UK version did young Seabrook, thank all the nonexistent gods. The possession or absence of a "posh" accent is greatly deterministic of one's future; the comparable thing here is the Southern twang, which (no matter where the business is centered) will keep one in the lower ranks. I, being gay and really unwilling to pretend otherwise, felt the sting of exclusion, so that reality was shared by the author and me. His eventual success has been built on being a self not supported by the world he came from; escape by jettisoning the weight of his class identity. Seabrook and O'Neill each accomplished this by being bolshie leftists in an England that was convulsing from the wounds of Empire, birthing today's hideous US-style fascist plutocratic class system.

That doomed, deep love, found and lost early, was part of my life as well. The friendship blighted by the need to dissemble; the deeper connection denied by the caustic effects of powerlessness, of the absence of role models for doing the open and honest thing by each other, was all too painfully relatable to me. It's shocking to me, looking back, that my life was not more blighted by this distorting pressure to be someone I was not and, moreover, did not ever want to be...his life, from my outsider point of view, was more so than mine.

That story is not mine to tell. Author Seabrook and O'Neill have a longstanding public connection, and have each analyzed the way their milieu had them jointly "fail{ing} to grow up together"...a phrase, and an idea behind it, I'd like to pay honor to by saying I wish to hell I'd said that first. The class system's role in this failure was, probably because I'm from the US, not as real as was the way the precocious thwarted-single-mother-raised boy was forced to dissemble. His friendship with O'Neill, ostensibly the focus of this book, feels more like a well-polished lens for him to examine himself and his failed world-beating dreams.

Seabrook and O'Neill (born and raised a Londoner, a key component of his identity as an outsider in the English North) affected a caustic ironical distance from their neighbors. An intellectual pose of studying these Others, who in their turn Othered these bumptious boys for being queer, froze into an outsider identity, an observer stance, that would enable them to "overcome" their background only by treating it as fodder, material for their real life's work in sociological study. Dealing with this really unappealing trait now, Author Seabrook seems paralyzed by his recognition of its cruelty. That this is cruelty returned for cruelty given is not, to my surprise, part of his path to self-forgviness. The ironic separation has an inevitable distancing effect between the friends...how could it not...and that gets his focus. I was surprised by how bitterly he seems to regret the dark space left by O'Neill's separate personhood, and how little kindness he seems to extend to that early Seabrook boy. Judging one's earlier self is easy. Forgiving them is, apparently, not.

A fascinating dive into an intelligent man's past love for his intellectual equal and emotional opposite. I'm sure anyone who's read and liked Édouard Louis or Jon Fosse as tellers of personal and immutable truth will batten on this book.

>195 msf59: Hiya Birddude! Have fun with Joe later today. I'm sure the graduation was a nice celebration even if it wasn't perfect weather...the family was all together, so that's what counts.

I think Vercher's besetting literary sin is the endings...they match the beginnings but don't equal them, if you see what I mean. Something falls off the saddle before the horse gets into the paddock.

>196 karenmarie: I so relate to your attitude towards mirrors. Body shame is deeply caustic and apparently immune to any healing process.

"THEY" want social control enough to enforce misery and wretchedness to achieve it. Their evil little god insists on enforcing her will by being sure no one ever feels good except when obeying her will. YECCCHHH

You ADMIT it!! Your purpose in life is to tempt me into spending money on books you decide to make sound irresistibel!

I Am Vindicated.

I don't recall who it was who didn't know who "Guy Madison" was. Him:

Like "Tab Hunter," his agent was Henry Willson, a seriously skeevy powerbroker in 1950s gay Hollywood. Many beautiful young men got their starts in the industry via his bed, including "Rock Hudson" and Chad Everett.

One can see "Guy Madison"'s appeal...though he was a mediocre actor he was very, very pretty.
ETA gif size

>201 ArlieS: Hi Arlie!

Just dropped by to wish you a good week RD.

>203 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caro, and the same wishes heartily returned.

Did I speak already today? Even so, hope it's been a good day and that you've stayed cool, Richard. *smooch*

>205 LizzieD: Hey there Peggy me lurve. I'm glad to receive a speak, first or fortieth, from you. My day's been good and I'm pleased as punch that I got a visit from the doctor representing the wound care practice to verify I actually merit their services. After a half hour or so poking and tutting, he left reassuring me the treatment plan I cooked up with the nurse was approved.

That was a win! *smooch*

So far behind .... skimming through .... waving *hello*

>207 humouress: Morning, Nina, glad to see you here!

103 A Family, Maybe: Two Dads, Two Babies, and the Court Cases That Brought Us Together by Lane Igoudin

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A gay couple's quest to adopt their foster kids in the early 2000s becomes a spiral of legal, political, and personal challenges.

In his candid and emotional memoir, Lane Igoudin shows the human side of public adoption as he and his partner Jonathan seek to adopt their foster daughters from the Los Angeles County child welfare system. Desperately wanting to be fathers, they enter into a complicated legal process that soon becomes a tangle of drama-filled birth parent visits and children's court hearings.

Lane and Jon spend years not knowing whether they will be able to officially adopt the girls, or if the county will reunite the sisters with their birth mother, Jenna, a teenager in the state's custody herself. The stress of the foster-to-adopt process, compounded with the mounting, nationwide struggle for LGBTQ+ equality, erodes the sense of peace in Lane and Jon's home.

Still, the girls attach themselves deeply to their adoptive parents, while their dads do all they can to give them the best lives possible. Heartwarming moments with the kids and relatable first-time-parent woes become bittersweet as Lane realizes how much he and Jon have built—and how much they could lose. A Family, Maybe is a moving story about dedication, heartache, and love.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Two gay dads chronicle the formation and formalization of their family. The men made a deeply responsible, generous choice to enter the foster-to-adopt system, thus ensuring they'd be in the toils of bureaucracy the rest of their lives. I expect there are many who quail before this prospect and, if a family is as much of a priority for them as it was for Lane and Jon, go the surrogacy route.

Massive kudos to you, gents, for staying the course. The bureaucracy, the sisters's biomom, the darkening clouds of great-haters' rage at gay men making strides towards having all their rights...all keep the emotional pot merrily boiling away as we read on. That was not, in any way, guaranteed. We know from the start that the family is intact. I think the ups and downs of building that family is nothing short of amazing as a survival story. These two have my mad respect for surviving their ordeal while being solid, loving, involved dads to their two daughters. I don't envy those young womens' future partners because the models for commitment they carry in their minds are going to be very hard for others to reach.

The one thing the whole family can count on is that they will be loved and supported from within, come what may.

A story of the power of commitment and caring that belongs on your shelf/Kindle. It is not some sort of revelation of beautiful writing but it is a tale not to be ignored. I feel energized by hope and happiness after this read.

Morning, Richard. Of course, I had a terrific time with Joe yesterday. It would sure be nice if you could be part of one of these Meet Ups. You can only dream, right? Trail Watch today and I am looking forward to some milder temps arriving this week. 😎

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Monday to you.

>197 richardderus: Amazing review of a book I’m not quite sure I want to read.

>198 richardderus: I also don’t consider myself photographic, so am rarely pleased with pics of me. They both go hand in hand as records of how I don’t fit societal pressures/norms.

Well, duh, I admit it. I have spent more money on my current obsession because of you than you’ll ever spend acquiring irresistible-sounding books from me. Not that I mind…

>206 richardderus: Yay for the doctor’s visit and approval of your treatment plan.

>209 richardderus: Excellent review.

Whew. Two BBs avoided, although just barely. I may have felt the bullets whiz by.

*smooch*

>210 msf59: Milder? Excellent! I hope that is the pattern for the rest of the summer.

I'd love to meet up, if only my body would cooperate and not complain so much when I sit for long periods. Travel tends to be really miserable. *sigh*

>211 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible! I am 5000% innocent of igniting your literary liking. Utterly, snow-whitely innocent. My innocence is so yuuuuuge it can be seen from space.

Yeah, the whole photo thing is a horror for me...just never enjoyed it. I'm not sure I'd recommend >197 richardderus: to you because it's so very particular to a time and place where the writer's experience is The Only Focus...a bit too navel-gazey for you, I'd say. Thanks re: >209 richardderus:!

*smooch* from your "no one is innocenter than me" bibliopusher

Checking in on you, RD, as it has been about 40 posts or so. . .

((Hugs)) and **smooches** and hopes for a marvelous Monday!

>214 alcottacre: Morning, Stasia, happy to see you! *smooch* for a great week-ahead's reads.

>206 richardderus: Richard, that is GOOD NEWS!!!!! I may have mixed feelings about our local wound clinic and my DH's long and continuing experience with it, but I dare not think what the alternative might have been. Peace and Healing to you!!!!

>209 richardderus: Now that is a forceful BB. I have indulged in way, way too much book buying in the past week, so I'll simply have it on the wish list for now. Thank you, though.

*smooch* from this thread too!

Good morning and happy Monday Richard! Hope you have a good week.

>202 richardderus: My apologies for the deleted post. I decided it was too much of a rant, and didn't want to replace it with something milder in case some people had already read it. (Revising history seems like a bad thing to me.)

>216 LizzieD: Thanks, Peggy! I feel better knowing the plan's been vetted because no no one gets to question the whys and wherefores.

I think >209 richardderus: will, when it gets to you, be a read you'll really resonate to. Their family is a great example of what the great-haters want to bury deepest. Therefore, of course, I want to holler about it and hope others will, too.

>217 RebaRelishesReading: Monday orisons, Reba dear lady. My week's bound to be good so long as I don't have some unforeseen health ick and keep functioning as I wind up #PrideMonth. It's looking good...cross your crossables for me, please? *smooch*

>206 richardderus: So glad that you got some positive feedback from your wound care doctor! That’s got to be reassuring.

Just went to check on your NY weather—not too bad (79 degrees F.).

(Oh-oh, Karen’s going off on a tangent…) Gosh, Stockholm is 84 F. And Reykjavik is 49 F. Reykjavik is farther north, and in the middle of some cold oceans. And there’s all those glaciers…

So, anyway, hope that the temps are treating you better now!

Have a great week!

Karen O

>218 ArlieS: No need to worry on my account, Arlie. Deleted posts are fine. Rants, of course, need to be fine with the ranter first and foremost; if they aren't on reflection what you end up wanting to say best to ax 'em.

Much the reasoning I apply to leaving old reviews alone, that. I sometimes don't agree with Past Me but I'm also *not* Past Me and he doesn't deserve erasure.

>221 klobrien2: Hey there Karen O.! The humidity is pretty high but the breeze we usually have is now very brisk. That keeps my feels-like temperature in the tolerable realm. Reykjavík's 49° sounds deVOON! *sigh* and it's almost July...*envious gusty sigh*

>220 richardderus: crossed as requested :)

>224 RebaRelishesReading: TYVM *smooch*

*smooch* Our weather has been nice with temps of about 70 F. I am not a fan of the heat either. For some reason, my husband can't believe that Florida has ice skating rinks. I only mention this because the Stanley Cup was played in Edmonton against Florida( I have no interest in hockey either) but I do know that much. I wonder if Dave has heard of refrigeration ?

Hiya, RDear. Happy Tuesday to you.

>213 richardderus: I can see you smirking from here, bibliopusher. NOT innocent, for sure.

Hot, hot, hot here, at least through next Monday. Tomorrow will get to 98F.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

Morning, Richard. Storms moving in as I type this. There goes pickleball...

Bree dropped off Jack yesterday so we had him for the afternoon, into the evening. He mostly hung with Grandma, but I got some play time in too.

>226 vancouverdeb: Morning, Dreadful Deborah the Dastardly Depressing weather diva! 70° indeed...

Ice rinks are darn near 200 years old...the concept has been established a looooong time. I'm kinda on Dave's side here, though, a FLORIDA *hockey* team seems off to me, too. In Austin there was a minor league hockey team called the Ice Bats. (Austin's very proud of its immense population of Mexican free-tailed bats.) Not one thing about any part of that ever made sense to me....

>227 karenmarie: INNOCENT!! UTTERLY INNOCENT!!

Ritual denials done, I'll condole with you about the hideousness of 98° and remind you of the International Court in The Hague where a lawsuit can be lodged.

Happy new-books day, smoochling.

>228 msf59: Oh dear, no pickleball...that has to stink. The exercise is welcome. Being forced indoors is going to be an increasing reality as the planet's fever kills off the infection.

Extra Jack time is always good.

BURGOINE #025

A Champion for Tinker Creek (Tinker Creek Series #1) by D.C. Robeline

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Master mechanic Lyle James built a successful but lonely life in Tinker Creek after rescuing his dad’s auto repair shop until an international development firm conspires with local officials to condemn the shop and steal his land.

Jose “Manny” Porter has come home to take a reporting job at the South Georgia Record, a regional newspaper where his father is publisher and editor-in-chief. As the son of a driven Anglo father and Cuban exile mother, Manny knows all about how competing parental expectations can chill efforts to even find sex—much less love.

After a night of passion, Lyle and Manny are thrown together in a fight to save Lyle’s business. Their struggles may lead to more than either expected for their community and their lives.

I RECEIVED A COPY FROM THE MY YOUNG GENTLEMAN CALLER. THANK YOU, DARLING.

My Review: Series mysteries are about the maintenance of what the Egyptian pharaohs called "Ma'at". The serious work of maintiaing the rightness of the world is in the hands of this goddess. The characters are, in the reader's mind, the vehicles for ma'at to act, so we invest in the recurring characters the most thoroughly and readily. Lyle and Manny have good chemistry, are fun to watch as they figure out the boundaries of their relationship.

Plus I agree with the politics in the story. It all adds up to a recommendation for other series-mystery readers, for left-leaning environmentally concerned readers, and those who really like having A Villain in their crime fiction.

>232 richardderus: I may have to check that one out! Thanks for the recommendation, RD.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** and hopes that you have a terrific Tuesday!

BURGOINE #026

Manny Porter and the Yuletide Murder (Tinker Creek Series #2) by D.C. Robeline

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Riding a tide of success after helping his boyfriend, Lyle, save their neighborhood of Tinker Creek from predatory developers, reporter Manny Porter throws himself into his career and community activism. The last thing he expects is to discover the body of prominent research scientist Phillip Nikolaidis during a laboratory tour. Murder can strike anywhere, and all the evidence points toward Tristan DeJesus, Manny’s nineteen-year-old mentee.
Manny only has the holiday season to overcome jealous colleagues, an angry corporation, and a skeptical publisher to discover who killed Nikolaidis before the judicial system condemns an innocent man to lethal injection.

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

My Review: I wasn't surprised about Manny's love, Lyle, being so very supportive of his dangerous determination to solve a tricky, twisty case until I thought about the Rules of Series Mysteries: Conflict with the spouse is supposed to be a given because it gives the writer an extra source of tension. I like this model, loving and supportive, a lot. I'm all over any story that models not accepting the corporate world's actions and excuses as valid. This story met that need and trumped it with use of the offending party's tactics against them.

Also, Christmas. I am a sucker for holiday stories. I loved that Manny and Lyle were shown to be involved in this life event as well as the crime-solving goodness. The series has a fan in me.

>232 richardderus: >234 richardderus: I'm almost persuaded to look this series up. The Robeline books look good! Have a great day, Richard. Stay cool!

Karen O

Good afternoon and evening, good Richard! I am staying in today and hoping that Advil doses will put my sciatic nerve back to sleep. Yesterday I walked more like Mr. Biden than ever.
I sigh for ocean breezes. Enjoy yours!

Back to Honor and Hell and the LACs!

>235 klobrien2: Howdy, Karen O.! *smooch*

I'm actually really cool today...even chilly, for some reason. No fever, or I'd swear I was getting ill.

>236 LizzieD: Hiya Peggy! I know you'd be thrilled by the breeze, but less so by the obnoxiously bright sunshine. Hurts my eyes.

I'm finishing up some more mystery-series reviewing. I'm pretty sure I've reached mystery saturation. *smooch*

BURGOINE #027 Devil's Chew Toy (Hayden & Friends #1) by Rob Osler

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Seattle teacher and part-time blogger Hayden McCall wakes up in a stranger's bed alone, half-naked and sporting one hell of a shiner. Then the police come knocking on the door. It seems that Latino dancer Camilo Rodriguez has gone missing and they suspect foul play. What happened the night before? And where is Camilo?

Determined to find answers, Hayden seeks out two of Camilo's friends—Hollister and Burley—both lesbians and both fiercely devoted to their friend. From them, Hayden learns that Camilo is a "Dreamer" whose parents had been deported years earlier, and whose sister, Daniela, is presumed to have returned to Venezuela with them. Convinced that the cops won't take a brown boy's disappearance seriously, the girls join Hayden's hunt for Camilo.

The first clues turn up at Barkingham Palace, a pet store where Camilo had taken a part-time job. The store's owner, Della Rupert, claims ignorance, but Hayden knows something is up. And then there's Camilo's ex-boyfriend, Ryan, who's suddenly grown inexplicably wealthy. When Hayden and Hollister follow Ryan to a secure airport warehouse, they make a shocking connection between him and Della—and uncover the twisted scheme that's made both of them rich.

The trail of clues leads them to the grounds of a magnificent estate on an island in Puget Sound, where they'll finally learn the truth about Camilo's disappearance—and the fate of his family.

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT OF MY LOCAL LIBRARY. USE THEIR SERVICES OFTEN, THEY NEED US!

My Review: A book about Commander the dog would be great, please and thank you. Quozy mystery that doesn't have loads of smexytimes. As that was exactly what I wanted to read, I got my wish. The story felt more than usually contrived...the way the sleuth gets drawn in to the crime was in no way credible outside a novel...but contained so much verve and energy in its pacing that I simply could not bring myself to care about suchlike silliness.

Again this month I'm kept purring by the presence of social attitudes I share. This time the author takes on anti-queer policing attitudes and the nonsensical attitudes towards immigrants infesting our political landscape. The sleuth finds himself dealing with bullying, unsurprisingly as he's short and queer, so we get that facet of stakes-making, too. None of these are in any way added onto the story being told. Fun reading with good messaging.

BURGOINE #028 Cirque du Slay (Hayden & Friends #2) by Rob Osler

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In this rollicking mystery, perfect for fans of Steven Rowley and Elle Cosimano, the circus becomes the stage for a high-profile murder investigation.

With quirky LGBTQ+ amateur sleuths, Cirque du Slay will delight readers looking for a madcap mystery with high-flying excitement!

Pint-sized Seattle middle school teacher and gay dating blogger Hayden McCall and his best friend Hollister are invited to a fundraiser for Bakers Without Borders. The celebrity performer, Kennedy Osaka, is the artistic director of Mysterium, an upscale circus arts show combining magic, acrobatics, and a Michelin-star dinner. But Kennedy is a no-show—until she’s found dead in her hotel suite.

When frenemy Sarah Lee is discovered in the room with the body, Hayden and Hollister are on the case to find the real culprit before Sarah Lee is charged with the crime.

The suspects for the murder are as unique as Mysterium a Russian trapeze artist, a cowgirl comedian sharp-shooter, an over-cologned operations director, a feisty, green-haired costume manager, and Adrenalin!, a sexy troop of Romanian male acrobats...If Hayden and Hollister are to clear Sarah Lee of suspicion, they’ll have to outsmart a killer for whom trickery is art.

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

My Review: Like the first in the series, it's very unlikely to occur in real life but it doesn't matter. Too much fun was happening to make it at all important in this quozy. I'm sure the jokes about a woman's avoidupois will put off plenty of readers but the fact is she uses them to reclaim unkindness the same way we're using "queer" these days. That's not to say the conversion is perfect...Hayden likening her to a mattress is cringey indeed...as is her being a lesbian named Burley, so be aware of this, more sensitive readers of size.

The Romanian acrobats in the circus setting are played for fun, too, but there's less to interpret in their presentation. I thought Hayden's interpolated blog posts were deployed well. Sometimes that knowing wink actually helps the context get established in the reader's mind. Entertaining fun but not as much in my wheelhouse as the first one.

>239 richardderus: glad there was just enough smexytimes in the first of the series for ya.

I like that your new label is Bibliopusher *smirk*

‘Morning, RDear. Happiest of Wednesdays to you.

>232 richardderus: Looks like a book right up my alley. However, at $9.99/Kindle, I’ll have to pass for now and just follow the author and put this book on my wish list.

>240 richardderus: I’m less a reader of size these days than I was almost 3 years ago, but still… hard pass. And look at you not bailing because of a wink.

>241 LovingLit: Richard has been a Bibliopusher for years, Megan, but I absolutely love this moniker. My wallet and Library genuflect at the alter of his taste.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

104 Selamlik by Khaled Alesmael (tr. Leri Price)

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: An emotional and unflinching story about Arab masculinity and homoeroticism

Furat, a Syrian in his early 20s, visits Sibki Park in Damascus, which serves as a gathering place for gay men from all over the city. He learns about the Hammams, secret meeting places for gays located throughout the old city.

Inside these public baths, the air is thick with the scent of bay laurel soap, and naked men hide in the steam. Despite society, religion and regime disapproval, Furat finds the love he seeks just before being forced to flee as his world changes. Later on, Furat wakes up in a cold sweat at an asylum in the Swedish forest recalling a terrifying dream in which he was blindfolded and bound. Having seen the horrific clips of what extremists do to gays circulating on the internet, he begins to write about his experience while locked in the toilet.

This is the story of Furat's journey, along with that of other refugees, as they struggle against physical and economic challenges, migration laws, and deep-seated fears of loss, shame, and hatred. However, amid these difficulties also lie moments of passion and pleasure. Despite everything, Furat remains steadfast in his pursuit of love.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: This story felt to me like a roadmap of what the great-haters want gay life to become in the US. Religious nuts are not to be trusted with the well being of those they don't like. Their allgedly holy book allows things well beyond the pale in the modern world. That's where the damn things belong, beyond the pale.

Think I'm being strident again? Read Furat's story, much like the author's own, to see how disfiguringly awful it is to be denied expression of your honest, authentic self.

The book isn't long, under two hundred pages, and covers three countries that create, dislike, or accept refugees. Syria's pre-civil-war accommodation of gay men wasn't acceptance, exactly, more a species of tolerance..."don't make us notice you, stay over there"...and Turkey's is roughly similar. Furat's deep discomfort dealing with the straight men (and "straight" men) who surrpund him comes vibrating off the page. The author clearly drew this from his own lived experience. It's a revelation of self that would likely get him beaten or worse in most macho cultures.

The way the novel is structured is likely going to put some people off. I hope you'll think of the structure as a way of communicating Furat's lived experience of fragmentation and alienation; as a deliberate and careful evocation of the world as it appears to someone who has no home, never felt at home, never had more than toleration offered to him. The jagged edges of severed relationships...what happened to Ali?...are the price exacted by the great-haters for one's being alive in "their" world.

"Their" world definitely includes the world of Sweden. This paragon of accepting refugees hasn't told its people that kindness and acceptance might be better for all concerned than rejection and intolerance. That's rich coming from an American, I agree, but the fact is that my majority-immigrant country has its head up its religious-nut ass. I would hope for better from the Swedes. I would, it seems, be wrong. Furat's life is better. It's not in danger anymore. His Life is. This Life, this wonderful world of lovingkindness and acceptance, of deep connection and relationship, is still beyond his reach.

The title's a word that describes and defines the concept gay men, all that I've known in my nearing-seventy years on earth, want: a place of intimate connection of men's bodies and minds.

The story has its challenges for the reader. It's not going to make the eww-ick homophobes blench. It's not going to make the linear-story reader into a fan of stream of consciousness. It's not the book's job. It is going to give its readers a personal intimate view of the way a man of multiple marginalizations navigates becoming his authentic self.

That, for this reader, is a beautiful gift.

Gosh, still here? I'm surprised I've caught you before you've scarpered again.

>232 richardderus: >234 richardderus: Intriguing, if mysteries were my thing.

>243 richardderus: I bought Selamilk yesterday but I'm engrossed with the Cazalet's now so it will be a bit before I get to it.

I didn't know about "bibliopusher" but it's the perfect name for you :)

>241 LovingLit: Heh! Well, it *does* fit me so no sense resisting it. Glad to see you, dear lady.

>242 karenmarie: Wednesday orisons, Horrible. I agree that >232 richardderus: is very much up your alley...the authot's been lurking in you alley waiting to mug you for a few sawbucks for ages now. The way the books are written will, I think, be catnip to you.

The Oslers? Not for you. Nor would I ever have bought them after sampling them. Just too many things I like better to spend money on.

Bibliopushingly yours

>244 humouress: Yes, your clandestine threats and eville curses have had their desired effect and people are ignoring me in droves. Soon the cobwebs and dustbunnies will take over the place from sheer neglect. *mournful sigh*

>245 RebaRelishesReading: Oh goody good good, Reba! It's a very good read indeed. The Cazalets, once started, are a must-finish series. A bit like Mazo de la Roche's Jalna books, they just refuse to leave your brain alone once they're in.

I'lll happily feed the story-addiction of all and sundry. I make no bones about it. *preen*

>243 richardderus: Oh, RDBPaL*, that is too intense for me in my still-fragile state. I'm still tired, and I would have thought that 3 months was plenty of recovery time since I had mourned each loss in my mama's life as it happened.
Heather Cox Richardson's letter this morning gave me chills that I don't welcome even in today's heat.

>249 richardderus: I tried to read the Cazalets too soon after Mary Hocking's *Good Daughters* and my memory was that I liked the latter better than the former. I just looked in my library and see that I scored the first of the former a half star higher than the first of the latter. Memory!!!

*smooch*

*Richard Derus Bibliopusher at Large

Wednesday *smooch* and hope the books are treating you well.

Is it just me, or are these addicts oblivious to anything but their rush of hate and evil?

>248 richardderus: I know, it’s dreadfully neglected around here *wading through the tumbleweed*

>250 LizzieD: Unchill, Peggy me lurve, the day is the day and will be what you love best in the moment. Horrifying piece of insight, eh what? Funny how mourning ≠ sadness, isn't it. I'm not sure I've ever stopped mourning my dear BJ, dead 32 years; I'm not sad about that life or its absence, but I'm always re-formed by *his* absence.

Bibliopushingly yours

>251 bell7: *smooch*

I'm happy to report that the books have, for the most part, been treating me well indeed.

>253 humouress: *neglected mournful sigh* Why, I think I'll even be able to put June's EOM & EOQ reports in this thread! What a travesty! get away you damned tumbleweed See? It's like no one even looks in anymore.

You got me with the Oslers, Richard. Thankfully my library has them because I am running out of room for books.

Sweet Thursday, Richard. Hooray for a cool down. A mere 73F today. It will feel glorious. A pickleball day. Hope you also have some relief arriving soon.

>252 richardderus: That about sums it up! 😧

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Thursday.

>252 richardderus: Visceral, to the point. *shudder*

*smooch* from your own Horrible

105 Queer as Camp: Essays on Summer, Style, and Sexuality edited by Kenneth B. Kidd and Derritt Mason

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: To camp means to occupy a place and/or time provisionally or under special circumstances. To camp can also mean to queer. And for many children and young adults, summer camp is a formative experience mixed with homosocial structure and homoerotic longing. In Queer as Camp, editors Kenneth B. Kidd and Derritt Mason curate a collection of essays and critical memoirs exploring the intersections of "queer" and "camp," focusing especially on camp as an alternative and potentially nonnormative place and/or time.

Exploring questions of identity, desire, and social formation, Queer as Camp delves into the diverse and queer-enabling dimensions of particular camp/sites, from traditional iterations of camp to camp-like ventures, literary and filmic texts about camp across a range of genres (fantasy, horror, realistic fiction, graphic novels), as well as the notorious appropriation of Indigenous life and the consequences of "playing Indian."

These accessible, engaging essays examine, variously, camp as a queer place and/or the experiences of queers at camp, including Vermont's Indian Brook, a single-sex girls' camp that has struggled with the inclusion of nonbinary and transgender campers and staff; the role of Jewish summer camp as a complicated site of sexuality, social bonding, and citizen-making as well as a potentially if not routinely queer-affirming place. They also attend to cinematic and literary representations of camp, such as the Eisner award-winning comic series Lumberjanes, which revitalizes and revises the century-old Girl Scout story; Disney's Paul Bunyan, a short film that plays up male homosociality and cross-species bonding while inviting queer identification in the process; Sleepaway Camp, a horror film that exposes and deconstructs anxieties about the gendered body; and Wes Anderson's critically acclaimed Moonrise Kingdom, which evokes dreams of escape, transformation, and other ways of being in the world.

Highly interdisciplinary in scope, Queer as Camp reflects on camp and Camp with candor, insight, and often humor.

Contributors: Kyle Eveleth, D. Gilson, Charlie Hailey, Ana M. Jimenez-Moreno, Kathryn R. Kent, Mark Lipton, Kerry Mallan, Chris McGee, Roderick McGillis, Tammy Mielke, Alexis Mitchell, Flavia Musinsky, Daniel Mallory Ortberg, Annebella Pollen, Andrew J. Trevarrow, Paul Venzo, Joshua Whitehead

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Camp. One set of four letters, widely divergent meanings to different groups. Don't think these essays, from the queer-studies, and mostly queer, people listed above are in any way insensible of this dichotomy. It gets played with a lot.

One note I'll give you before you even think about reading the collection: Read Sontag's Notes on Camp before you get into these weeds. Everyone herein reproduced has, says so, and/or refers to that work. Besides it's well worth reading just because.

Academocs are famous for writing at each other, Essays and articles in their specialist subjects used a shared vocabulary that most of us do not share. That's certainly true of this collection's contents. Yet I've given it four stars. That's all down to the fact that the essayists have all tied their thoughts either to pop-cultural texts like Mielke and Trevarrow's engrossing "Camping with Walt Disney’s Paul Bunyan: An Essay Short" and Kyle Eveleth's "Striking Camp: Empowerment and Re-Presentation in Lumberjanes", which might be my favorite essay in the whole thing; or to experiences of going to summer camp that I could relate to, like D. Gilson's "Notes on Church Camp" which was a tough read for me.

What I got from this assemblage of academic thought about youthful queerness was the striking, clarifying bolt of insight that I was supposed to feel the exclusion and rejection of camp. It was meant to, designed to, cause this Otherness I knew I had to be thrown (verb not chosen lightly) into high relief. I was *intended* to feel the hostility of my peers so I would buckle down and try to be like them.

Fat chance.

The other reason for a boy like me to go to camp, to be a camper, was to show to the other boys that I was fair game. As long as I failed at their tasks, it was okay to be cruel...it was expected. "Letting the kids sort themselves out" was the way the appalling cruelty of it was sold to parents.

That has never been clearer than after reading these stories of queer camping experiences. I don't know who among the readers of my blog will most likely want to spend the high price of the collection; I hope that, for anyone interested in the subject, their local library will step in and add this to the extant sociology texts, or if you live in an enlightened place, their queer studies collection.

>257 Familyhistorian: Oh I'm so pleased, Meg! They're fun reads. Even better when the library buys them. They're stupid expensive.

>258 msf59: 73°! Lovely at any time, but after the 90+ you've suffered it must feel like flannel-sheets weather. It'll be okay here, not quite 80° but still humid. That's what I look forward to...dryer weather.

Enjoy pickleball.

>259 karenmarie: *shudder* is le mot juste.

Happy Thursday, Horrible! *smooch*

106 Trans Medicine by stef m. shuster

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A rich examination of the history of trans medicine and current day practice

Surfacing in the mid-twentieth century, yet shrouded in social stigma, transgender medicine is now a rapidly growing medical field. In Trans Medicine, stef shuster makes an important intervention in how we understand the development of this field and how it is being used to "treat" gender identity today.

Drawing on interviews with medical providers as well as ethnographic and archival research, shuster examines how health professionals approach patients who seek gender-affirming care. From genital reconstructions to hormone injections, the practice of trans medicine charts new medical ground, compelling medical professionals to plan treatments without widescale clinical trials to back them up. Relying on cultural norms and gut instincts to inform their treatment plans, shuster shows how medical providers' lack of clinical experience and scientific research undermines their ability to interact with patients, craft treatment plans, and make medical decisions. This situation defies how providers are trained to work with patients and creates uncertainty. As providers navigate the developing knowledge surrounding the medical care of trans folk, Trans Medicine offers a rare opportunity to understand how providers make decisions while facing challenges to their expertise and, in the process, have acquired authority not only over clinical outcomes, but over gender itself.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: "Gender-affirming care" is a phrase that, to me, ought to be unexceptionable, even anodyne. Instead it causes fury and terror among people who subscribe to high-control religious and social systems.

I've never understood why.

I'm an old, cisqueer, white guy. I participate in several streams of privilege. I have no tiniest sense that my privilege is in any way threatened by the existence and/or acceptance and/or celebration of people not like me. The threats to my privilege come from those who want to deny the legitimacy of any of the founts of the privileges I enjoy. Trans folk aren't among those people as far as I can tell.

And this is despite the long, tragic history of gender-affirming care's resisters. That same kind of control is what we all agree is terrible about anti-Semitism. But it's okay when directed against those transgender...? Why? Because you, o great-hater, aren't yourself trans? Are you Jewish? Does that make hating Jews okay? Difference is not evidence of turpitude, or some kind of curse; spectra are the norm in all systems of what we call (without knowing what it means) the real world. We've barely begun to understand the world as it is. Part of that learning is, of necessity, not knowing, having certainty taken from us.

Somehow this kind of person doesn't ever answer these kinds of questions or address these realities. Their old certainties feel too comfy to give them up.

Most of us who aren't trans have no concept of what it takes to get access to gender-affirming care. I had only an inkling before I read this book. My inkling is still more than most have, and I'm now au fait with a much greater swath of how the concept of affirming the gender of a trans person came about. How it's been debated and designed to exclude, how it's been denied...a human-rights violation if there ever was one...how it's been weaponized and reshaped by the great-haters.

I have never met a trans person who is anything but kind, caring, and decent. Not one trans person I know, or know of, has ever advocated for anything remotely like enforcing their identity on anyone. The canard that education about trans people makes more trans people is a (deliberate, says my inner cynic) misframing of the truth: Education gives trans people access to an identity. To a word, an idea, that they know from the inside describes and delineates them. Had I grown up twenty years before I did, I would never have been aware or brave enough to invent gayness for myself. Education doesn't create difference, it enables the different to define themselves, to discover they are not the first, the only, the freak.

Gender affirmation will never be easy for some, there are trans people who struggle with it, too. This is a huge reason it needs affirming care from trained professionals. "It costs too much" is an absurd sentence coming from anyone in the richest country...the richest culture...there has ever been on the planet. No one should go without in a world of obscene abundance. That most definitely includes trans folk.

This book's essay-and-excerpt fabric will keep some readers from fully investing in the concepts. I found the sheer breadth of identities all speaking in support of trans-affirming care to be one of the greatest strengths of the read. I encourage other allies, and those who simply do not understand the idea of transness, to pick the book up. It can, if you decide to allow it to, help you find your empathy for these, our sibling humans.

>243 richardderus: I know that my chances of ever getting hold of the book are not great, but I am adding it to the BlackHole anyway. Maybe I will get lucky.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** to my friendly neighborhood bibliopusher. . .

>254 richardderus: Insightful as ever, Richard. Peace with a *smooch*

>260 richardderus:. >264 richardderus: Excellent reviews, Richard. Informative, not just about the books, but about their subjects in general. I struggled with Sontag's essay (as I do with most of her work)...it always seemed to me she was assuming more knowledge on the reader's part going in than I had in my data banks. I don't expect I'll try to read either of these collections, but I'm very glad they exist. Because "Education doesn't create difference, it enables the different to define themselves, to discover they are not the first, the only, the freak." Education on so many topics seems to frighten the unenlightened. I don't get it either.

>265 alcottacre: How do, Stasia, I'll hope for a small miracle for you.

*smooch*

>266 LizzieD: Peggy me lurve, that's a lovely reframing of "bitterly grieving old grouch" and I appreciate it.

*smooch*

>267 laytonwoman3rd: Thank you most kindly, Linda3rd, I'm pleased you found value in the reviews. I'm pretty sure the education fear is the same thing as the uniquely Murrikin 'tude of "my iggermunt opinion is just as good as your book-larnin'" which is arrant nonsense but is firmly, ineradicably entwined in the make-up of the country's lower classes.

Gorram Andrew Jackson. His foul shade continues to pervert the country.

107 The Fitful Sleep of Immigrants by Orlando Ortega-Medina

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Award-winning author and immigration attorney Orlando Ortega-Medina returns to 1990s San Francisco in The Fitful Sleep of Immigrants, a powerful family drama that plays out within a captivating legal thriller.

Attorney Marc Mendes, the estranged son of a prominent rabbi and a burned-out lawyer with addiction issues, plots his exit from the big city to a more peaceful life in idyllic Napa Valley. But before he can realize his dream, the US government summons his Salvadoran life-partner Isaac Perez to immigration court, threatening him with deportation.

As Marc battles to save Isaac, his world is further upended by a dark and alluring client, who aims to tempt him away from his messy life. Torn between his commitment to Isaac and the pain-numbing escapism offered by his client, Marc is forced to choose between the lesser of two evils while confronting his twin demons of past addiction and guilt over the death of his first lover.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Very interesting take on the insanely vicious US immigration system pre-marriage equality. Add in a battle against the monster of addiction and you have quite a ride of a read.

People driven to action by ever more foreclosed options to achieve their goals are the raw meat whose roast-and-veggies we call fiction. Marc's dark past includes substance abuse and a very troubling death. He's haunted by the way his ability to be there for and give help to Isaac is limited by his past.

So far, so good. The story's got lots of material anyone over, say, 25 or 30 will relate to. What keeps a fifth star off my rating is the sheer idiocy of a lawyer not knowing for sure and certain his own intimate partner's immigration status! He wasn't born in the US, and you never asked? "Honeybunch, let's get you a bank account, so whip out the green card." This is lax in the extreme and no lawyer I've ever known would just not think to check on this even if not formally.

While I had fun reading the book I was never swept into the story. It is all down to me being picky about the thinking-through of characters' reasonable actions and responses.

108 The Savior of 6th Street by Orlando Ortega-Medina

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Urban Magical realism novel for fans of Haruki Murakami, Toni Morrison, and Junot Diaz

Deserted by his father at the age of four and raised by his voodoo queen mother on the fringes of Skid Row, Los Angeles street artist Virgilio Santos believes it his mission to save the down-and-outers in his neighborhood. But when he crosses paths with Beatrice Schein, an alluring Westside art collector with an aim to promote him to the international art world, Virgilio is tempted to turn his back on his friends. That is, until he discovers that Beatrice's father is a principal financier of organized crime in his neighborhood with plans to tear it all down for redevelopment.

'Rendered with urgent intensity, The Savior of 6th Street is a literary tour de force that confirms Orlando Ortega-Medina as one of the most original storytellers of our time.' (quote unattributed in the original)

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

My Review: Need I belabor the "Virgilio/Virgil" and "Beatrice" call-backs to The Divine Comedy? There's really all you need to know in this book's defecnse. We're on A Quest, we will be meeting adversaries, we will not feel fully present in the narrative...unless the author puts it in the first person of course! So the author puts it in the first person.

The inclusion of a trans character in Concha gets this book a slot in the #PrideMonth blast. Also, the author's latesr book will be reviews in less than an hour. The fact is, I'm not a fan of this fantasy retelling of Divine Comedy. Santería, the magic system we get in this magical-realist novel, does as little for me as other variations on catholicsm do. Putting it in a first-person retelling of Dante's epically long, epically weird poen, only in prose, got an amused smile at the conceit. The execution doesn't match the ambition for me.

As rhetorical stand-ins for the forces of gentrification as expressions of the rancid neoliberal hellscape of 21st century LA, the author's villains are fine caricatures. The issue of writing an otherwise straightforward story of a talented, impoverished nobody finding his voice and getting the attention he merits as a modern take on a world literarure monadnock is the characters in the former need to be fleshed out. The characters need to command my sympathy and attention in immediate ways. In the latter, the characters are archetypes, are so removed from any need to know more than a liberal-arts course teaches you about them (relegated to the footnotes) that drawing deeper lines around them is akin to touching up Mona Lisa with some pink acrylic to make her skin look more "realistic".

A book equivalent of a pot of pink acrylic gets stars for ambition not achievement.

‘Morning, RDear. Happiest of Fridays to you.

>264 richardderus: I participate in several streams of privilege. Ah. Interesting way of putting it.

>270 richardderus: A Firefly reference! Makes me happy.

>271 richardderus: Not thinking about his partner’s immigration status would startle me, too, and thus prevents me from wanting to read it.

>272 richardderus: You won’t be surprised that this one doesn’t trip my trigger.

*smooch*

>273 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible! Happy cake day tomorrow.

Privilege seems to me to be a huge, rushing river of benefits and exclusives and opportunities. It has eddies where some poorer swimmers can get a little further ahead than they would otherwise but are mostly sidelined and kept in place. It has rapids that sink some and chuck others onto the bank. There are many sidestreams that feed into it. And, for the most part, the boat your ancestors passed on to you is as good as you'll ever get.

I think we need more careful rivercraft to get better boats for more people.

Jackson brings out my need to use Language, so Firefly to the rescue! Neither of today's reviews is of a book I'm recommending. Nope. No.

*smooch*

Good afternoon, Richard! I'm not likely to have run into Ortega-Medina, but I might have been tempted if I had. I am now warned off!

Our minds are in sync on white and economic privilege although yours is more poetic (!) than mine. Your rushing river also seems bottomless. I'll never get deep enough to know all the ways I've benefited from choosing the right parents because it does rush too quickly for me to get a better look. We always had enough plus a little but not as much as my friends, and that has always seemed a good place to be financially. The whiteness is the part I can't escape on the one hand, or know how to see clearly on the other. Now there's a mixed metaphor for you in case you needed one.

*smooch*

>275 LizzieD: Privilege as a river is the metaphor I've always used in my head because bigger boats on rivers squeeze the remaining space on a river moreso than an ocean...the depth of draft causes more problems for those behind...etc etc.

Rob says this is overintellectualizing, the truth is it's a bonfire and I'm on the warm circle...that feels to him more organic. I don't know, it's all just trying to come to terms with the way shit is. I wish, at times like this, I was stupid or lazy and could just ignore the whole shitshow and accept my unearned goodies thoughtlessly.

All y'all go look at Wikipedia's featured article for today, 28 June, here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Heh.

Mornin' Richard. Wishing you a fine Friday :)

>278 RebaRelishesReading: Greetings and solicitations, Reba! I'm still chortling over "Well he would, wouldn't he?"

I hope your Friday's full of snorts and giggles, me lurve.

My BookTube pal Bryce/ShelfCentered did a booktag called The Night Club Book Tag on his channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYjiALA8fSw
He's into fantasy, which I ain't, but I'm intrigued by the idea. I'm adding a rule he didn't have, viz.: I'm limiting myself to books I've read since my strokes in January 2023. Obvs, no genre limitations applied...and how hard this is to do, even if I've limited myself to cut down the horrifying welter of work I've read in almost sixty years of reading.
I'll be working on this as the days go by.

The 12 Prompts:
1 - "Cocktail Hour" - Name a book you that you think pairs perfectly with your favorite drink.
2 - "Neon Lights" - Name a book with a cover that immediately grabbed your attention like bright lights in a club."
3 - "The Bouncer" - What book did you have to put down because it just wasn't letting you in?"
4 - "DJ's Choice" - What book would you recommend as the perfect read for someone new to the fantasy genre?
5 - "Disco Ball" - Name a book that made you feel like you were part of a vibrant, glittering world."
6 - "Dance Floor Diva" - What book had you dancing with excitement from the first page to the last?
7 - "Guest List" - Which author would you invite to an exclusive book-themed party and why?"
8 - "VIP Entrance" - Which book did you feel privileged to read before it became more widely popular?"
9 - "Dance Battle" - Which two characters from different books would you love to see face off in a dance battle?"
10 - "Midnight Read" - What's a book you couldn't put down and ended up reading all night?
11 - "After-Party" - What book left you with a hangover, unable to start a new read immediately after finishing it?
12 - "Late Night Conversations" - Which book left you thinking deeply or wanting to discuss it with others late into the night?

Oops, missed a thread. Sorry to hear about your foot RD. Any progress yet?

Happy weekend,Richard!

>281 Caroline_McElwee: Threads come, threads go...you're here now so I'm that much happier, Caro.

>282 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita! Back at'cha!

((Hugs)) and **smooches** and hopes for a super Saturday, RD!

109 The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen (The Doomsday Books #1) by K.J. Charles

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Abandoned by his father, Gareth Inglis grew up lonely, prickly, and well-used to disappointment. Still, he longs for a connection. When he meets a charming stranger, he falls head over heels—until everything goes wrong and he's left alone again. Then Gareth's father dies, turning the shabby London clerk into Sir Gareth, with a grand house on the remote Romney Marsh and a family he doesn't know.

The Marsh is another world, a strange, empty place notorious for its ruthless gangs of smugglers. And one of them is dangerously familiar...

Joss Doomsday has run the Doomsday smuggling clan since he was a boy. When the new baronet—his old lover—agrees to testify against Joss's sister, Joss acts fast to stop him. Their reunion is anything but happy, yet after the dust settles, neither can stay away. Soon, all Joss and Gareth want is the chance to be together. But the bleak, bare Marsh holds deadly secrets. And when Gareth finds himself threatened from every side, the gentleman and the smuggler must trust one another not just with their hearts, but with their lives.

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT OF MY LOCAL LIBRARY. USE THEIR SERVICES OFTEN, THEY NEED US!

My Review: The way I know I'm reading a KJ Charles story is when the men falling in love have their life's work established, are busy doing it, and do not need anything to make life more complicated for them. Then they meet/reconnect when they're just about out of strength. After that, they need the other to be able to do their work because strength supported is powerful in all new ways.

I love this story dynamic.

So I was sure to be a happy old reader, and mirabile dictu in light of recent disappointments, so I was. Joss made me smile with his assumption of the mantle of Head of Household. He clearly was born for the role. The ways in which his Head-ness manifested weren't always clear because he would use them in the interests of everyone, of the family he heads but also the community at large.

Gareth, the baronet "in charge" of the whole community, sees Joss's activities from a high-control perspective. He's expected to enforce The Law. He doesn't much like this burden because he isn't naturally assertive. In the course of doing his duty, he and Joss come into conflict. Nothing makes your feelings clearer than conflict. Gareth and Joss...well...there's a reason Author Charles writes romances. Their bond, as she depicts it, is powerful and undeniable. This cross-class pairing allows each to understand the nature of the social system they live and love within.

As is usual in the genre, the romance succeeds...more believably than a cross-class romance usually does because rhe men are each the head of their world; because the men are each the inadequately trained inheritors of their power; and because they are similarly happy to reform their youthful bond.

I think prospective readers should know going in that the story is told in a regional voice, a dialect of sorts that is rooted in a specific place and its people; others, outsiders within the story, comment on its peculiarity so this is very obviously meant to convey the social bonds that exist in the great mass of the people. I found it effective at that and, for my reader's ear, quite musical and engaging. Others might not. As part of the author's larger purpose of creating a world as a setting for her story, this works very well. As a facet of worldbuilding in general it's very hard to pull off. Author Charles's previous books have made it clear she is a Master of this art. The Marsh, a real place I'm told, is vivid in my mind's eye without feeling overdetailed.

Straight people are strongly cautioned. Not safe for "eww-ick" homophobes. I'd call the steam level moderate, but I can—and have—fallen asleep during a porn film. The sex in the story is not of prurient intent. It is there as an enhancement of the reader's understanding of the development of each man's connection to and acceptance of the other. It is also a clear signal of the characters' increasing awareness of the world outside their Marsh as different, as Other...and this Othering lets them gain space for their Forbidden Love to grow and nurture not only their partner but their fellow Marsh inhabitants.

Since I read these stories for fantasy fulfillment, I got what I wanted. I hope you'll try Author Charles's many terrific tales. Starting here is a good idea.

Happy Saturday, Richard. Taking a break from pickleball, to do some solo birding. I have been neglecting the birdies. Have a good weekend, my friend.

>285 alcottacre: *smoochiesmoochsmooch*

>287 msf59: Thanks, Mark! It's cloudy and low 70s today so I'm happy as a dog in a boneyard.

BURGOINE #029

Puzzle for Two by Josh Lanyon

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: It was like those crazy detective novels he read as a kid…

Fledging PI Zachariah Davies’s wealthy and eccentric client, toymaker Alton Beacher, wants to hire an investigator who can pose as his boyfriend while figuring out who is behind the recent attempts on his life. And Zach, struggling to save the business his father built, is just desperate enough to set aside his misgivings and take the job.

But it doesn’t take long for Zach to realize all is not as it seems (and, given that it all seems pretty weird…). The only person he can turn to for help is equally struggling, equally desperate–but a whole lot more experienced–rival PI Flint Carey.

Former Marine Flint has been waiting for Zach to throw in the towel and sell whatever’s left of the Davies Detective Agency to him. Still, he’s unwillingly attracted to the game but inexperienced accountant-turned-shamus, and can’t help offering a helping hand when Zach runs into trouble.

Especially when it’s hard to imagine any worse trouble than having your client murdered.

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

My Review: Fake dating, faking coming out as gay...this feels like something from the Aughties being republished a bit after its best-before date.

The men are bisexual. There's a LOT of lying around this subject. I think the banter between the men as they fall in love is what saves the read for me. A lot of time has passed, a lot of progress has been made; the cutesy-coy marketing campaign for Deadpool's 2024 film featuring superheros "playing gay" for laffs hits worse than this book's sexuality shenanigans.

But not a lot.

BURGOINE #030

Come Unto These Yellow Sands by Josh Lanyon

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Once a bad boy, the only lines Professor Sebastian Swift does these days are Browning, Frost and Cummings. When a student he helped to disappear becomes a suspect in a murder, he races to find the boy and convince him to give himself up before his police chief lover figures out he’s involved.

Max likes being lied to even less than he likes sonnets. Yet his instincts—and his heart—tell him his lover is being played. Max can forgive lies and deception, but a dangerous enemy may not stop until Swift is heading up his own dead poet’s society.

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

My Review: Wow. More lies and relationship fakery...the one who allegedly puts up the barriers and resists the relationship deepening is suddenly the first to utter The Big Three? Hm. The idea of these two being together is, uhhh, unlikely; but the reason they get together does support the connection forming. Again, it's the banter that keeps me going in the book. This time the mystery is one I got invested in.

PEARL RULE #014

Normporn: Queer Viewers and the TV That Soothes Us by Karen Tongson
PEARL RULED @ 33%

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: An irreverent look at the love-hate relationship between queer viewers and mainstream family TV shows like Gilmore Girls and This Is Us

After personal loss, political upheaval, and the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us craved a return to business as usual, the mundane, the middlebrow. We turned to TV to find these things. For nearly forty years, network television has produced a constant stream of “cry-along” sentimental-realist dramedies designed to appeal to liberal, heterosexual, white America. But what makes us keep watching, even though these TV series inevitably fail to reflect who we are?

Revisiting soothing network dramedies like Parenthood, Gilmore Girls, This Is Us, and their late-80s precursor, thirtysomething, Normporn mines the nuanced pleasures and attraction-repulsion queer viewers experience watching liberal family-centric shows. Karen Tongson reflects on how queer cultural observers work through repeated declarations of a “new normal” and flash lifestyle trends like “normcore,” even as the absurdity, aberrance, and violence of our culture intensifies. Normporn allows us to process how the intimate traumas of everyday life depicted on certain TV shows―of love, life, death, and loss―are linked to the collective and historical traumas of their contemporary moments, from financial recessions and political crises to the pandemic.

Normporn asks, what are queers to do―what is anyone to do, really―when we are forced to confront the fact of our own normalcy, and our own privilege, inherited or attained? The fantasies, the utopian impulses, and (paradoxically) the unreality of sentimental realist TV drama creates a productive tension that queer spectators in particular take pleasure in, even as―or precisely because―it lulls us into a sense of boredom and stability that we never thought we could want or have.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.



My Review: By the time I bailed we were still defining terms. Okay, it's an academic book; did it have to be tedious as well? I wish it had been *bad* because I could just ignore it completely.

Not for the distracted or casual reader. I tried three times to get past a third of the way in and could not make it up the hill. I was obviously not the right reader, or did not get to it at the right time. The subject interests me a lot. Well, it will still be on my Kindle if I decide to try again.

‘Morning, RD. Happy Saturday.

>276 richardderus: It’s also timing. The ancestors on my dad’s side all came to North American in the 16 and 1700s, my mom’s ancestors came in the 1850s. All of this was before any thought of restricting borders, although restricting because of ethnic of cultural group was always present.

>286 richardderus: As much as I like MM romances, so far I haven’t dipped into historical MM romances. Pass?

>290 richardderus: and >291 richardderus: Josh Lanyon does not have any Kindle Unlimited titles, so I’ll make a note and pass for now.

*smooch*

BURGOINE #031

Fire from the Sky by Moa Backe Åstot (tr. Eva Apelqvist)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Ánte’s life has been steeped in Sami tradition. It is indisputable to him that he, an only child, will keep working with the reindeer. But there is something else too, something tugging at him. His feelings for his best friend Erik have changed, grown into something bigger. What would people say if they knew? And how does Erik feel? And Erik’s voice just the push of a button away. Ánte couldn’t answer, could he? But how could he ignore it?

Fire From the Sky is a sharp and intelligent story about heritage, family ties and age-old commitments to the past. But also about expectations, compassion, feelings that course through your body like electricity.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: It is very much an intelligent story, and one with 15-plus-appropriate explorations of desire (WITHOUT consummation). As one would expect, it's angsty as all get-out. I was very interested in the Sámi people's culture as presented here. I now know more about reindeer than I ever suspected I didn't know before.

I was less convinced about the boys' separate characters. I think something missing in a lot of YA for my reading taste is that very sense of separate *personhood* not simply different dialogue tags. I sometimes lost track of Erik or Ánte being the speaker. That feels like a quibble as I write it...so, on balance, a "yes, but" recommendation for the Elizabeth Acevedo or MT Anderson reader.

>276 richardderus: "I wish, at times like this, I was stupid or lazy and could just ignore the whole shitshow and accept my unearned goodies thoughtlessly."

This!

>293 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible! I'm so interested in historical MMs that I'm baffled by an uninterest in them. If you decide to start, start with Subtle Blood...1920s espionage, D/s relationship across class boundaries...a few other good things I think you'd really like.

No need to work on the Lanyons. I think my olden-days enthusiasm for her work had its roots in novelty.

Re >276 richardderus:, well...yes, but in a curious way, no. White privilege is an artifact of racism that didn't develop until Jim Crow times, post-Plessy-v-Ferguson. My maternal grandfather, who would not ever countenance the N word, called Italians Dagos and Czechs Bohunks. Those faded from his conversation as he grew more aware that they were part of the same complex of hatreds. He told me this in 1978, so I'm not retrofitting ideas onto behaviors. All part of a discussion about how rights are deeply fraught concepts I initiated after coming out to him.

*smooch*

>295 ArlieS: *sigh*

...further proof the christian gawd really does control the universe in order to maximize suffering...which really makes her their definition of the devil, doesn't it.

>296 humouress: It scares me a little...okay, a lot...when even the resident supervillainess understands the veracity of my sadness stemming from the way no one pays me any attention whatsoever.

JUNE IN REVIEW

On 28 May 2024, when I started my annual #PrideMonth review festival of gayness in literature, I announced in this blog post that I was aiming for five blogged book reviews a week in that extended period...that made twenty-five in total. The Burgoines and Pearl-Rules are not, as they never are, accounted for in my monthly goals. Overall books-read totals are a separate measure of progress, in my mind, from books I read and thought about therefore wanted to review. I got twenty-SIX of those reviews posted, so success plus a tiny margin.

This June/Pride Month I made it a point to review something from every point I could find on the QUILTBAG spectrum. I did okay. I do not have a lot of non-binary or ace/aro books. There are more available than I possess. This is down to my fundamental challenge for a book: Is reading you going to give me something I want to have in exchange for some of my ever-depleting supply of eyeblinks being dedicated to you? I have to be grabbed by anything by or about these siblings whose essence is so very hard for me to grasp. Non-fiction usually wins that battles and I haven't run across a huge amount of it so far.

That blind spot is now foregrounded for rectification during 2025's search for goodies.

On to the peaks and valleys! Peak-peak, pinnacle, above the top reads are so much fun to find. This month had two: The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen and Nicked: A Novel. Both had "It," the combination of story told, style of telling, characters, and settings that causes my heart to race, my adrenal gland to activate, and my mood to stabilize. I'm pretty sure there are going to be few competitors able to best these reads for 2024's six-stars-of-five honor. This being the halfway point, it's not a sure thing but it means whatever comes after these two has its work cut out.

Other good reads were pleasingly common. I think this reading year could be a peak, on current trends, and what better way to celebrate the year I turn 65! *shuddering sobs* sixty-five oh my goddesses I am so bloody old At least I'm alive.

The valleys weren't fun to plumb. I got lucky and only had one real failure to connect this month: Normporn. So disappointing. Simply never took off, the academic nature wasn't to my liking because it was...whatever the opposite of deft...the superlative of clumsy is, that was this read. I disliked Park Cruising but because I didn't agree with its focus, or its point. That's a whole different thing from disappointment. I think Josh Lanyon and I are going to have to part ways here pretty quick. The olde tymmes were more tolerant because there was less choice. These stories, the idea of them, is less okay with me than it would've been earlier in the century because of that. And that covers the valleys. Pretty good going to have that little to whinge about!

I'll do my Q2 assessment in the next thread tomorrow.

Vale Anita Meulstee, I miss you terribly.

>300 richardderus: Vale!

>301 humouress: I'm so pleased she was the thread queen for this thread since it was the last one she will ever visit.

The new thread's up over here:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/361730

Great photo of dear Anita. She had so much more to enjoy.

>303 Caroline_McElwee: Death is indiscriminate, cruelly capricious, and so very often unwelcome. I will very much miss her.

>304 richardderus: Same here. It must be hard on Frank and even more so for her dad.

>305 humouress: Shocking to lose your child, but at NINETY!