Welcome to the February 2025 edition of the Queer Lit Review! This month we have Muslim teens fighting for access to abortion in Texas, a nomad falling for the new guy in town, and an investigator falling for her ex while solving a murder case on a Jupiter college campus.
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Happy Reading!
Title/Author: Unbecoming by Seema Yasmin
Reviewer: Jordan
Summary: Two Muslim teens in Texas, Layla and Noor, fight for access to abortion while harboring big secrets from each other. Layla is pregnant and Noor is investigating missing donation money at the Mosque, each trying to work on their problems without their best friend’s help.
Series/Standalone: Standalone
Genre/Sub-Genre: Teen Fiction
Book Format: Print
Length: 352 pages
LGBTQ+ Orientation: Noor is Pansexual
Content Warnings: Pregnancy and abortion
Well-Written/Editor Needed: Well-written with one major caveat
Would I Recommend?: Yes!
Personal thoughts: This was recommended to me as a book to read because of our current political climate and wow, does it deliver! First off, the cover is gorgeous! Second, I love the representation here. Most of the main characters are people of color and Muslim. Noor, is also pansexual and in a relationship with another girl at school.
This one kept me up late at night as I had trouble putting it down but at least I didn’t miss my stop on my evening commutes! The plot was action-packed and both Noor and Layla narrated every other chapter, keeping me on the edge of my seat.
My only two complaints are that the ending was very rushed and I wish we’d gotten to know JJ a little better. He’s the boy with whom Layla has a relationship with at the beginning of the book, but we don’t see him again until the end. Despite the ending, however, I do highly recommend this one!
Title/Author: Okay Mr. Nice Guy by Hollis Shiloh
Reviewer: Lo
Summary: Bobby, new to town, keeps his head down and works hard. He has debts to pay and a past he'd rather nobody look at too hard. Then he meets Jack, and he's as charmed as everyone else. But there's more to Jack than the town seems to see. Sensitive, musically gifted, and sweet-tempered, the guy lives a nomadic life, arriving for a few months and then leaving again to try and kickstart a music career. Despite Bobby's early resentment of Jack, he's surprised when Jack makes time for him, and begins to fall for him. Could Jack be the boyfriend he's been looking for?
Series/Standalone: Standalone
Genre/Sub-Genre: New Adult/ Small Town Romance Book
Format: eBook
Length: 185 pages
LGBTQ+ Orientation: Gay/Achillean
HEA/HFN: Yes
Content Warnings: Mentions of abusive/neglectful parents, food insecurity, parental death, family member with cancer, prior incarceration
Ratio of Sex/Plot: Actually no on-page sex. There are references to it and it is explicitly stated that they have sex but nothing on page.
Well-Written/Editor Needed: An editor is definitely needed
Would I Recommend it?: The book is short and sweet without major conflicts so if you need something to get you through a gap in a big series or if you are in a reading slump and want to ease your way back in, then yes, I’d recommend it. However, this is not a book I’d gush about and strongly suggest as someone’s “next big read.”
Personal Thoughts: The writing and grammar needed another pass or two for edits. Despite how sweet the story was, a lot of it was just Bobby's internal monologue meaning that most of the time nothing was actually happening. It was just Bobby being anxious and overthinking, (which, honestly, same) so it made it very relatable but not very engaging. Truthfully, this reads more like a fan fiction of someone else's original characters rather than a “proper” book.
Title/Author: The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older
Reviewer: Dani
Summary: In a future where humanity has fled a ravaged Earth and settled on Jupiter, academic Pleiti is pulled into solving a mystery when her estranged ex Mossa reappears investigating a university colleague's disappearance.
Series/Standalone: Series
Genre/Sub-Genre: Sci-fi
Book Format: Print
Length: 169 pages
LGBTQ+ Orientation: Lesbian
Content Warnings: Violence, death, mention of suicide
Well-Written/Editor Needed: Well-written
Would I Recommend?: Yes
Personal thoughts: One of the great things about having the freedom to review whatever you like is that when you're trying to remind yourself that good, joyful things exist, you can review whatever you like. This seemed like a great time, then, for me to take the chance to enthuse about a stand-out favorite.
The Mimicking of Known Successes pairs the familiarity of a Holmesian detective story with the thrill of inventive worldbuilding. The delight here is really in the details and their tongue-in-cheek charm—particularly if you find light satire of academia charming. Pleiti is a scholar in the university's Classics department, which encompasses the whole expansive cross-disciplinary study of Earth at the time humanity inhabited it, broken into niche areas of specialization. (I won't spoil Pleiti's, but I did laugh out loud.) Departmental infighting, blowhard pretention, and personality clashes are standard university fare here, and they provide a web of motives and alliances for Pleiti and Mossa to untangle in an investigation that takes them rattling across the gas giant via its intricate railcar system.
Within Pleiti and Mossa's world, the complications of living on an inhospitable planet coexist with a dedicated domestic interest in food and hot drinks and comfortable living spaces that will, if you're as suggestible a reader as I am, have you craving tea and scones right off the bat. This combination of the dystopian and the cozy feels fresh and feeds into the novel's larger considerations: What desires are fundamental to humanity, on Earth or off it? What aspects of human existence, once lost, might inspire a permanent sense of longing?
There's a romance at the center of the story, too, that's better appreciated if you don't go in expecting a sweeping, conventional love story. Instead, it's one that suits these endearingly taciturn characters: the halting realization between two largely anti-social people set in their flawed ways that they're also quite fond of each other.
If you like clever genre-benders and are seeking some off-planet escapism right now, I can't recommend better. The Mimicking of Known Successes tells a complete story on its own, but for readers who enjoy it and want to spend more time with Pleiti and Mossa, the series continues in The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles, with more books forthcoming.
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