Hello and welcome to the September 2024 edition of the Queer Lit Review! This month we have a possessed man seeking help from his ex, two exes on a food and wine tour, and a young trans boy ghost hunting in his grandmother's house.
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Happy Reading!
Title/Author: Evocation by S.T. Gibson
Reviewer: Laura B.
Summary: Years after their breakup, Rhys and David still spend most of their time avoiding each other despite belonging to the same secret society. But when David begins to suspect that he is possessed, the only people he can turn to for help are Rhys and Rhys’s wife, Moira.
Series/Standalone: Series
Genre/Sub-Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Book Format: Physical Book
Length: 293 pages
LGBTQ+ Orientation: Queer, Polyamorous
Content Warnings: Alcoholism, Off-page abuse
Well-Written/Editor Needed: Fairly well-written
Would I Recommend?: Sure!
Personal thoughts: First off, this took place in Boston, which always makes me enjoy a book more — the library even got a mention! Even though Gibson took a couple liberties with the city, it is fun when I can imagine all the places the characters are going because I have been to those places myself.
The smartest thing that Gibson did with this book was make all three major characters (David, Rhys, and Moira) POV characters. Moira was by far my favorite character, and I honestly would have loved to have spent more time with her. I also thought David and Rhys both could have come off as a lot more unlikable if they weren’t POV characters. Being in the head of each of these characters also helped their relationships between each other make more sense and feel more realistic.
My biggest complaint with this book was that the plot is a bit underdeveloped at times, particularly in relation to the characters’ pasts as well as at the climax of the story. This is a complaint I have had about Gibson’s work before, so I think this is just something you’re going to get with her books. The characters and their relationships are the most important thing to her, so she’ll skim past periods of time that she doesn’t feel are as important or past plot points that she hasn’t fully figured out how to resolve. I would love to see her improve on this in the future, but at least I now feel like I know to go into her books expecting that the plot will be a little weak at times.
Overall, I enjoyed this a lot more than Gibson’s previous book, A Dowry of Blood (which does not seem to be the popular take based on reader reviews). While I wouldn’t put this on my 2024 favorites list, I liked it enough that I will definitely read book 2 whenever Gibson publishes it.
Title/Author: The Pairing by Casey McQuiston
Reviewer: Morgan
Summary: Theo and Kit were childhood friends who became lovers, but broke up right before a European food and wine tour. Four years later, both decide to redeem their trip voucher…only to find themselves stuck on the tour together. To prove they’re truly over each other, they decide to make a bet on who can sleep with their guide first and hook up with the most people.
Series/Standalone: Standalone
Genre/Sub-Genre: Romance
Book Format: eBook
Length: 407 pages
LGBTQ+ Orientation: Bisexual, non-binary
HEA/HFN: HEA
Ratio of Sex/Plot: It depends on whether you consider conversations about sex and descriptions of internal fantasies sexual or not. If you do, probably 80% sex and 20% plot. If you only consider the act itself, maybe closer to 40/60 in favor of plot.
Well-Written/Editor Needed: Editor needed
Would I Recommend it?: No
Personal Thoughts: I’ll be honest: not only will this review be long, but I’m also in the minority on this. Many of my friends and colleagues (including some of my fellow reviewers!) love Casey McQuiston and adored The Pairing. I’m not the type to shame people for their tastes, either. Most books have something good about them and will find an audience; as a librarian, I’m simply happy people are reading! So please note that these are purely my own opinions — if you’ve already read and enjoyed this, I truly am glad that you had a better experience than I did! Deciding to write a negative review is admittedly partially therapeutic for me, but I’m mostly just trying to add a little variety to our blog. We tend to love most of the books on here, and sometimes we bookish people need a reminder that it’s perfectly fine to dislike a book you choose to read.
Like the author, I am non-binary. And obviously no two people on earth share the exact same opinions and experiences. That said, I found the non-binary representation in this book to be incredibly offensive. I’m going to be intentionally vague to avoid explicit spoilers, but the following is still in fact a spoiler. Please feel free to skip the following paragraph if you wish to avoid that.
McQuiston said in a recent interview that they hoped to “Trojan Horse” people who wouldn’t normally read a trans+ romance into doing that. I actually do think that’s a cool and clever idea…in theory. In reality, choosing not to discuss a non-binary character’s identity until it’s through a cisgender character’s eyes felt fetishizing. It made it seem like their gender was a quirky little trait akin to their love for cocktails. Ultimately, it came across as cis-centric. As a trans person married to a cis woman, I would be extremely hurt if my wife decided she was the one who got to explain my identity to the world.
Even worse, though, is the way queer supporting characters are handled. They’re essentially just bodies. I worry this will come across as puritanical, so I want to note that I genuinely love smut. I love the ways it adds depth to romance novels, and I love that it normalizes being open about sex after centuries of censorship. As long as it’s safe and consensual, we all deserve to do with our bodies whatever we please! But in The Pairing, the way Kit and Theo treat their potential sexual partners is dehumanizing — all of the supporting characters are simply objects to have sex with. I don’t use this word lightly, but I find both main characters bordering on predatory.
If you pay attention to current trends in book banning, books featuring LGBTQIA+ characters make up a third of challenges. And that includes picture books where a child has two moms, or featuring two male penguins who raise an egg together. People ban these books that have nothing even remotely to do with sex because they consider any depiction of queerness to be inherently sexual. It’s why homophobes see two women hug in a movie and immediately think about what they do in the bedroom. It’s why random men have propositioned my wife and me simply because we were holding hands (I wish I was making that up). There’s a fine line between self-censorship and being a responsible writer, and a fine line between catering to homophobes and staying safe. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure where exactly the line is either. What I do know is that if I hadn’t heard of Casey McQuiston before, I would’ve assumed they were a homophobic politician trying to prove some inflammatory point about queer and trans people. There had to be a better way to show characters enjoying sex without stereotyping. We’re already marginalized and our bodies politicized, so it felt like being thrown into the line of fire. It’s ignorant at best and intentionally cruel at worst.
Aside from that, the writing is just…cringey. Think back to high school English classes, where most of us learned that “good” writing involved long, flowery descriptions of everything even though it bored readers. That’s how this came across to me. I had the same problem with McQuiston’s debut, Red, White and Royal Blue. Both that and The Pairing try so hard to be poetic that they’re pretentious instead. There’s no character development; everyone, main characters included, is two-dimensional. And look, I can suspend my disbelief. All my favorite manga series are fantasy, and my go-to genre is horror even though I don’t believe in ghosts or demons. But when it’s realistic fiction? Maybe it’s simply a personal preference, but it should be at least a little relatable. There’s no way that Theo and Kit are so inhumanly attractive that everyone they interact with immediately wants to bang, or that their looks make up for having no personalities. When you add the fact that we learn pretty early on that Theo comes from a millionaire family but chooses to cosplay as a someone struggling financially, we’re left with thoroughly unpleasant characters with no redeeming qualities. While there’s absolutely something to be said about choosing to write unlikable characters in order to develop them — Rick Riordan’s Trials of Apollo series is a master class in this — it has to include actual development. That is not the case with this book. They don’t grow out of their immaturity, they don’t learn anything, and I don’t believe for a moment that their happily-ever-after will last since their relationship is based solely in horniness. We’re told that they love each other, but I don’t see it played out anywhere.
If you read this far, I deeply appreciate it! I do love that Casey McQuiston has helped queer romances go more mainstream, and I hope that their next book will be better.
Title/Author: The House That Whispers by Lin Thompson
Reviewer: Jordan
Summary: 11-year-old Simon spends a week at his grandmother’s house with his two sisters while their parents are having a private conversation back at home. Nanaleen’s got problems too. She keeps forgetting things and her house smells funny. Not only that, Simon has big problems of his own. His older sister is pulling away, he’s seeing ghosts, and he’s fighting the urge to tell his family that he’s transgender.
Series/Standalone: Standalone
Genre/Sub-Genre: Middle Grade Fiction/Horror
Book Format: Hardcover
Length: 336 pages
LGBTQ+ Orientation: Transgender/Lesbian
Content Warnings: A grandmother with budding dementia, scary ghosts, and anxiety. Sexism, homophobia, transphobia, death, and divorce are talked about but not on page.
Well-Written/Editor Needed: Well-written
Would I Recommend?: Yes!
Personal thoughts: I read this for the Summer Reading Bingo Challenge for the Children’s Chapter Book square and because the author is a former BPL librarian! This book did not disappoint. First off, I’m not big on horror, and this had just enough horror elements to scare me a little, but not be overwhelming, which means it should be perfect for middle schoolers! Second, Simon is the only one who knows he’s a boy and I really liked how he changed his name in his head every time he was dead named by family and friends so that the reader never knows what his dead name is. It also felt very natural.
There was a lot going on in this novel that brought up high emotions in Simon and a lot of confusion between the siblings — from Nanaleen’s budding dementia, to Simon’s parents’ problems, to Simon’s big secret — but it all felt very realistic as told from a young person’s point of view. It helps that the siblings were close and supportive of each other, even when they were also trying to pull away due to age differences and changing lives.
Overall, I highly recommend this one!
DISCLAIMER: We do not review books by author request.
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