Bibliophiles of the internet, my name's Adriana and today
I'm here to bring you my super queer, super long June Wrap-Up.
First thing I read in June was my ARC of "Drum Roll, Please" by Lisa Jenn Bigelow.
This is a queer middle grade story about Melly, who is about to go on a summer adventure
with her best friend to this rock star camp. But the day before she leaves,
her parents decide to tell her they're getting a divorce.
So Melly's *trying* to enjoy this experience and learn all she can about being a drummer,
but at the same time she's struggling to process what this means for her family and her life.
At the same time, her best friend is kinda ditching her to pursue her summer crush,
and Melly finds herself gravitating towards a fellow camper named Adeline,
who she might just be seriously crushing on herself.
I love the balance this story strikes. Because it has those fun, easy-going summer vibes.
There's puns. There's music humor. There's camp shenanigans and music activities.
But it's also very much about finding yourself in difficult times.
For Melly, this camp comes at the perfect time, because she's going through an experience where she needs
to fill up her life with friends and good times and music so that there's no room for anything else.
But also because she's become comfortable being in the background.
She's used to being known as a daughter, a friend, a drummer—
—but those identities are always defined in relation to someone *else*.
This camp gives her chance to discover who *she* is, what *she* likes, and what *she* has to say.
She's used to following her best friend and letting someone else call the shots.
Melly's never really given herself permission to find her own sound, to figure out her own taste.
That's what this camp really represents.
And the relationship elements were also handled really well.
It's not this taboo, shocking thing when Melissa realizes she has feelings for Adeline. It's very real and organic.
She just has this moment where she's like, "Huh, I've never had these feelings for a girl."
"But I'm open to figuring out what this is."
So overall this was a really fun, uplifting, empowering, moving story that I really love.
I gave this a *huge* five stars.
Then I finally read "Radio Silence" by Alice Oseman.
This story is about a biracial bisexual girl named Frances,
an elite scholar who has only ever focused on her academics.
But what she loves most is a podcast called "Radio Silence,"
and she's sort of made a name for herself online by creating fanart.
To her surprise, she's invited by the creator of Radio Silence to officially produce art for the podcast,
and she gets an even bigger surprise when she discovers that the creator is actually her neighbor, Aled,
who lives right across the street.
But shortly after they join forces, the podcast goes viral, and everything spirals out of their control,
forcing their friendship closer and closer to the breaking point.
Potential triggers for brief, secondhand descriptions of domestic/emotional abuse.
Also Aled is ace, and if I remember correctly, not entirely cis.
I found myself becoming really invested in this fast, unlikely friendship between Aled and Frances.
Their collective energy was infectious, and the pure joy they got from creating together
and supporting each other was what kept me coming back.
That said, I didn't completely love this book.
The perspective, to me, is very limited, because we're mostly confined to Frances' thoughts,
when she's not the only person the story is happening to.
I think this could have been even *more* powerful if we were able to switch perspectives
and really hear Aled's side of the story in his own words, because he's the one who's dealing with abuse,
he's the one whose privacy is being invaded, he's the one who's feeling trapped—probably more so than Frances.
I felt like those major things he was going through were relatively unexplored,
and I also could have stood to have more depth from the supporting characters as well.
So it was a little conflicting, because I really enjoy how everything tied back together,
and how the story explores creating your own path that disregards what's expected of you.
But I still felt like there were missing pieces.
In the end I gave this one a solid three and a half stars.
Then I listened to "Anger is a Gift" by Mark Oshiro, read by the author himself.
This is a queer contemporary story set in Oakland, California,
about Moss, whose father was unjustly shot and killed by the police.
This loss has traumatized him and left him dealing with anxiety and panic attacks.
Now that he's in high school, a lot of those feelings are starting to resurface
as his school is installing metal detectors, stationing combat-trained officers on campus,
and subsequently criminalizing its students.
Moss and his friends are experiencing discrimination, profiling, and police brutality for themselves.
So after the unthinkable happens, they decide to organize and start pushing back.
Trigger warning: this book does contain lengthy, graphic scenes of police brutality and hostility,
unchecked violence, and assault.
Firstly, I love the diversity of Moss' group of friends.
There's characters of color who are black, Latinx, African, Asian, biracial.
There's friends who are adopted, friends who use wheelchairs, friends who wear the hijab,
friends who are nonbinary, friends who are trans. It's just a great reflection of what the world really is.
One of the strongest aspects of the story is that it spotlights both good allyship and bad allyship,
and what those two things look like.
Being a good ally is *not* centering yourself in conversations that don't affect you.
It's using your privilege to redirect people and resources to where they're needed.
It's letting effected groups decide what's the best move to make.
The title of the story itself also plays a powerful role in the story's themes.
Especially when we're talking about the oppression of people of color,
"anger" usually has a negative connotation, and it's used to minimize conversations
because of this idea that you can get more done if you're "polite."
But sometimes anger is the *only* appropriate reaction. It's the spark that motivates people to organize.
It's the reminder of the injustices that have come to pass.
And you get to see how these characters move beyond outrage and *use* that anger to make progress.
The story doesn't just stop at the need for change.
You see how these students are beginning to protest and organize.
That said, I did have a couple of qualms with this book.
Firstly, that everyone in power is painted as completely villainous and corrupt.
Corruption *does* exist, it *is* normalized, people *are* complicit. But there's really no person in power here
who displays any shred of humanity or even so much as hesitates.
It's like they're emotionless, non-complex robots we're supposed to hate, and it just *isn't* that clean cut.
Secondly, I'm not gonna say who, but there is a major character death within the main group of friends.
And even though I understand what was supposed to be accomplished there and how that death, narratively,
was intended to function, even now it just kinda feels cheap.
Because of the way it was set up and the way everything went down...it just feels like kind of a gimmick.
So ultimately, I gave this one four stars.
Then I read one of my most anticipated releases, and that was "Running with Lions" by Julian Winters.
And I buddy read this one with my sunshine boy, Matthew Sciarappa, which was a really fun experience.
This is an amazing queer sports narrative about high school soccer player, Sebastian,
who's going into his senior year with a strong team he really trusts.
But when the team begins their summer training camp, he's in for a surprise when his ex-best friend
and current rival, Emir, appears to be joining the ranks,
threatening to throw the entire team off with his horrible attitude.
As the future team captain, Sebastian decides to take one for the team and try to coach Emir one-on-one.
But the friendlier they become, the more difficult it may be for them to keep their interactions strictly platonic.
It's also worth mentioning that even though the main character isn't a POC,
he does have British-Pakastani love interest.
This book brought me so much joy.
Can we just talk about how *vital* it is to have a story that shows queer athletes in safe spaces?
I love sports, but it's so hard for me to reconcile my love of sports
with the crappiness of sports culture and spaces.
It's like the last frontier; sports is this hugely public thing that's openly and blatantly binary, sexist,
heteronormative, and typically homophobic.
There's still so many queer athletes out there who maybe don't feel safe or don't feel like they have a place
—or maybe they can't even compete.
And then this story steps in and says, "Hey, it *is* possible to cultivate safe spaces."
Everyone on this team is queer in some way, and it's a non-issue.
It's so great to read about a team that doesn't celebrate toxic masculinity,
a team where everyone is supported and uplifted. It's a really beautiful brotherhood.
And there's commentary on young men struggling with body issues and trying to fit a certain beauty image,
about bullying *within* sports, about how to reconcile that no matter how much you love the game
the world doesn't begin and end with sports.
And this story just satisfies on so many levels. There's training sequences, scrimmages, camp shenanigans,
weekend adventures, delicious flirtation, and so many sexy times.
And, about the steaminess, I think there is a kind of empowerment in that for Sebastian.
Because he doesn't really know what he wants to do in life or what he should do after high school,
but damn it, he knows exactly what he wants and *who* he wants right now in this moment.
And he's gonna see that through no matter what.
I just love this. There were times where I had physically step away from this book because my face hurt
from smiling too much, and that's the highest compliment I can give.
I gave this gem four and half stars.
Then I finally read the "The Prince and the Dressmaker" by Jen Wang.
This is an all-ages queer graphic novel about Prince Sebastian,
whose parents want him to start seriously thinking about choosing a future wife.
But the only thing he's concerned with is his secret nighttime life where he dons bold, daring dresses
and transforms into Lady Crystallia, the hottest fashion icon in Paris.
He takes on a new seamstress, Frances, who also an incredibly talented designer
who agrees to design all of his dresses, and she is the only person who knows the truth.
But how long can they keep this secret from breaking the surface?
Not only is this a beautiful exploration of friendship, not only do we get a wonderful genderfluid character
in Sebastian, but there's a lot of rich emotional parallels between Sebastian and Frances.
Both of them are in this place where there's something they've been waiting to share with the world.
They're ready to put themselves out there and be *seen.*
But it's also painful for them because the way they express themselves comes with conditions and limits,
and the story is really about them trying to break past all of that.
It, again, is about the importance of feeling safe and feeling accepted, being seen for *everything* you are
and the incredible things that can come from that.
This is definitely a work infused with queer upliftance, and it brought me so much happiness. Five stars!
After that, I had a life-changing experience when I read "Peter Darling" by Austin Chant.
This is an #ownvoices retelling of Peter Pan where Peter is queer and trans.
In this version, Peter decides to leave Neverland and return to his family to live as Wendy [Darling],
but then he realizes he's not safe there and that he needs to live as his true self.
So he returns to Neverland, but when he does, everything is different.
The Lost Boys don't recognize him since he's gotten older, and they've taken on a new leader in his absence.
Plus Peter's return means stirring up bad blood between the Lost Boys and the pirates.
And as an old war reignites, Peter also has to deal with possible budding feelings
for his life-long rival, Captain James Hook.
I've always had a fascination with Peter Pan, and I just feel this twist on the story
was like so many puzzle pieces *finally* locking in place.
This version finally supplies Peter with a reason for that manic energy that's his trademark.
He's always been charming, enticing, charismatic, relentless, manipulative, gleefully cruel,
he has dramatic highs and lows, but we've never known WHY.
Here we have an answer: trauma, fear, desperation for distraction.
He purposefully seeks impossible, dangerous situations so he can feel powerful and in control
when he finds a way to make it out safe.
Peter is running from his past, and running at breakneck speed is the fastest way to get away.
Recklessness is just a byproduct.
Another part of that is posturing, and how playing into masculine roles
(which are often toxic) is a largely performative act.
Part of Peter's obsession with fighting and getting himself into trouble is due to him overcompensating
in order for him to "pass" as a man in his own mind, and the story comments on that.
And the story also shows, through both Peter and James,
that there's more than one valid way to process trauma.
You can be in a place where you want to move on and completely separate that part of your life, OR you can be
in a place where you say "I don't want to forget that this experience made me who I am." Neither process is less.
There's *so much* to discuss, like how the story beautifully handles trans bodies and disabled bodies,
how powerful the romance is, how the adventures and plot points we see in these pages are wholly original
while still being faithful to the source. But needless to say, this was a VERY clear five star book.
My poetry collection for June was "Don't Call Us Dead" by Danez Smith.
This is modern poetry that clearly outlines the effects of police brutality, systematic oppression,
and the deep-seeded effects of racism, specifically in black communities in the U.S.
Danez Smith is also queer, so this collection does dip into what it means to be black AND queer,
especially in modern times.
Danez Smith is an AMAZING talent.
I knew that going into this collection, but I was still blown away by their work.
They have a way of sharply bringing things into focus and forcing the audience to sit with unpleasant truths.
There are lines in here I *still* think about.
Like when the speaker says "do you know what it's like / to live on land who loves you back?"
When they talk about how black youth are actually safest when they're dead and buried,
because then at least they can no longer be hurt.
Or how once the kidnapping of one white woman started the Trojan war,
but when black people go missing, America stays silent.
There's sensuality, there's anger, there's passion, and beautiful verses that make you feel feather-light.
I cannot wait to read more from Danez Smith, and I gave this collection five stars.
The last novel I read in June was "Wild Beauty" by Anna-Marie McLemore.
This is #ownvoices queer Latinx magical realism about the Nomeolvides women, who have spent
generation after generation tending the grounds of this estate known as La Pradera.
Basically, they all contain this overwhelming magic that overflows from their bodies
as the creation of flowers and plants.
La Pradera is the safest place for them to exist without fear of discovery,
and they're also hiding a painful legacy: if they fall in love too deeply, their lovers vanish.
After generations of fear and vanishings, the earth suddenly surrenders a mysterious boy
for the Nomeolvides women to find among their flowers.
(Also, like all the women in this family are bisexual, which is fantastic.)
Anna-Marie McLemore's prose is *stunning.* It's gorgeous, lush, rich, engaging, enticing—but it's not
just pretty for the sake of being pretty. There's so much substance.
This author has talked so much about how magical realism has a singular Latinx history,
and how it's really about living in a culture of oppression where magic is a means of survival or hope.
Those ties are definitely present in this story that comments on the treatment of immigrants,
their erasure, and how Latinx communities are in some ways complicit with burying our own history
and our own trauma, whether we realize it or not.
But I also think the story speaks to Latinx youth accepting a sense of worth
that's been outlined or predetermined by someone else
All of the Nomeolvides girls blindly accept this legacy of suffering and pain
that's been handed down through generations.
They believe their very existence is a curse or a punishment for being too "greedy" in the way they love.
And that's how they've been taught to believe.
So they've never even *considered* that the very earth is trying to tell them something MORE about themselves.
I fell in love with this book. I can't wait to own it, and re-read it, and annotate it properly,
because there's so much to think about. And that's why I gave it five stars.
So those are all the books I read in the month of June. If you've read any of them yourself,
I would love to know your thoughts in the comments.
But that's everything I had for this wrap-up today. Thank you so much for watching this video.
I really hope that you enjoyed it, and I will catch YOU on the flip-side of the page.
Bye!
[♫ snazzy end screen music ♫]
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