Tag: Adoption

ARC, Books

Book 838: Keeping Hope – Alexandria Redding

Geoff W

Book cover of "Keeping Hope" with Amazon Affiliate linkWe all know I loved Ngozi’s Check, Please! series and am a sucker for MM Sports Romances. So, this one had a lot to live up to and even though I had some concerns about the cover art (seems slapped together and so meh) I gave Redding the benefit of the doubt and decided to give it a go when it appeared in my inbox.*

Overall, the book was just meh (sort of like the cover). There was a lot of potential and Redding clearly has a lot of ideas, but she could use an editor (or a stronger one). So much of the book was bogged down in social issues, which I am here for every day of the week—bullying, racial inequity/police profiling, homelessness, and mental health awareness absolutely need more representation—but not at the expense of the story. In reading this one so soon after Legendborn and seeing how well Deonn wrote about injustice and had the characters learn/grow from it, I was let down.

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Books

Book 679: Our Dining Table – Mita Ori

Geoff W

book cover of "Our Dining Table" and Amazon Affiliate linkThis is another great introduction into manga in that it’s easy to follow the reverse (for western readers) style of reading any type of book. The lack of explicit sex and (often internalized) homophobia also make this more appealing to western audiences that might not necessarily want to read/see something that explicit.

I think I’m narrowing in on a type of yaoi that I enjoy reading. This is a lot like Go for it, Nakamura!, in that there’s a purity around 95% of it. It’s so stinking adorable and this is definitely one of those books where you read a page/panel and put the book to your chest and sigh with a goofy grin on your face.

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2013 Challenges, Books

Book 201: Homo Domesticus – David Valdes Greenwood

Geoff W

Greenwood_9780738211145.inddOnce again, I have to say something about other Goodreads reviews that’s not very nice. Multiple people have compared this book to Dan Savage’s The Kid and although yes, they are comparable, they are not the same thing. Savage’s book focuses on the adoption process and this book focuses on wait for it, a Same Sex Marriage (see what I did there, I stole it directly from the subtitle). In addition there are people whinging about the plainness of this marriage. Aren’t all marriages boring to anyone not in it? I mean seriously people did you expect the craziness Valdes Greenwood alludes to when talking about the Dear Parent note of cosmopolitan and sex parties?

I’ve read this book once previously and when I found it in a box of old books when I was moving my mom this past winter I knew I wanted to re-read it again before I passed it on and I am glad I did. In addition it just further supports that my statement still stands: this is a better book than Savage’s The Kid.

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Book Group, Books

Book 14: The Kid – Dan Savage

Geoff W

Dan Savage’s The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided To go Get Pregnant was a humorous and interesting story about the adoption process from Dan and his boyfriend’s perspective. I’ve heard Mr. Savage speak and I thought he was incredibly humorous and he had a great one liner about men sleeping with men (“Gay relationships have to have good communication. We’d better talk every time we have sex, I’ll be damned if I’m going to lie there and take it for the next 20 years.”) and although I haven’t had a chance to read his weekly article, I have read his blog a few times.

I think the most rewarding part about the book is learning more about the adoption process. There are greater stories, like Homo Domesticus: Notes from a Same-Sex Marriage by David Valdes Greenwood, but this one dealt solely on the adoption process and the emotions (or lack thereof) involved.

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