Books

Book 411: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic – Alison Bechdel

I first read Fun Home in undergrad after my friend Mia gave me a copy not long after it came out in paperback. (I’m pretty sure it was paperback and I’m pretty sure it was Mia. I wasn’t so great at tracking who, when or where books came from back then…oh the olden days :-D)

Either way, I remember thoroughly loving it that first time I read it. I even went out of my way to read Camus’ A Happy Death after I finished even though I have very little recollection of it now other than these quotes I saved on a proto-blog I had that I’m pretty sure it was called East Coast Traditional Meets West Coast Casual or something like that (I stole it from a furniture magazine.)

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2014 Challenges, Books

Book 318: Boy Meets Boy – David Levithan

I was not as enamored with Boy Meets Boy as I was with Levithan’s other books. It was just as humorous as Will Grayson, Will Grayson but it wasn’t as beautiful as portions of it, nor as incredibly moving as Two Boys Kissing, but I am glad I read it.

From the cross dressing quarterback to the school’s bookie, Levithan definitely writes personable characters, but I just couldn’t get drawn in like I have with his other novels. I’m still debating on if it had to do with the “magical” aspects of “everything is perfect in Paul’s world” and all of his dramas seem self-created. But it could also have been that when I’ve loved Levithan in the past it has been when he wrote stories and characters that were so far above and beyond emotional comprehension.

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Books

Book 216: The Velvet Rage – Alan Downs

As with most pop-psychology books, I’m a little torn: do the benefits of the book outweigh the drawbacks of the book? And, as with any book, I found both good and bad parts. I can say regardless, I am glad I finally read this book. It’s been on my to-be-read list for ages, but the push from my friend Dominic spurred me to move it up my list.

The largest challenge I faced while reading The Velvet Rage was having to constantly remind myself that Downs wrote this book for the “masses” and not for academia or research. And as often as I did this, I still wound up harshly judging Downs’ generic and stereotypical observations, which I do for anyone including my own. His generalizations were not wrong, stereotypes exist for a reason, but I did have to ask how Downs’ feels about this and whether he has since acknowledged this as he does not discuss it in the novel. There is an updated, 20th anniversary, version of this book which would be interesting to read.

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Books

Book 212: The Front Runner – Patricia Nell Warren

I had no idea what to expect going into this novel other than the basic ideas of what the novel was about and the time period of the setting, but I am so glad I read it. It has such an iconic place in the LGBT literature compendium and even holds a place in Hollywood legend in that it has been rumored to be turned into a film (and the rights have changed hands many times) since the early 80s.

The first thing I do have to say is that this book is a product of its time and it is definitely dated, but what was shocking to me as I read it was how little rights for LGBT individuals changed up until about five-to-ten years ago. And as such it had most of the archetypes of LGBT literature and it didn’t bother me as much as I knew its history and I fell in love with the characters and the story itself. As with most books of this time period, the book provided a great guide to the LGBT underground in NYC and even took a trip to Fire Island. I can easily imagine some young closeted, or freshly out, LGBT individuals reading this book and heading to the big city to find themselves.

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ARC, Books

Book 190: Frat Boy and Toppy (Theta Alpha Gamma #1) – Anne Tenino

This is an example of a novel that could’ve been even better if they used a better copy editor, and this has nothing to do with the poor formatting of Amazon’s conversion process from the publisher provided copy. This is my honest response and I received no compensation.

Overall the story and characters were engaging I thought Brad and Sebastian were great and I really hope Colin, Ashley and Kyle make an appearance in another novel in the series, but it doesn’t look like it. There were moments where I laughed out loud and there were even a few moments where my breath caught in my chest, but in the long run I was let down by the editing and a vital choice the author made early on in the novel. I definitely wanted to know more about the characters, but I felt I really got to know who Brad was and who he was becoming in the short 170 pages of this novel.

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