Tag: Men

ARC, Books

Book 686: Enter the Aardvark – Jessica Anthony

Geoff W

This was a weird ass novel. I should’ve known it by the title when I requested it from NetGalley, but it was even weirder than I expected.* I’m sure I requested it because the blurb mentioned the modern protagonist was in deep denial about his sexuality, but that’s all I remember the rest was a weird wonderful surprise as I read it.

This is another dual narrative novel, authors really love those lately, with one portion taking place in modern America and the other taking place in the late 19th century England, and what ties the two together is a preserved Aardvark that arrives/is created at the most inconvenient time.

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Books

Book 685: A Gay Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum – Bert Shrader

Geoff W

This has been sitting on my shelf for almost three years ever since I read the Rolling Stones’ article “How One Publisher is Rescuing 1970s Gay Porn Paperbacks”. I finally got around to this as I was looking at the shorter books already on my shelves. And after the emotional drain that was Ethan Frome I thought I should try and get a little further away and a smutty gay porn novel from the 1960s checked all the boxes plus some.

Let’s just say, not a lot has changed in erotica novels. I mean sure the large portion of MM romance/erotica novels are now written by women, but the few that I know for a fact were written by men are pretty damn similar to this one. The big things that have changed is that in general the toxic masculinity and hetero-toxicity in general seem to have been tone down in the more recent books and there are some overt racist scenes and comments sprinkled throughout the novel that were horrible.

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Books

Book 604: Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies – Michael Ausiello

Geoff W

Talk about a gut punch—I knew going in this one was going to be brutal, I mean it’s right there in the full title: Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies, but I was not expecting to cry as much as I did. I’m not talking about a single tear escaping as I gaze wistfully into the distance. I’m talking snot running down my face, holding back sobs, and generally making people uncomfortable around me as I read it.

Yup, you read that right. I didn’t hole in up in my room or stay at home to read this, even with the very clear warning on the cover. I read it in public, on a cruise ship on the way to the Caribbean. Smart right? The timing wasn’t the greatest, but it came in at the library and I’ve been waiting to read it since it appeared on the Towleroad blog, so I figured I would plow through it and I did. I got a chapter or two read on the plane after reading Don’t Be Cruel (#3 & #4) and then blazed through this, snot, tears and all, while laying out by the pool on the ship.

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Books

Book 595: Tableau Numéro 20 – Est Em

Geoff W

I came across this on Grace’s blog, Books Without Any Pictures, and her description of it being out of the normal for manga pulled me in. It didn’t hurt that it was short stories, which I’ll talk more about later. I requested this one because of the Spanish title and story names. The other I requested from the library was Don’t Be Cruel (#1 & #2), just because…

I was surprised the library had it, but then I remembered that it was yaoi and not bara (like Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It, which is SO much 100% more sexually explicit. This was the first yaoi I’ve ever read and it was interesting and honestly the part that caught me most off guard was the authors mention of her blood type in the afterward – I was like wait WTF?

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ARC, Books

Book 505: Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight – Loren A. Olson

Geoff W

I’m nearing the end of my galley/ARC backlog. With this one finished I only have four more. I’ve had this since March and finally got around to it this past week.

The publicist for this book reached out to me and with my Masters degree (Gender, Sexuality and Queer Theory) and a friend who at one point studied gerontology, I of course said yes!

Finally Out is Olson’s look at gay men/MSM who come out/acknowledge their practices later in life. What seriously strengthens the book is Olson’s own story and experience of coming out at the age of 40. What Olson really needs though, is a good Queer Theory 101 course. In general he did a really good job of writing about these men, but there were some problems when it came to sexual orientation/identity/practice. He basically gets it, but in choosing not to use the pre-existing language, I feel that the book suffers.

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