Tag: Pop Culture

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Book 964: The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers – Adam Sass

Geoff W

I requested and received this up back in June in a NetGalley binge when I went through and looked at all the upcoming Young Adult LGBT fiction.* I loved the cover and the concept so thought why not? I missed the review deadline by a few weeks even though I started it with plenty of time. Thanks, school and life for getting in the way.

This is the story of Micah, Grant, and Elliot. Micah is the protagonist who has a really popular Insta account where he draws fantastical versions of the boys he crushes on around Chicago. One of those boys ends up being Grant and the first half of the story is Micah trying to find Grant again, his Cinderfella who disappeared off the train. He’s joined by his BFF’s other BFF Elliot, who has his issues but brings joy, light, and support to Micah’s journey.

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Book 948: Patricia Wants to Cuddle – Samantha Allen

Geoff W

What a wonderfully weird novel. When this landed in my inbox from the publisher I first thought WTF is that because the cover art screams pulp fiction and as much as I find those hilarious I’m not usually drawn to them. However, I’d decided I wanted to expand my LGBT novel repertoire, and knowing this featured lesbian/bisexual female protagonists I said sure why not.*

Billed as a satire of The Bachelor, Patricia Wants to Cuddle takes place in the final two weeks of The Catch‘s season with four female finalists and the catch going to the San Juan islands off the coast of Washington state. While it is that, it’s also a final girl thriller novel with murder and mystery and urban legends aplenty to keep the reader engaged.

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Book 946: Just by Looking at Him – Ryan O’Connell

Geoff W

If I’m 100% honest I first was drawn to this book because of the cover art, a cropped version of Henry Scott Tuke’s The Critics (Wikiart link). Tuke does water like no one else and they pumped up the blues and greens on the cover.

Then when you add the title of the painting to what the main character does for a living: mind blown. So THEN I realized this was the same Ryan O’Connell who created, wrote, and starred in Special on Netflix, and of course, I requested a copy.*

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Book 937: Burn Rate – Andy Dunn

Geoff W

When someone in the marketing department at the publisher reached out about this because I’d positively reviewed David Chang’s Eat a Peach, I had to take a few minutes to really think if I wanted to go back into this world.*

In Chang’s book, his mental health struggles are peripheral, but in Dunn’s Burn Rate, he centers them. I spent quite a bit of time reading about bipolar disorder, alcoholism, and other mental health issues before my mom died a few years ago to try and understand what she was going through and what my sister and I were experiencing. And that REALLY hit home when the first quote Dunn uses in his book is a quote from Kay Redfield Jamison who wrote THE book (An Unquiet Mind) about brains and bipolar/manic depression/brains in general.

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Book 887: If This Gets Out – Sophie Gonzales & Cale Dietrich

Geoff W

My little closeted teenage heart would’ve died to read something like this in the late-90s/early-00s. So, when I saw it on NetGalley I requested it IMMEDIATELY, the publisher approved, and I have been sitting on it for months.*

I know I’ve said it before and I’ll keep on saying it—I am SO jealous of all the teens today getting to see themselves in books like this. I mean hell I enjoy them and I am WELL outside the target demographic for these.

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