Tag: Teen

Books

Book 762: The Extraordinaries (The Extraordinaries #1) – T.J. Klune

Geoff W

Book cover of "The Extraordinaries" with Amazon Affiliate linkI think I found the natural successor to Perry Moore’s Hero. I honestly don’t remember that much about Hero, other than really loving it, but this definitely will stay with me longer.

I found this after someone blogged/Insta’d about Queer young adult books coming out in 2021 when the sequel, Flash Fire, will be released and it’s cover caught my attention so of course I looked into it saw there was a prequel and immediately requested it from this from the library.

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Books

Book 672: Go for it, Nakamura! – Syundei

Geoff W

book cover of "Go for it, Nakamura!" by Syundei containing amazon affiliate linkAdorable.

I could probably leave it at that, but since this is a blog and not just Twitter, I won’t.

Go for it, Nakamura! is a Japanese manga that’s on quite a few Best LGBT+ manga lists, so I thought I’d give it a try. I honestly wasn’t sure if it was going to be closer to My Brother’s Husband Volume 1 and Volume 2 or more like Don’t Be Cruel #1 and #2 or #3 and #4. Thankfully, it was more like the latter, with no sex scenes (these are high school kids after all).

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Books

Book 669: Are You Listening? – Tillie Walden

Geoff W

cover art for "are you listening" and amazon affiliate linkWhen I picked this up from the library, I had some preconceived notion that it would be more along the lines of Bloom than what it ended up being. I’m not sure why I thought this. They did often appear on Best (LGBT+) Graphic Novels of 2019 lists together, but that shouldn’t really have made me think they’d be as similar as I thought they would be.

I was drawn to the illustration style on the cover as the limited use of colors reminded me of Bloom and the illustration style reminded me of Alison Bechdel’s style in Fun Home (or maybe it’s just the glasses on Lou?). Walden’s story follows Bea as she’s running away from home, we’re not told why at the beginning and Lou, a distant family friend doesn’t ask any questions. A random cat shows up (Diamond) and then the story gets really weird, like magical realism weird. [SPOILERS after the link, including the recommendation.]

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Books

Book 606: Call Me By Your Name – André Aciman

Geoff W

I don’t know why I didn’t read this when I got it way back in January of 2016. I got it two years before it was released widely and a year before it started to pick up steam and getting mentioned during every awards season blog post ever.

I was most impressed with how true to the book the film stayed. I could visualize 90% of the film as I read the book, and the 10% I couldn’t was easy enough to fill in with the characters from the film that I barely noticed it.

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Books

Book 579: Geography Club (Russel Middlebrook #1) – Brent Hartinger

Geoff W

This book is definitely a bit dated, but still worth the read. Basically if this book and Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli were merged it’d be perfect. And really, to be fair, Simon is an updated version of this down to the meeting online and ultimately meeting in person.

I think this book hit me a little stronger than Simon because it was written back when I was just finishing high school and I could relate to so much of it more so than the tech heavy (hello school Tumblr) “reboot” of the story. I mean chatrooms? YES! I remember going to the public library with my best friend after school so we could use the computers to chat with strangers online. It was crazy.

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