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Book 718: The Deviant’s War – Eric Cervini

Every couple of years there’s a new kid on the block when it comes to the be-all-end all of LGBT nonfiction books. And every couple of year’s I’m sorely disappointed—I’m not sure if it has to do with the hype machine around the books, if it’s what they decide to focus on, or if it’s the author’s themselves (almost always cisgender white gay men).

When this book started to make waves in the LGBT book blogging community, I took notice. And then when I found out Cervini was giving a talk via the Boston Public Library, I requested a copy of the book via NetGalley to see why there was so much hype.*

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Book 686: Enter the Aardvark – Jessica Anthony

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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Book 678: Blowout – Rachel Maddow

My jaw legit hurt after I was reading this because my mouth kept hanging open at the sheer audacity of the companies, politicians, and countries in this book. Seriously though, let’s just say that, this is one of those books that if I used only emoji’s to review books would just be this gif of Nick from Big Mouth‘s Head blowing up in amazement.

I stumbled across this book after seeing a review in the Washington Post (months after the book and review were published) and I reached out to the publisher for a review copy and they kindly sent one.* What I wasn’t expecting was for this thing to be like a spy/thriller novel. It. Was. Insanity. Just when you think something more ridiculous can’t possibly be done, Maddow gives her smirk and says, “but wait….there’s more.”

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Book 659: The Testaments (The Handmaid’s Tale #2) – Margaret Atwood

I did not expect to read this so soon or so quickly. When I first heard Atwood was revisiting The Handmaid’s Tale nearly 35 years later I was incredibly wary about it. With the success of the Hulu series, I wasn’t surprised she was revisiting it, but I was hesitant to jump into this feet first so I put my name on the hold list at the library for an e-book version expecting not to get it until early-2020. They must’ve bought additional copies because I got it within two months of release!

There WILL be spoilers, so if you don’t want to know anything that happens stop now.

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Book 658: The Children of Harvey Milk – Andrew Reynolds

I’m not sure how I stumbled across this one, but when I did back in May I requested a copy from the publisher and they kindly obliged.* I was interested because of the subject matter, but also because Reynolds is based at UNC Chapel Hill (my undergrad) and his name rang a bell because he’d chaired the Sexuality Studies program there at some point in the recent past. And then with my master’s degree focusing on the Civil Partnership Act (2014) in the UK, of course I was going to want to read this book and see what he had to say.

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