Tag: romance

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books with F/F Romance
Lists · Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books with F/F Romance

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Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly blog prompt hosted and run by The Artsy Reader Girl. This week the prompt was a love freebie so I decided I wanted to make a list about my favourite books featuring f/f relationships as they definitely deserve some more love.

Ash – Malinda Lo

Ash

Ash is a queer fantasy retelling of Cinderella. Ash is left with her stepmother after her father’s death, leaving her consumed with grief and little happiness. She eventually meets Kaisa, the King’s Huntress, who encourages her to embrace life and love.

Everything Leads to You – Nina LaCour

Everything Leads to You

Emi loves films and she is slowly making her way into the world of film making by designing sets. One day she finds a letter from a film legend that leads her to Ava and sets her off on a new path and gives her a sense of adventure.

Annie of My Mind – Nancy Garden

Annie on My Mind

Annie and Liza are young teen girls who are slowly falling in love and learning to navigate their lives together. They face many obstacles to their love along the way, but also have many triumphs.

Not Your Sidekick – C.B. Lee

Not Your Sidekick (Sidekick Squad, #1)

Jess Tran lives in a world where many people have superpowers, her parents being well-known. She gets herself an internship, hoping to prove herself and show her capabilities, but ends up working for a well known supervillain. She is sworn to secrecy, but the one person who understands is Abby, her secret crush who also happens to work for the same villain.

Infinity Son – Adam Silvera

Infinity Son (Infinity Cycle, #1)

Infinity Son follows a misfit group of people of various backgrounds with different powers who are working together to defeat the specters, a group of people who steal powers from phoenixes. They face many challenges along the way, but the celestials never give up.

The Color Purple – Alice Walker

The Color Purple

Celie is born into a life of poverty and segregation in which she is subject to sexual assault and separation from those she loves. Through the people she meets and the places she goes, Celie slowly finds spirit and joy.

Things a Bright Girl Can Do – Sally Nicholls

Things a Bright Girl Can Do

This book follows three young women, Evelyn, May, and Nell, working to gain women the right to vote. As they fight for freedom, they face many obstacles and challenges, but also find love, friendship and community.

Leah on the Offbeat – Becky Albertalli

Leah on the Offbeat (Simonverse, #3)

Leah is bisexual, though none of her friends yet know, despite knowing how accepting they will be of her. They are quickly reaching the end of high school and their friendship group is being rocked and changed in unexpected ways.

Girls of Paper and Fire – Natasha Ngan

Girls of Paper and Fire (Girls of Paper and Fire #1)

Every year eight Paper Girls are chosen to serve the king, but this year there is also a ninth girl of fire, Lei. She and the other girls begin training to be the king’s consort at the palace, where she falls in love.

Of Fire and Stars – Audrey Coulthurst

Of Fire and Stars (Of Fire and Stars, #1)

Princess Dennaleia has always known she was set to marry the prince of Mynaria to form an alliance between their lands and protect their people, but she has two secrets. One, that she possesses a forbidden magic with her affinity for fire, and two, that she is actually in love with the prince’s sister.

 

What’s your favourite book with f/f romance?🏳‍🌈

Reviews

ARC Review: Mooncakes – Suzanne Walker & Wendy Xu

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Release Date: 15th October 2019
Publisher: Lion Forge
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Mooncakes is a beautiful little queer graphic novel that follows a young witch, Nova, and her relationship with her childhood crush, Tam, a werewolf. The two deal with their feelings for each other and what it means for their friendship, whilst also battling demons and understanding the magic and witchcraft that they possess.

It was incredibly cute and I loved getting to meet these characters whilst having a glimpse into their lives. They deeply care about one another and have a strong sense of duty to one another as well as family. Family takes an important role in the comic which was an aspect I especially loved as I feel stories, particularly fantasy ones, often separate themselves from family and don’t address the important role that a family plays in someone’s life.

The story itself was lovely and intriguing and everything you would want, but another strong aspect that cannot be ignored is the beautiful illustrations and art that runs throughout the graphic novel. The style is really soft and detailed and it matches the story perfectly. Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu’s work compliment each other and match very well.

Overall, this was a lovely graphic novel to read and I’m glad that netgalley gave me the opportunity to see it in it’s working stages with the arc. I love the storyline, the art, the representation, the characters, and so much more. I definitely recommend picking it up.

Reviews

ARC Review: All the Better Part of Me – Molly Ringle

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Thank you NetGalley and Central Avenue Publishing for providing me with a copy for review.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Release Date: 3 September 2019

All the Better Part of Me is a new adult contemporary about a young actor who is starting to make a name for himself and navigating his newfound feelings for his childhood best friend.

I liked the story of this, especially for the representation of bisexuality. It felt very real for him to not understand his feelings and to question himself without taking anything away from what it means to be bisexual. He wasn’t afraid of being bisexual, something that I think is important to show, but that didn’t mean he automatically had all the answers, which I think it is also important to show.

I was initially intrigued to read this because it was classed as new adult and I thought it would be nice to read about characters close to my age, but I don’t think the new adult genre is for me. The characters were still a few years older than me and were doing a lot more (like living in different countries and dealing with pregnancy), and the new adult genre is also quite nsfw.

It was a good book that I think people are really going to enjoy.

Reviews

ARC Review: Proud – Juno Dawson and various

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Thank you NetGalley and Little Tiger Group for granting my wish and providing me with a copy for review.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Release Date: 07 March 2019

I was really excited to read this compilation of LGBT+ short stories and I feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to read and review it before its release in March. It features a range of LGBT+ writers and artists who have come together to tell different stories about a range of people across a range of genres.

All the stories were very different and I enjoyed reading every one of them. I haven’t really read a compilation of short stories like this for a long time so it was a nice change, especially to read so many stories featuring so many LGBT+ characters. I read a lot of books with queer characters as I am queer myself, but I tend to stick to the ones focusing on sexuality rather than gender as this is what I relate to so it was nice to read about the other parts of my community too in these short stories.

I think it made a good attempt of trying to encompass the diversity of the LGBT+ community, especially as many books don’t feature these characters and identities at all, but I wish it had been a little more diverse. For instance, the + identities were still not really represented in this book.

Overall, it was a brilliant book and I really appreciate what it is doing. There were stories focusing on coming out, discrimination, first love, fantasy, and much more. It is a great book and I can’t wait to read and see more work from the authors and artists featured in this book, many of which I hadn’t heard of before.

ARC Review: Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts) – L. C. Rosen (Out Oct 30th!)
Reviews

ARC Review: Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts) – L. C. Rosen (Out Oct 30th!)

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Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Random House for providing me with a copy for review.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genres: Young Adult, Humour, LGBT+
Release Date: 30 October 2018

Jack Rothman is an out gay high school student who begins writing an advice column to help his friend who is running a publication for the school. He uses this column to give advice on, and to educate people about, sex, but begins to question himself when he starts to receive anonymous letters from a stalker who disapproves of Jack’s lifestyle and openness.

I was first drawn to Jack of Hearts because it gave me a similar vibe to The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, something that I have been searching for since I read it last year. It was definitely a good novel and the humour and internal monologues especially reminded me of Gentleman’s Guide. The actual similarities between the two novels are small, but both are brilliant in their own regard and can definitely be appreciated for what they add to YA and queer literature.

One of the things that I like most about Jack of Hearts is how open and educational it is about topics that are often taboo, especially for queer individuals. It didn’t shy away from being honest which is something that young people need, especially young queer people who will find it hard to experience and obtain this anywhere else.

Lists

#NationalComingOutDay – Books That Helped Me Come Out

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Image result for national coming out day

In honour of National Coming Out Day I thought I would create a list of the books that helped me come out over the years. I have read many more since (that I wish I could have read back then!) and coming out is never truly over, but these were the books that impacted me the most when I was first discovering and accepting that part of myself.

The first and most important person you come out to is yourself and I’m so proud of you for doing that, no matter how much further you have gotten or that you are able to go. The ability to come out is a privilege that not everyone has, but know that you are never alone and people will always be there to support you if you need it.

Without further ado, these are the books that helped me the most:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky

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Ash – Malinda Lo

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The Song of Achilles – Madeleine Miller

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Young Avengers – Allan Heinberg, Jim Cheung & various others

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The Mortal Instruments – Cassandra Clare

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Proxy – Alexander London

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On the Other Side – Carrie Hope Fletcher

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Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe – Benjamin Alire Sáenz

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House of Night – P.C. and Kristin Cast

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(Side note: I debated whether or not I should include House of Night because my tastes have changed a lot since I first started it and there are definitely some things about it that I’m more critical of now, but they were the first books I ever read with gay characters which was incredibly important when I was a young teen).

I will definitely make another post one day with more recommendations, including the newer releases that I didn’t have to help me then. Do you have any books that helped or are helping you come out?

Have a wonderful day ✨

ARC Review: What If It’s Us by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli (Out Oct 9th!)
Reviews

ARC Review: What If It’s Us by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli (Out Oct 9th!)

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Thank you NetGalley and Simon and Schuster UK for providing me with a copy for review.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, LGBT+
Release Date: 09 October 2018 (UK: 18 October 2018)
Find it on Goodreads

It’s actually been almost a week since I read this book and I’ve been putting off writing the review ever since because it was so wonderful that I don’t know how my words could do it justice. I’m still in complete shock that I was lucky enough to even receive an ARC of it as it was one of my most highly anticipated releases of the year and has easily become one of my favourite reads of the year.

This collaborative book between Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli follows two young boys in New York, Arthur and Ben, who meet in a post office one day when Arthur is running errands for his internship and Ben is attempting to mail back his ex-boyfriend’s belongings. The pair feel a connection and are awash with luck, as though fate is pulling them together, but they also face many mishaps along the way, as though the universe is also trying to pull them apart.

It was such a wonderful and easy novel to read that I read it in just a few sittings across a single day. The concept is a really interesting take on the meet-cute trope that I haven’t seen before and was great to read. It made the story unique and revived the trope by adding a layer of tension and confusion to their meeting. It was one of the many aspects about it that demonstrated the perfect blend Adam Silvera’s and Becky Albertalli’s writing styles.

The characters themselves were great and felt so realistic. It was easy to understand many of their actions whilst also becoming frustrated and needing to keep reading to find out what’s going to happen. I loved how the novel switched perspectives between Ben and Arthur so that you could really understand each character and see the story from their point of view, as well as how each author had wrote from the perspective of a different character, making them feel very separate and unbiased. Each author managed to brilliantly encompass the other author’s writing with their own so that the novel flowed seamlessly and the characters remained consistent when they were being wrote about and included in the chapters from the other characters perspective.

One of my favourite things about this novel was the ending. I found as I was reading it that it was impossible to predict what was going to happen, especially when you consider the typical endings found in each authors respective books, and I loved the way it eventually rounded up. It was fitting and true to both authors.

Overall, I loved reading this and can definitely see it being a novel that I would re-read. I highly recommend it and can’t wait for it to be released so that I can see everyone’s thoughts and reactions to this beautiful story.