(Photo shows the covers of: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab; The Color Purple by Alice Walker; The Secret History by Donna Tartt; The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski, A Song of Wraiths and Ruins by Roseanne A. Brown; Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier; Radio Silence by Alice Oseman; Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo.)
I hosted an LGBT readathon with one of my friends over a period of a week where the goal was to read 4 books that fulfilled the prompts on a bingo card. I did a lot better than I thought I was going to do and finished reading 8 books and DNF'ed (did not finish) one. I have enjoyed all of the books I read this week (except for More than This by Patrick Ness, the one book I DNF'ed.), and I am so happy I did this. I am really happy I got to explore all these LGBT books whilst also encouraging people to read more LGBT books as well.
My completed bingo card can be seen here (I hit bingo right at the last minute):
The original post detailing the readathon can be found here: https://literasea.wixsite.com/website/post/lgbtq-twt-based-readathon-2020
BOOKS READ
1. V.E. Schwab - The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
Rating: 5/5
Genre: urban fantasy, romance, adult
Bingo: read a book depicting your identity or sexuality (bisexual!)
Official synopsis: France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.
But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.
Trigger warnings (highlight or copy to read - they are written in white): death, starvation, prostitution, uncomfortable sex, depression, anxiety, attempted suicide, manipulation, toxic relationships
I have a full review for this book right here: https://literasea.wixsite.com/website/post/v-e-schwab-the-invisible-life-of-addie-larue-review
This book was so good. This was the first ARC I’ve ever received and I actually didn’t realise it was an LGBT book until I started reading it. Nobody in this book is straight, basically. Schwab confirmed that Addie was actually bi a while ago, and I think the book points one of the other characters towards being pansexual.
This book was so well done but the thing that worries me is how it was marketed. It was marketed as containing an enemies to lovers romance when it’s not at all, like at all. But I think the other thing that will hold it back is that it doesn’t actually highlight the fact that it’s a romance during marketing when I think this book is more of a romance than it is a fantasy. So go into the book with these things in mind. Overall though, I really enjoyed it and I’m really excited for it to come out in October so I can get my hands on the physical copy.
The characters are flawed yet real and relatable. Throughout this book I just kept thinking, yeah, yeah I would do the exact same. It’s stupid, but that’s exactly how I would act, which I think is the best type of character. Addie was a lot more enjoyable and well written as a character versus some of Schwab’s other female characters whom I wasn’t the biggest fan of (Lila Bard), and you can see she has really taken on the constructive criticism given to her whilst writing her other series.
2. Alice Walker - The Color Purple
Rating: 5/5
Genre: classic, literary fiction, epistolary (told through letters)
Bingo: read a book written by a BIPOC
Synopsis: This story tells the tale of Celie's life, an African-American woman living in 1930s Georgia in an abusive home. When she's married off to another abusive man, she is left to search for companionship alone as she holds onto the hope of being reunited with her little sister in Africa.
Trigger warnings (highlight or copy to read - they are written in white): child abuse, domestic abuse, rape, racism, nonconsensual incest, death, sexism, internalised sexism
This story was amazing. I am writing this review having just finished the book and I’m having a hard time really wrapping my head around everything. At first, I found the way it was written (through letters) a little bit jarring as it was initially addressed to God however, about halfway through the book I realised just why this was written like this and Alice Walker is an absolute genius. I was blown away.
This book explores both the racial and gender dynamics in the American South during the 1930s in a way that is both uplifting and harrowing. I cried with the characters, I grew to love and understand them despite their flaws and I loved watching the relationships develop.
This book also explores the idea of wilful white ignorance, something that I personally haven’t read before in a novel. It was so frustrating to read but in the best way because now I have a better perspective of what it feels like to be an African American woman in the USA, obviously, I will never fully understand it but Alice Walker did such an amazing job I felt the same frustrations and emotions Celie was also feeling.
This book is DARK. If you are easily triggered I would take caution when picking this up. I would be really happy to tell you more specifics if you want, just drop me a dm!
3. Donna Tartt - The Secret History
Rating: ⅘
Genre: classic, dark academia, mystery
Synopsis: At the beginning of the book, we find out that our narrator has assisted in the murder of one of his friends, Bunny. Throughout the book we slowly unravel how and why this happened, as well as the aftermath of the book.
Trigger warnings (highlight or copy to read - they are written in white): self harm, suicide attempt, unhealthy parent-child relationships, incest, murder, recreational drug use
This book was an incredibly intriguing, well written and very structured book. What I mean by that is that it was clear from the beginning of the book that Donna Tartt knew what she wanted to write and everything she needed to include, all the way down to the way she was going to tell it. I love books where you can tell everything has previously been planned out, they instantly make the reading experience more enjoyable for me.
The characters in this book are some of the most annoying people I have ever read about. They are pretentious, they fight a lot, and they make me want to punch them in the face but they are absolutely perfect for this book. I think the characters are why this book is so polarising, you ever have the biggest love-hate relationship with them or you just straight up hate them. I’m kind of both.
This is one of those books where you either love or hate it. I don’t really think there’s a middle ground here. I personally really liked it but I completely understand why people wouldn’t.
4. Marie Rutkoski - The Midnight Lie
Rating: ⅘
Genre: romance, fantasy, adventure, young adult
Bingo: read the Midnight Lie
Synopsis: After Nirrim gets thrown in jail, she meets a mysterious character who tells her stories of the outside world beyond what Nirrim has ever experienced, tales of magic and cultures she has never even heard of. After she and the stranger escape, she asks for help to find this magic for herself, thus starting a month-long trip in search of what she wants.
Trigger warnings (highlight or copy to read - they are written in white): child abuse, murder of a child (off screen, non graphic), recreational drug use
I don’t have a lot to say about this book other than that this book was incredibly adorable. Honestly, I didn’t think this was the most well written book, and the plot was a little bit messy but I absolutely loved it. I fell in love with the characters and this book provided such a good few hours of escapism for me. I devoured it in one go. There are quite a lot of flaws in this book, and it’s quite different from things I usually like, but I loved this so much. Everything about it made me so happy to read. I can’t wait for the sequel of this book but I have no idea when it’s coming out.
5. Roseanne A. Brown - A Song of Wraiths and Ruins
Rating: 4.5/5
Genre: romance, fantasy
Bingo: read a book with a shiny cover (Karina is bisexual)
Synopsis: Malik is tasked with killing the princess in order to save his sister, Princess Karina has to obtain the heart of a King in order to revive her mother. Malik is chosen to enter a competition in order to win Karina’s hand in marriage.
Trigger warnings (highlight or copy to read - they are written in white): self harm, death, violence, panic attacks, anxiety
I really enjoyed this book. This was quite a typical YA fantasy but honestly, it still was so refreshing because I believe any trope or overdone story can still be highly enjoyable if done really well. I think this is one of those books. However, because of this, I don’t have too much to say about it.
I thought the beginning of this book was a little bit slow and I found it a little bit difficult to get into, but once I did about 100 pages in I enjoyed it a lot. The plot was a fast paced action packed fantasy that was unpredictable but not too convoluted that it was difficult to follow. The characters were also incredibly likeable. I was a bit worried about Karina in the beginning that she would fall into the not-like-other-girls trope, but in the end, she ended up being my favourite character. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes YA books that contain great romance and is a bit more character driven than plot driven.
6. Daphne du Maruier - Rebecca
Rating: 5/5
Genre: thriller, classic
Bingo: read a book where nature plays a role (Rebecca drowned in the ocean)* Synopsis: after marrying the elusive and very rich Maxim de Winter, the narrator moves into the house haunted by the presence of Maxim’s late wife Rebecca through the staff, who are obsessed with her.
Trigger warnings (highlight or copy to read - they are written in white): death, drowning
*Whilst this book does not contain explicitly LGBT characters, Rebecca is rumoured to be bisexual and Maurier is confirmed to be sapphic in the biography ‘Daphne du Mauier’. Along with this, it appears that Maurier is non-binary or transgender, describing an alter ego in which when left alone, they would “let the phantom, who was neither boy or girl but disembodied spirit, dance in the evening when there was no one to see”. They also describe that they felt like they “were a boy but was born in the wrong body”. For this reason, I will stick with gender neutral pronouns out of respect.
This book was amazing. I’ve been meaning to read this book for quite a long time because it just seemed like the type of thing I would love and I was right. I read most of this in one go and read for about four hours straight because I could not put it down. I remember I tried to put it down about 250 pages in because I wanted to sleep but I just wanted to know what happened, so I read about 100 more pages until I got to the big reveal. I think this plot is relatively predictable but I feel like this book isn’t so much about the plot but more about the atmosphere and the characters. I basically predicted what was going to happen but I still could not stop reading it.
The writing of this book is absolutely beautiful. I couldn’t help annotating this book every time I saw a line I loved, and I ended up with a lot of annotations. The building of this atmosphere is so masterful, it was so tense the whole time and there were times where I was genuinely scared. This story has one of the creepiest characters I’ve ever read about (you will know who this is when you read it) and the description still haunts me.
I thought this book was absolutely magnificent and is such a good introduction to classic literature if you are not used to the classic writing style. It is genuinely one of the best classics I’ve read.
7. Alice Oseman - Radio Silence
Rating: 3.75/5
Genre: contemporary, YA
Bingo: read a contemporary story
Synopsis: Frances Javier, a highly academic student and head girl, is invited to draw for her favourite podcast, Universe City, only to find out that she actually knows the creator of Universe City.
Trigger warnings (highlight or copy to read - they are written in white): animal abuse, domestic abuse, suicide
I thought this book was really good overall. I really enjoyed the plot and the foreshadowing, you could really tell that Oseman knew what she was going to do from the very beginning of the book. I really enjoyed the different subplots within this story and I was shocked by a lot of the things that happened. I also really enjoyed the characters because I highly relate to Frances to feeling like my only personality trait is being academic, especially after figuring out that I’m really not academic at all.
However, I do have some complaints with this book. I really don’t like how the characters react to the events that happened in this story, and I started disliking some of the characters. Whilst I understood, I just didn’t like it. I found the ending quite underwhelming but others really enjoyed it so I think it depends on how people interpret it.
8. Bernardine Evaristo - Girl, Woman, Other
Rating: 3.75/5
Genre: adult, literary fiction
Bingo: read a story set outside of your home country (the UK)
Synopsis: "Girl, Woman, Other" is described as a polyphonic novel about the intersections of identity. It's told from the point of view of 12 British women of color who range in age from 19 to 93. The women represent a diversity of classes, cultures and sexual identities. (synopsis taken from https://www.npr.org/2019/12/13/777162287/class-culture-and-sexual-identity-take-center-stage-in-girl-woman-other#:~:text=%22Girl%2C%20Woman%2C%20Other%22%20is%20described%20as%20a%20polyphonic,classes%2C%20cultures%20and%20sexual%20identities. )
Trigger warnings (highlight or copy to read - they are written in white): on screen sexual assault/rape, domestic/relationship abuse, child abuse, pedophilia, incest, miscarriage, racism, racial slurs, transphobia, misogyny, homophobia
I think this is one of the best books I’ve ever read. This is an incredibly eye opening story with some of the most beautiful writing I’ve read from a contemporary book. There is a lot of talk, especially now, about the racism within the US, (as they really should!) but there isn’t as much about other countries despite being as bad, if not worse. This story looks all the way back to Britain’s colonial history, as well as the current politics regarding brexit and the xenophobic atmosphere within the country.
This book made my heart hurt, it made me cry, it made me angry, it made me happy. This is one of those books where I feel like I can’t say much about this book because you can just feel how deeply personal it is, and it’s really just not my place to comment on the experience of black people but in terms of the writing and general enjoyment, I adore this book. I highly recommend everyone pick up this book if you are looking for a deeply moving and emotional, yet witty and fast paced read. This was such a good book to end my LGBT readathon on.
BOOKS DNF’ED
1. Patrick Ness - More Than This
There wasn’t anything particularly bad about this book but there just wasn’t anything particularly great either. I was just bored and I wasn’t intrigued about 150 pages in. I didn’t want to continue so I just didn’t. I’m also not a fan of the characters or the writing style, nothing was compelling or making me want to read more of the book.
Comments