Top Ten Tuesday: Queer Couples!

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

This week’s topic is a love freebie, and so I’m choosing to focus on queer couples from my 2017 and 2018 reads this week! Here are my favorites:

10.) The Peskin-Suso Moms, The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

Cassie and Molly Peskin-Suso’s moms are on the shortlist of my favorite book parents ever, and while they weren’t main characters I still felt that they deserved a place on this list.

9.) Andrew and Rusty, The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley by Shaun David Hutchinson

Andrew and Rusty didn’t have a perfect relationship in the hospital, but I really loved how their relationship played out later. Had we seen more of the healthy elements, I would have put them further up on this list.

8.) Ramona and Freddie, Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy

Overall I really loved Ramona and Freddie; Ramona was still figuring her sexuality out, and Freddie tried to support her as much as he could. They’re lower on this list because Freddie’s ignorance bugged me a few times, but overall I really liked them.

7.) Echo and Zara, Echo After Echo by Amy Rose Capetta

Echo and Zara had quite a bit going on behind the scenes (pardon the pun) during their relationship… They weren’t perfect, but they had great chemistry and were a nice pair.

6.) Odessa and Meredy, Reign of the Fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh

Odessa and Meredy had an adorable hate-to-love romance. They had several issues to start with, but their bonding and chemistry was really touching.

5.) Alice and Takumi, Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann

Alice and Takumi are just adorable. They were really sweet together and made a solid effort to figure out how to make the relationship work as well as it could for them. They were respectful and very, very sweet.

4.) Grace and Eva, How To Make A Wish by Ashley Herring Blake

Grace and Eva’s chemistry captivated me from the first page they shared together. I loved all of the sneaking around into lighthouses and the bonding they did through their struggles in their lives.

3.) Taylor, Theo, and Josey, 3 by Hannah Moskowitz

Best. Trio. Ever. Did I want to be there with these three wonderful characters as their story progressed? Yes. Yes I did.

2.) Simon and Blue, Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Is there really any question about this one?

1.) Rufus and Mateo, They Both Die At The End by Adam Silvera

Rufus and Mateo stole my heart and then made me cry. Thanks, Silvera.

Who are your favorite queer couples in books? Let me know in the comments!

January 2018 Wrap-up!

So, I just want to start off this post with a few stats:

• Number of posts in January: 20 (including this one)
• Number of review posts in January: 7
• Number of non-review posts in January: 13 (including this one)
• Number of non-review posts in January that have an exclamation point in the title: 8 (including this one…)

I may need to cool it on the exclamation points just a BIT.

Anyways, this was a big blogging month for me. For a large part of the month before school hit me hard, I was posting daily, and even after that I managed to post at least twice a week. Considering how sparsely I’d been posting through all of 2017 despite starting this blog in January of last year, I feel like I’ve done a great job of getting myself in more of a routine with blogging. I still need to work on that, but it’s a start. In January 2018 alone, I almost doubled both the number of posts I’ve written AND how many page views I’ve gotten on the blog — doubling my stats from the entirety of last year. My blog is still really small, but that felt like a huge accomplishment.

Reads for January

This was a big reading month for me, too! Here’s all I read in January:

Before I Let Go by Marieke Nijkamp — 3.5 of 5 stars — review here!

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson — 4 of 5 stars — For class, so one of my only permitted rereads. Review here!

I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo — 3 of 5 stars — review here!

You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone by Rachel Lynn Solomon — 5 of 5 stars — review here!

One Last Word by Nikki Grimes — 5 of 5 stars — an excellent poetry collection I read for class.

Hillary Rodham Clinton by Karen Blumenthal — 5 of 5 stars — a great biography with really nice writing.

Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy — 4.5 of 5 stars — review here!

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas — 5 of 5 stars — I was fortunate enough to have been assigned this book for class, so I got to bypass my “no rereads” policy to read it again. One of my favorites.

The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley by Shaun David Hutchinson — 5 of 5 stars — review forthcoming!

Love, Hate and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed — 5 of 5 stars — one of my favorites of the month. Don’t pass this one up. Review forthcoming!

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M Danforth — 4 of 5 stars — review forthcoming!

The Girl with the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke — 5 of 5 stars — review forthcoming!

Down In The Belly Of The Whale by Kelley Kay Bowles (ARC) — 1 of 5 stars — review forthcoming!

See All The Stars by Kit Frick (ARC) — 5 of 5 stars — review forthcoming!

The Smoke Thieves by Sally Green (ARC) — 3 of 5 stars — review forthcoming!

The Summer of Jordi Perez (and the Best Burger in Los Angeles) by Amy Spalding (ARC) — 4.5 of 5 stars — review forthcoming!

The Cat Encyclopedia for Kids by Joanne Mattern (ARC) — 3 of 5 stars — review forthcoming!

My Cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim Statovci — 2 of 5 stars — library book that fell flat for me. It was weird and I don’t even want to review it because I don’t care enough.

Krazy: George Herriman, A Life In Black And White by Michael Tisserand — 5 of 5 stars — wonderful biography of one of my favorite comics creators. Review forthcoming!

Queerly Loving #2 edited by G Benson and Astrid Ohletz (ARC) — 5 of 5 stars — a wonderful anthology of queer stories. Review forthcoming!

Reading stats:

• Number of books read: 20
• Number of books read during the 24 in 48 Readathon: 10
• Number of nonfiction books: 3
• Number of ARCs: 6
• Number of books by marginalized authors: ~13
• Number of books read for class: 6
• Number of library books: 5

It’s worth noting that almost all of the books I read that weren’t by marginalized authors were either ARCs I received or books I read for class. I really like supporting marginalized authors, so I’m happy with that number.

I clearly have a lot of reviews I need to write still! This is largely because all of those books were either read during or right before the 24 in 48 Readathon, and if I’d been reviewing as I went during the readathon there was no way I could have finished it. It’s okay, though — you’ll see those reviews in the coming months!

On The Personal Side…

January was a pretty okay month for me. I took a few risks that were at least worth taking even if they don’t pay off, and I have some great ideas for new projects. I want to write a cute YA romance between two enbies, one who is very secure with who they are and one who is questioning her gender, and I also want to design an independent study course for the final term of my master’s degree on library resources for comics studies. I really hope that works out!

I am just a few short months away from graduating with my master’s, which is weird. This is my 20th consecutive academic year since I first started going to preschool in fall of ’98, and since I don’t currently have plans to get another degree after I finish this one, I’m looking at an actual break from academia for the first time in two decades starting in June. I’m not sure how I feel about that yet. On the one hand, school is stressful, but on the other I don’t really know anything else.

February is the month where I hope that I can fine-tune my new plans for an actual blog post calendar, and the month where I hope to do more of my own writing. I want it to be a great month!

How was your January? Did you read anything you just adored? Do you have any cool February goals or plans?

TBR Thursday (Yes, I Know It’s Monday…)

TBR Thursday is a new thing that I’m doing that consists of me 1.) choosing a book that I haven’t read yet that I plan to get to this week, and 2.) me making up excuses about why I haven’t read it, most of which will be terrible. This week I’m doing it on Monday because I was too exhausted to post for the latter half of last week! I was working/volunteering/job interviewing from around 8 AM to 7 PM, give or take, during the last few weekdays, and so I generally got home and fell asleep because I was too tired to do anything.

…Anyways, last week’s book was Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy, and I did in fact read it! I did, however, read it after my digital loan had expired, and I had to resort to the “airplane mode” trick in order to keep the book on my iPad. It worked, everything is fine, and I loved it! You can check out my review here: Review: Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy

This week’s book is The Miseducation of  Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth!

Image of book cover from Goodreads

I have literally been putting this book off for years. I have no reason why I’ve been doing so except that I forget about the books on my Kindle VERY easily because I can’t physically see them without actually opening the app. Because of this, I don’t tend to read a lot of ebooks that aren’t library books. I’m trying to get into reading ebooks a little more, though, because I really don’t have a lot (read: any) shelf space left right now, won’t have more until I move into an actual single-family house eventually, and have ample space on my iPad to download stuff. I’ll get there eventually. Maybe.

The reason why I’m getting to this one this week is because I have to read a banned book for my YA resources class, and this book has been banned SEVERAL times before. Since I already own it, I might as well use it, right?

I have a bunch of books I want to read next week, including new purchases (intentional and unintentional… Amazon decided that I wanted to buy Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley on Kindle while I was culling my book wish list, so I own that one now. Good thing it was one I actually wanted eventually, but yeesh) and library books, so we’ll see how that goes!

What are you reading this week? Let me know in the comments!

I Hate The Phrase “Character Just Happens To Be X-Marginalization,” And Here’s Why

This was originally posted as a discussion post for the class LIS 566: Resources for Digital Age Teens at the UW iSchool in Winter 2018. I really liked this post and I put a lot of thought into it, and I wanted to share it here as well.

I have somewhat of an unpopular opinion: I don’t believe that we should be upholding characters who “just happen to be X-marginalization” as the ideal for characters in YA literature.

The reason I don’t like this phrasing? If a character holds a marginalized identity, that identity is ingrained in their character. It is essential to who they are, and it affects how they live their everyday lives. For instance, my life isn’t about my ADHD, my OCD, or my other mental illnesses, but they are essential to how I approach things in life because they make me think differently from how neurotypicals think. My life isn’t about my queerness, but my constant code-switching between closeted, semi-closeted, and not closeted affects me in ways that non-queer people never have to think about. I just read Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy, and the Black love interest character had to explain to the white main character why she doesn’t have to think as hard about trespassing on the property of a gun-owner as he does because he is astronomically more likely than she is to actually get shot.

By saying a character “just happens to be X-marginalization,” we are implying that even though they are part of group X, they still act “normal” — “normal” is usually implied to be non-queer, non-disabled, and white because that’s what dominates publishing. If their marginalizations do not actually affect their lives even the tiniest little bit, are they really part of that marginalization? If we make “just happens to be” the standard and these characters’ marginalizations do barely affect their lives, then what kind of message are we sending to teens who share those marginalizations and want to see them fully-fleshed out on the page?

A book about a marginalized identity is a different thing entirely; if a book is just about the identity itself, then it’s not really a story. It’s also not the ideal because we don’t need diverse books to educate non-diverse people; we need diverse books to show marginalized teens that we have good books that have characters like them that they can relate to and love. We need stories about these characters with these identities, not about the identities.

I believe the ideal shouldn’t be characters that “just happen to be X-marginalization;” I believe the ideal should be characters that embrace being X-marginalization. I want more books like You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone by Rachel Lynn Solomon, which has Jewish twins in a bilingual Hebrew-speaking household (set in Seattle!) who are dealing with the prospect of terminal illness and the slow loss of their mother and first love and constant fighting between each other. I want books like Reign of the Fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh (out on January 23rd) that have badass bisexual necromancers who are dealing with grief and addiction and the humongous task of protecting their city. I want books like North of Happy by Adi Alsaid that have a Mexican main character dealing with grief and loss and love and a heavy desire to cook (also set in Seattle!). I want characters who are unapologetically themselves, letting their identities affect them in the way that fits them. This can mean different things to different characters; characters can be unapologetically Muslim whether they choose to wear a hijab or not; You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone has one twin who embraces both her Jewish heritage and Jewish religion while the other embraces her heritage but not the religion.

(All of these books are amazing, by the way, and you should totally read them!)

By saying that a character “just happens to be X-marginalization,” we’re telling the teens who share that marginalization that we don’t believe that their marginalization is important to the book. I don’t think that this is the message we want to be sending to them; do we really want to be sharing the message that we care more about whether the general public can “relate” to a character than they relate to a character?

Review: Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy

Image of book cover from Goodreads

Title: Ramona Blue

Author: Julie Murphy

Category: YA Contemporary (LGBTQIAP+)

Publisher/Date: Balzer + Bray/9 May 2017

Edition: eBook

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31449227-ramona-blue

Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/Ramona-Blue-Julie-Murphy/dp/0062418351/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1515917597&sr=8-1

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ramona-blue-julie-murphy/1124363416#/

Ramona was only five years old when Hurricane Katrina changed her life forever.

Since then, it’s been Ramona and her family against the world. Standing over six feet tall with unmistakable blue hair, Ramona is sure of three things: she likes girls, she’s fiercely devoted to her family, and she knows she’s destined for something bigger than the trailer she calls home in Eulogy, Mississippi. But juggling multiple jobs, her flaky mom, and her well-meaning but ineffectual dad forces her to be the adult of the family. Now, with her sister, Hattie, pregnant, responsibility weighs more heavily than ever.

The return of her childhood friend Freddie brings a welcome distraction. Ramona’s friendship with the former competitive swimmer picks up exactly where it left off, and soon he’s talked her into joining him for laps at the pool. But as Ramona falls in love with swimming, her feelings for Freddie begin to shift too, which is the last thing she expected. With her growing affection for Freddie making her question her sexual identity, Ramona begins to wonder if perhaps she likes girls and guys or if this new attraction is just a fluke. Either way, Ramona will discover that, for her, life and love are more fluid than they seem.

This book has content warnings for mild racism (not condoned), mild heterosexism (not condoned), one acemisic line, and natural disasters.

Ramona Blue is a book that is important to me personally because of its questioning rep. There are so, so few books out there that have a character questioning their sexuality and end the book being okay with continuing to question, and as someone who primarily IDs as bi but isn’t 100% certain if it fits and is still questioning, I really loved this. I loved how she was taking the time to figure herself out; she acknowledged who she knew she liked at that moment in time, she acknowledged some identities that could potentially fit her, but she didn’t force herself to choose one just for the sake of having a label. And that’s okay. If she decides on a label she thinks fits later, she’ll probably take it as quickly as she took on the label of “lesbian” before realizing she liked Freddie, too.

As someone who is demisexual, I also liked that we had an on-page and named demisexual character. I do kind of wish that we could have gone deeper into that because that was mostly left at “what is that?” and “exactly,” which is the most relatable thing ever, but just seeing the word on the page made me happy, and because the character is a side character I don’t mind quite as much that it wasn’t talked about a lot. It’s something I gloss over a lot too because people don’t understand it and it’s tiring to explain to people.

I really felt for Ramona when she felt the need to be the “adult” of the family. She was a high school student with multiple jobs and a pregnant sister whose boyfriend was an irresponsible loser, and she spent most of her energy trying to provide for her family and insisting that that was more important than her going to college or otherwise trying to find her own path. It’s frustrating to be that young with such high levels of responsibility on your shoulders, and while she had a lot of external encouragement to put herself first, she didn’t really get the same type of encouragement from the place where it mattered: her sister and her dad. I also really loved how their poverty from after Hurricane Katrina was shown; everything from saving to buy her new niece furniture to thrifting her prom dress and altering it with her sister were nice touches.

I also loved the swimming side plot. Because Ramona was so tied up in helping her family with everything, I really liked watching her discover something that she herself loved to do, even while it took her a bit to realize just how interested she was in it. It gave her some room to grow outside of the other people around her, and it also REALLY made me want to go swimming…

There was a lot of ignorance in relation to race and queerness in this book from minor characters, and because of the book’s setting it felt realistic and most of the time it wasn’t brushed off. Several characters express some really awkward remarks about mixed-race relationships (because Freddie is Black and Ramona is white), but they’re portrayed as awkward and racist in the text. Additionally, there is a scene where Freddie has to explain that he can’t take the same risks that Ramona can because he is FAR more likely to be shot than she is if they’re caught because of his race; Ramona does feel guilty after, and it does not happen again in the text.

There are also a handful of characters who aren’t very accepting of Ramona’s queerness, and those negative perceptions are portrayed as wrong. Additionally, there is a bunch of misunderstanding of her sexuality, especially from Freddie; Freddie did admit, though, that he hadn’t had many non-straight people in his life, and though he made several awkward comments he did appear to be actually trying to do better throughout the book. Though the lines were frustrating at the time they were spoken, I did appreciate the character growth and that he was okay with Ramona liking him and girls. There was one line spoken by Ramona in the book that was acemisic, implying that to be human is to want sex. It was only one line, but it’s still there and a little awkward.

One part of the book that I didn’t like so much was when Freddie kissed Ramona without her permission at first. Consent was present later in the book, which was very good, but it wasn’t at first and that was a little irritating.

Overall, I felt like this book was handled really well. It wouldn’t really be right to consider this book bi rep because it really isn’t; it’s very much questioning rep, which is something that we need more of. There are queer teenagers in the world who go through this same thing, and denouncing queer people in m/f relationships is really frustrating because it invalidates the queerness of those people. And those people are very much still queer, no matter who they are with.

Final rating: 4.5/5 stars

TBR Thursday: Ramona Blue Edition

TBR Thursday is a new thing that I’m doing that consists of me 1.) choosing a book that I haven’t read yet that I plan to get to this week, and 2.) me making up excuses about why I haven’t read it, most of which will be terrible. This week’s book is Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy!

I’ve heard lots of good things about this book, and have wanted to read it so much that I have now checked out the ebook twice from the library and still haven’t read it. In my defense for the first time it happened, I was KIND OF in Europe and didn’t have a lot of time to read and so it just expired and I had to put it on hold again. I now have it checked out for the second time, still haven’t read it, and it expires again sometime today…

So, my options are either:

1.) Read this book like right now, or
2.) The good old “iPad on Airplane Mode” trick…

I actually am really excited about reading this book. I forget about ebooks so easily in a way that I never forget about paper books, and it often makes it hard for me to decide to read an ebook instead of a paper book. I love reading on my iPad and I love checking out ebooks and buying sale ebooks, but if I can’t physically see a book in front of me it’s incredibly difficult for me to remember that I have it.

Those are my terrible excuses for not reading Ramona Blue yet! Next TBR Thursday, I will update you with whether or not I actually read it. (This could be a good accountability tool maybe?)

What book have you been putting off reading that you hope to get to? Why haven’t you read it yet? Let me know in the comments!

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books I Meant To Read In 2017 But Didn’t Get To (and totallyyyy plan to get to in 2018!!)

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

This week’s topic is books I meant to read in 2017… and didn’t. This happened A LOT to me before my reading slump, but it’s also happening pretty frequently to me now because I’m just finding so many books that I want to read, and my piles are stacking up. Here are ten books I meant to read in 2017 and will hopefully read in 2018!

10.) I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo

I borrowed this ebook from my library and have around 24 hours left to finish it or so! By the time you read this, I should have read it. Hopefully.

[Note from Future Benni: This review is already up! After I finished writing this post, I looked at my loans and realized that this book was actually due back in *3* hours and so it got moved to my Emergency TBR. Whoops.]

9.) This is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp

Ebook bought at the beginning of the year. You’re going to sense a theme here — I buy ebooks or borrow ebooks, and I forget about them. This is largely why I prefer hard copy over ebooks. I don’t mind reading ebooks, but if the book isn’t in sight then I’ll often forget about it!

8.) The Girl With The Red Balloon by Katherine Locke

Another ebook purchase offense. I haven’t had this book for quite as long, so I don’t have to feel as guilty about it. Even if I should still feel guilty.

7.) Warcross by Marie Lu

I got a post-publication ARC of this book from attending LibraryCon Live!, and because it’s already out into the world I’ve been focusing more energy on the ARCs I have that have yet to be published. Bad excuse.

6.) When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon

I waited for months on the waiting list to check out the ebook from my library, but I eventually bought a hardcover while they were pretty cheap on Amazon. I feel like I’ve been pushing this one off longer than I actually have in reality, but still. Guilt.

5.) On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis

Another beginning of the year ebook purchase! I have plans to read this book for a module of my YA resources class this term, so I will DEFINITELY be getting to this one this year.

4.) Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy

Another library ebook that I need to read! If you look at my OverDrive account right now, you’d think that I should feel less guilty about this one than I Believe in a Thing Called Love because it is not due nearly as soon. Unfortunately, you’d be wrong — this is my second time checking it out because I totally didn’t get to it the first time and now I should feel ALL THE GUILT!

3.) Noteworthy by Riley Redgate

I almost bought this book multiple times last year and just… Didn’t… Do it… But then I did! I’ve really been wanting to read this one, so why I’ve been putting it off is a mystery to me.

2.) How to Make a Wish by Ashley Herring Blake

I won this book during the 24 in 48 Readathon this summer! And I still haven’t read it despite how amazing everyone says it is! I also have plans to read this book for my YA resources class, so I’ll be getting to it soon. I promise.

1.) The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

I bought this ebook in 2013, and I believe that is all the context you need here… Out of sight, out of mind, right?

 

What books have you been putting off reading? Have you been putting off any books for five years (or longer!) like I have? Let’s discuss this in the comments!