Month: April 2011

Danika reviews The Voting Booth After Dark by Vanessa Libertad Garcia

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This book is a little difficult to review, because it’s not a novel. It doesn’t have a plot. It’s a collection of fragments, snippets, of different people’s lives. The description calls it a collection of short stories and poems interwoven into a narrative that follows a group of addicted gay & lesbian Latino club kids destroying themselves throughout the course of the 2008 elections. It’s unclear which fragments/poems are attached to which narrator. The narrators rarely get names.  Instead, you just get a sense of the overall frustration, self-destructiveness, and even despair of the group as a whole. In that way, all their lives weave together.

I found it a little like reading scraps of people’s diaries. The context wasn’t given, nothing was explained for you (including things that seem like inside jokes), and it wasn’t always grammatically correct. It felt authentic, but it also completely lost me a couple of times. Despite the blurb, the election wasn’t given as much attention as I was expecting. It’s more of a setting and context for the stories than the focus of them. The subject matter is dark, from addiction to suicide attempts. It’s definitely not a light read.

The Voting Booth After Dark is an unusual little book (only 70 pages), but if you enjoy taking a peek into the minds of people, you should find it interesting.

Kristi reviews Turning Point by Lara Zielinsky

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Hollywood has its stars: as one begins to fall, another is there to shine. Cassidy Hyland has gotten the cold shoulder from her co-star on the hit sci-fi show Time Trails, Brenna Lanigan, for long enough. Hoping that her son’s birthday party will find a way to spark a connection between them, Cassidy has no idea that she will find herself longing for much more than a friendship with Brenna. From the warmth of an surprise hug to the heat on a sunlit mountain top, learning about each other brings Brenna and Cassidy closer to a truth – and a love – they never expected to find.

In Turning Point, Lara Zielinsky highlights two women who find themselves on opposite sides of the acting divide: Brenna is approaching the “over-the-hill” status that actresses over 40 find themselves facing; Cassidy is the younger, gorgeous woman brought in to bring a fresh face and look to the series. After a period of time of aloofness, Cassidy uses her son’s birthday party to show Brenna that she is a good person, sparking more than a truce in their dealings with each other.

The friendship that grows between the two women is born of work and motherhood, but the attraction is there from the beginning, more so for Cassidy. As she tries to figure out what draws her to Brenna, she works on disentangling herself from both her issues with her abusive ex-husband and her relationship with show writer Cameron, which puts her in more and more uncomfortable positions on set. Brenna’s second marriage to upcoming politician Kevin Shea was a fast decision and one that does not provide Brenna the stability she expected it to bring. The emotional connection between the two is tenuous at best, living and working long-distance. Brenna’s sons still refer to him as “Mr. Shea” even after a year.

At first I was concerned about how slow the story seemed to be progressing. Hollywood is full of “in bed in fifteen minutes” storylines, as are lesbian romances. After finishing the book, I realized that I knew so much about these two women and how they deal with their changing feelings. While the story take a long time to build, readers get to see not only the development of Brenna and Cassidy’s relationship, but glimpses into their lives as actresses and mothers. The plot uses some devices that seem a little far-fetched: both women travel to the same store in all of Los Angeles to shop for their fateful camping trip, Cameron catches the two in a kiss and immediately wonders if “Cassidy will let him watch”. Even with those trite moments, the growing love between the two, and the self-reflection that it causes them both, is sure to touch a memory in many readers’ minds. It certainly did mine.

Turning Point is a slow but steady heart-felt story of two women discovering their feelings for each other. Decorated in the glitter of stardom, it is the people behind the television characters that have to strip away the artifice to find the love they really want.

Weekly Link Round Up

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AfterEllen posted Life’s Little Lesbian Mysteries: The good ol’ days.

Arsenal Pulp Press posted A message about Persistence and An apology to Ben McCoy.

Bella Books posted the Bella Books novels nominated for the Lesbian Fiction Readers’ Choice Awards.

Bibrary Bookslut posted Spring Celebration – Final Week (with one HUGE giveaway!).

Gay YA posted

I’m Here, I’m Queer, What the Hell Do I Read? posted It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating A Life Worth Living – The book! and Celebrating Half A Million Visits By GLBTQ Teens And Their Allies… Including YOU! And some other good news!

Lambda Literary posted

Lesbilicious posted Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy to cover royal nuptials and Are there lesbians in heaven? [Discussion of lesbians in the Bible].

The Rainbow Reader posted an introduction of her and her blog.

Readings in Lesbian and Bisexual Women’s Fiction posted Readings with Jeanine Hoffman.

A post on queer historical fiction was posted at Dreaming In Books.

A post about the future of queer bookstores was posted at G Philly.

R. E. Bradshaw posted about the strengths and weaknesses of repeating storylines in lesbian fiction.

Kate Christie was interviewed at Edge Seattle.

Ivan Coyote was posted about at The Martlet.

Sarah Ettritch was interviewed at Bibrary Bookslut.

Nancy Garden was interviewed at Dreaming In Books.

Karin Kallmaker posted An Evening of Words and Laughter.

Malinda Lo posted A free short story set in the world of HUNTRESS, and much more! She was interviewed at Tor.com, AfterEllen, and Mundie Moms; posted about the Chinese influences in Huntress at The Naughty Book Kitties; and posted her top 5 YA books at Manga Maniac Cafe.

Jill Malone was interviewed at Bett Norris’s blog.

Cheryl Rainfeld was interviewed at Dreaming In Books.

Review links are under the cut! Continue Reading →

allis reviews Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters

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Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters

In Keeping You a Secret, a high school student, Holland, who always had everything planned for her, is suddenly awakening to her own life and start seeing everything falling apart as she falls in love with Cece and has to make a choice between following expectations or going her own way.

The novel start with a classic introduction of characters, and straight away you know what will happen between the main characters. What is interesting, though, is the process of getting there and seeing how things will unfold.

We see the world through Holland’s eyes, and sinece she is an interesting and funny person, that makes the narration light. I wasn’t expecting it to surprise me, however. I was not waiting for anything other than Holland finding out about her sexuality and breaking out of the expectations everyone has for her. I was proven wrong when the idea of a gay club came up. Suddenly the atmosphere of Holland’s world changed and you could feel the animosity of the school towards homosexuality. I was quite curious to see this subject developed, but sadly it was rapidly put in the background to focus back on Holland. I would have loved to read more about the high school atmosphere and how it affected the characters, but the story is told from Holland’s point of view, and at this stage of the book she was growing more and more confused about her feelings for Cece. She was pretty much aware of only that aspect of her life, the rest disappearing in the background of her mind.

The topic wasn’t really dropped, though, as we quickly got back to it on a larger scale, including Holland’s and Cece’s families and their reactions to their daughters being lesbians. I thought it was quite a good portrayal of reality, especially Cece’s family. I loved how her mom tried to come to terms with her daughters being lesbians: not understanding it, but accepting it, because she has no choice and loves her daughters. On the opposite hand, Holland’s mom is everything but accepting and throws her daughter out of her home. Sadly, no hope is given for reconciliation between the both of them. And that’s when the gay community really came into the picture. I enjoyed those brief moments in which Holland found support and a new home. But as for the animosity of the high school, the topic is not really developed, just hinted at. This is, after all, not the main focus of the novel.

All in all, it was a very good novel. I enjoyed reading about all the problems that came up in Holland’s life when she found out she was a lesbian and when she came out. I thought the difficulties and confusion were well-portrayed, as well as the hope offered by the gay community, which provided a safe place to be for Holland.

Another thing I really appreciated in the novel is the character of Faith, Holland‘s sister-in-law. At first, Holland judged her only by her appearance and decided at first glance that she was not going to like her because she is a Goth. I loved how their relationship evolved though the novel. As Holland was breaking free of expectations and discovering a much wider world than she ever imagined, she became more accepting of her sister and who she is, going past looks and appearances. This is not just a coming of age novel about finding oneself and discovering ones sexuality and place in the world. This is also about acceptance and prejudices, about not judging people for their looks, sexuality or other little things that shouldn’t matter, but seeing people for who they really are and not thinking them “freaks” because they are not what society expects them to be.

Maryam reviews The Door at the Top of the Stairs by Alison Naomi Holt

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While I’m not sure that Alison Naomi Holt would welcome me comparing her writing style to that of a young adult novel, writing in that style does have its advantages. Everything is done at a slightly faster pace than an average novel, and it helps keep the reader engaged. There are no dull parts to wait through, no chapter-long descriptions of the characters’ surroundings: characters are introduced, the plot takes off running, and from there it is the reader’s job to keep up.

The Door at the Top of the Stairs is the story of Jesse Shaunessy, a twenty-six-year-old retired police officer who comes to work at the farm of Morgan Davis and her partner, Dr. Ryland Caldwell. Morgan runs the farm and rides as Master of the Myrina Foxhunting Club; Ryland is a retired psychotherapist. Jesse has a temper more foul than Morgan, and the two clash as employee and boss, but Ryland insists that Morgan keep Jesse on. Jesse, though antisocial, rude, and foul-mouthed, is a natural with the horses, and Morgan has a reputation for going through employees quickly.

One morning, Jesse panics at the sight of Morgan’s hunting whip as the club prepares for cubbing. Ryland and Morgan attempt to comfort her, but Jesse passes out; it is then that Ryland notices that Jesse’s back is covered with burn marks and scars. What follows is the story and struggles of Jesse, Morgan, and Ryland, as Ryland tries to help Jesse work through her traumatizing past, with Morgan enlisted as an anchoring element throughout Jesse’s therapy. Jesse’s ordeal is horrifying – the author is also a retired police officer, and one can only hope that none of the situations in this novel were pulled from reality.

All in all, this book was a quick, enjoyable read, with its fair share of laugh-out-loud moments as well as suspense. It was refreshing to read a book with three lesbian main characters and no love triangle! Jesse’s dalliances are always light and funny – a great escape from the heavier themes of the novel. The characters are engaging, and although there are some dark themes, they don’t weigh the rest of the book down. The Door at the Top of the Stairs is probably not light enough for the beach, but it should do just fine on a dark summer night.

Weekly Link Round Up

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AfterEllen posted about the Rainbow Book Fair and Catch a first glimpse of Sarah Waters’ “The Night Watch” movie.

F/F Fan Fiction Reader’s Corner posted Ramble – back to the Classics – Curious Wine in print by Bella Books.

What Queer Folks Should Be Reading posted Noelle Howey and Ellen Samuels, Editors.

A post about avoiding queer stereotypes was posted at Dreaming In Books.

Malinda Lo posted about the Day of Silence at Dreaming In Books.

Ronnie Massey was interviewed at PassionReads.

Nora Olsen posted about queer main characters at Dreaming In Books.

Zen and Tonic by Kris Howard was reviewed at Queer Magazine Online.

Ash by Malinda Lo was reviewed at Dreaming In Books.

Islay reviews Turning Point by Lara Zielinsky

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Turning Point is a sexy, sweet bit of fluff, with surprisingly believable characters and some twists and turns in the plot that are just about enough to keep you reading for something other than the inevitable sex scenes. The real strength of the novel is definitely in Zielinsky’s characterisation. All of her characters feel like substantial individuals in their own right, which is rare for a romance novel, where typically all of the energy spent on the romantic leads leaves little room for anyone else to be developed.

The characterisation is further strengthened by smooth, well-written dialogue and the interaction between our two heroines – Cassidy and Brenna – in particular is compelling. Zielinsky certainly knows how to write characters with chemistry.

The novel is let down somewhat by its pacing. The plot takes around 140 pages to truly start to thicken, and if I hadn’t known that this was a lesbian romance I would have spent most of those 140 pages wondering what the hell the story was about. There was nothing set up at the beginning to suggest that anything about these characters’ lives is worth sticking around to read about. It seems that Cassidy, the younger lead, is having vague issues with an ex-husband and may or may not be feeling left out by her colleagues at work, but there is no initial concrete crisis or dilemma with which the reader can engage. Zielinsky gives us no reason to keep reading beyond our expectations of smut – and if all I wanted was smut, I’d be on the internet looking up porn, not reading a book.

My feeling is that the author is over-reliant on the conventions of the romance genre to do the work of keeping the reader engaged for her. If I wasn’t already primed to look for the two female leads and then spend the entire novel anticipating their get-together, I wouldn’t have known that this was a story about Brenna and Cassidy falling in love until almost a third of the way through. Obviously, this is problematic.

The plot does eventually manage to gather pace in the chapters following an incident in which Cassidy’s son temporarily disappears from a store and the chemistry between Cassidy and her counterpart Brenna starts to tell. However, even after that, the build-up to the get-together is scattered and hesitant – I felt like it lacked a certain coherency and thus real believability was lost. It’s sad that, because of the pacing issues, the narrative fails to create real romantic tension between Brenna and Cassidy until only a chapter or so before they act on their desires, because the characters themselves are compelling. The get-together was also very pretty – Zielinksy knows how to write her sex scenes.

The bottom line is that Zielinsky can clearly write. What she struggles with in this novel is actually telling the story. There’s nothing wrong with her technical ability, but this novel just needed a stronger overarching narrative and a hook at the beginning to pull the reader in.

Laura Mandanas reviews Pink Steam by Dodie Bellamy

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Pink Steam by Dodie Bellamy is a cross-genre collection of prose written over two decades. Contradictorily classified as fiction/essay/memoir, the 22 pieces are arranged into what the author has described as “a fractured autobiography in which the culture I live in is as much my autobiography as are the ‘facts’ of my life.” For her, there is no self separate from culture.

Indeed, throughout much of the book, the only sure “facts” I knew came as I sorted through the scattered debris of pop culture tidbits. (Yes! Carrie did wreak havoc at the prom with her telekinesis. No! Rosemary did not birth a son too pure for the devil to possess.) As for the arcane autobiographical details, no matter how many notes I scribbled in the margins, full understanding was tantalizingly juuuust out of reach. (Why did the protagonist suddenly begin calling herself Carla? It’s because of the demon fucking, right? Or is it the memory of the abortion? Are you taunting me on purpose, Bellamy?)

Ordered semi-chronologically, the essays begin in the early ’60s. Young Dodie is in a furtive relationship with Nance, her best friend who lives down the street. Writes Bellamy, “In the industrial Midwest of my youth, strong lines were drawn between inside/outside, normal/abnormal, natural/freak – and those lines were brutally enforced. In high school I was a lesbian, i.e., on the wrong side of all those slashes.”

Things do not stay this way for long. To placate her mother, with the summer of ’74 comes Dodie’s decision to be straight — a self-declared categorization that seems to hold for the book’s remaining essays. At the same time, she is never hesitant to describe her unfulfilled longing for women, in a manner reminiscent of Quasimodo’s longing for Gina Lollobrigida in the 1956 The Hunchback of Notre Dame (a theme tenuously threaded throughout the book). So, who knows. Who cares? There’s a little somethin’ somethin’ for everyone in this book; let’s just leave it at that.

Bellamy’s prose is a gorgeous, sometimes nonsensical tidal wave of words. The text is flooded with grocery lists and song lyrics and imagined film scripts and fantasy and horror and science fiction and poetry all at once, mid-narrative. Though I usually shy away from experimental bullshit, as a reader, I was swept away by book’s fabulously imaginative approaches, drawn in by its shifting undulations of tense and perspective.

Basically, this book is awesome.

In “Sex/Body/Writing”, Bellamy writes: “I’m working toward a writing that subverts sexual bragging, a writing that champions the vulnerable, the fractured, the disenfranchised, the sexually fucked-up.” As far as I’m concerned? She’s there. She’s got it. She’s flaunting it. And I absolutely love it.

Pink Steam seems to be out of print, but if you do a little hunting around you should be able to find it. Enjoy.

Kelly reviews Inferno by Eileen Myles

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Inferno: A Poet’s Novel, Eileen Myles

If the flight from Minneapolis to Vancouver had been just a little longer, I would have finished this book in one sit. Not because of the plot—basically nonexistent—but because of the feeling, thought, feeling. Plus, the hot and sometimes hilarious sex, of course.

Though subtitled “A Poet’s Novel,” this piece is only vaguely fictional, referring to real figures from Myles’ life and incorporating previously published poems. Myles brings a poet’s precision to this semi-fiction, semi-memoir. Take these opening lines:

My English professor’s ass was so beautiful. It was perfect and full as she stood at the board writing some important word. Reality or perhaps illusion. She opened the door. With each movement of her arms and her hand delicately but forcefully inscribing the letters intended for our eyes her ass shook ever so slightly. I had never learned from a woman with a body before. Something slow, horrible and glowing was happening inside me. I stood on the foothills to heaven. She opened the door.

After introducing Dante to the class, this English professor asks students to write their own infernos. The class groans. Eileen writes hers alone at the kitchen table at home. Her professor’s public response to Eileen’s poem makes her wonder, could this poetry gig be a job? There is little plot in the book, but that is not the point. When I heard Myles speak in Vancouver, she said she wrote this book to explain being a poet. It is a thorough and provoking explanation.

In many ways, this book has nothing to do with the original Divine Comedy. Dante’s judicial nature and firm vengeance are absent; Myles is not teaching us how to be good; and other than a dose of guilt, there’s nothing Catholic about this piece. However, like Dante, Myles is a poet on a journey, through a spectacular and sometimes grotesque universe; and though there is no single Beatrice, it is women who bring Myles through. Her discovery of her sexuality is written in glorious detail: the awkwardness and the joy resonate equally.

Danika reviews Red Rover by Liz Bugg and Land of Entrapment by Andi Marquette

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I decided to review these in the same post because I have similar things to say about both of them.

My favourite thing about Red Rover is the queer elements. Not only is the main character a lesbian whose relationship is a side story in the novel, she also has ties to the queer community. Her best friend is a drag queen, and she looks for evidence in the queer community, including the queer clubs. She also asks for help from her ex-girlfriend. It’s nice to have a book that features queerness, not just in the individual, but in the community. In fact, I liked the descriptions of her neighborhood overall, which is unusual. I usually dislike a lot of descriptions of scenery and setting.

Although I liked most of the neighborhood description, I found some of the other descriptions a little long-winded. A pet peeve of mine in writing it when the author takes you by the hand to show you things, and this shows up sometimes in Red Rover, like explaining the emotions the protagonist is feeling when the dialogue pretty much speaks for itself.

I don’t read a lot of mystery because I tend to completely miss the hints and get lost halfway through. The plot of Red Rover kept me interested, so I never got to the point, but I predicted the “bad guy” very early on, which was a little disappointing.  I did like the plot overall, though the ending seemed fast-paced compared to the rest. I also liked the back story of Calli and her father and how it related to the plot.

Overall, I liked Red Rover, but I felt like it could have been better with some minor changes.

I liked the characters in Land of Entrapment. They were interesting and seemed really organic. The romance and friendships in the novel were complex and just seemed… natural. I really liked that.

I did have the same pet peeve crop up in this novel as in Red Rover, however: over-explaining. At some point, I remember every street and exit being named as the main character drove. This may be a flaw completely particular to me, however.

The subject matter is definitely interesting: neo Nazis. Drama! Suspense! But the plotting is a little uneven. It takes a little while to really get started. Once it does, however, Marquette seems to really know her subject matter, and the plot is engaging.

Again, this is a novel I liked overall, but there were some minor points that detracted from it.