Susan reviews Stranger on Lesbos by Valerie Taylor

Posted on October 12, 2016 by Danika Ellis

Valerie Taylor’s Stranger on Lesbos is an example of classic pulp lesbian fiction. It was published in 1960, at the midpoint of the genre, and it seems like a really tropey example of it!

Frances Ollenfield escaped a childhood of abuse and poverty into a marriage that is slowly becoming more and more loveless as the family’s fortunes improve. When her husband suggests that she go back to university to finish her degree, Frances leaps at the chance – which happens to bring her Mary Baker, Bake to her friends, who soon becomes her lover.

When I say that Stranger on Lesbos a tropey example, I’m not exaggerating; my understanding of lesbian pulps is that the repeating tropes include bar crawling, jail time, and often a dark-haired worldly woman somehow “leading an innocent astray”, and an ending where the lesbian characters must be separate – all of which is present here, in a fast-paced and melodramatic story, as I’d hope a pulp story would be. The story focuses on the conflict between Frances’ love of her husband and son (and her boredom and disappointment with the life they’ve built as her family’s interests move away from her) and her love for Bake (with its excitement and danger, which brings her new friends and experiences, even if they sour for her as well).

The narrative is at times quite distant, which I think is a stylistic choice as it matches fairly well with Frances’ feeling of disconnection from her life and the people around her. However, there are strange time skips, in one case of two years between chapters, which don’t seem to have changed much in the character’s lives except that Frances abandons her degree again in favour of a job and the conflicts in her relationship with Bake to start to bubble through. There are also scenes that revisit Frances’ past in a mining town with her abusive father, and the emotions in those scenes are harrowing and explain a lot about where Frances came from. (I was not kidding about the melodrama!)

I have to admit though that I genuinely rooted for Frances to leave all of her relationships in the dust and walk away from about halfway through. While it’s easy to see why she fell in love with Bake (she is charming and intelligent, and presents herself as very confident and controlled), and Bill, Frances’ husband, clearly had moments where he was sweet and affectionate… None of Frances’ friends seem to make her happy, and by about half-way through both of Frances’ romantic partners treat her terribly. Bake is charming and intelligent… But also a drinker, a cheater, and lets Frances down in the worst ways when she needs her. Bill alternates between distant and actively abusive (more on that later.). Frances wants to stay with her husband for the sake of her son… But her son seems to feel contempt for the women she keeps company with, and by extension her. There is a point in the book where he asks her to give up her queer friends, with every expectation that she’d comply, and while that’s depicted as selfish and awful on his part,

(Caution warning for this paragraph: rape) As a fair warning, there are minimum two rapes and a third attempted one in this book; strangely though, the marital rape is never referred to as such, whereas the lesbian one is clearly stated to be rape. I don’t know if it’s just the time that the book was written (marital rape didn’t become a crime in the states until the 1970s), or if it’s because the circumstances around the lesbian rape (it was by a stranger, with violence, and she was drunk), but it seems really odd that they’re treated so differently. Especially because one is treated as actively reprehensible, and the other as something that could be worked past. That sound you heard was me angrily shrieking at the book.

Without any spoilers; the ending is infuriating, to the point where I had to put it down and walk away for a while. But the afterword assures me that Stranger in Lesbos is the first book in a series, and that my problems with Frances’ romantic choices might be mitigated by the third book. And while parts of this book made me angry, the writing was good enough and I was emotionally invested enough that I am considering seeing if I could track down the rest of the series. So, if you’re interested in lesbian pulp fiction, this is a solid example of it, but there are parts of it that I have significant reservations about.

Trigger warnings: homophobia, adultery, abuse, incest, rape.

Susan is a library assistant who uses her insider access to keep her shelves and to-read list permanently overflowing. She can usually be found writing for Hugo-nominated media blog Lady Business or bringing the tweets and shouting on twitter.

Julie Thompson reviews Flinging It by G. Benson

Posted on October 11, 2016 by Danika Ellis

Flinging It mixes pleasure and pain, levity and heartache, discomfort and freedom, as the protagonists, Cora and Frazer, fumble their way forward (and backward). The romance, set in Perth, Australia, is light and fun, but is also an emotional rollercoaster. I tried to keep certain plot points vague, but this review may seem sort of spoiler-y.

When it comes to sticky and seemingly hopeless circumstances, like the ones Frazer and Cora find themselves in, I think of a scene from Katherine V. Forrest’s novel Curious Wine. It’s contains an important message that this story shares: it’s never too late to change the direction your life takes. I can probably relate my favorite romance to just about any story.

Frazer, a dedicated midwife and administrator, pours herself into leading Midwifery at the hospital where she works. It’s stable, steady employment. The hospital provides a secure launch point from which she can pursue her heart’s project: providing intensive support to pregnant people during and after their pregnancies. It’s also a safety net that both helps and hinders her and one that she’ll struggle to step away from.

Cora, meanwhile, is suffocating in her marriage to Alec, a man who also controls her professional life as her boss at the hospital. It’s an emotionally manipulative relationship, one in which Cora is disappearing. Alec insists that her interests, career as a social worker, and friendships don’t matter; and if they are deemed worthwhile, it’s only in relation to how expedient they are to his own ambitions.

Monday morning meetings and casual greetings are all the women share. They develop a strong friendship after Frazer approaches Cora about helping to re-draft her project proposal. They spend more and more time together outside of the hospital, relishing shared ideas, banter, and encouragement. Their relationship quickly complicates as they increasingly rely on each other for emotional support and sexual release. Guilt cuts into any pleasure they derive from each other. Whenever Frazer sees Alec after the first night with Cora, she thinks “I slept with your wife”.

Cora, for her part, is entangled in feelings of guilt, desperation, and thirst for a loving partnership. She keeps telling herself that she has to fix her marriage because she cheated. She tells herself that she owes Alec the chance to “change”. However, the relationship has been plagued for months, years, by arguments and manipulation. Benson portrays his controlling and manipulative behavior with thinly veiled hostility, rage, and arrogance. It’s when he doesn’t get his way that the mask slips. The scenes in which they argue show how Cora always ends up on the losing side, even when she’s in the “power seat” in her office. Scenes in which she accepts Alec’s version of events over her own nearly every time are disturbing. Her internal struggle with her intense unhappiness and his domineering evolves at a pace that feels true to her character, based on her circumstances. Whenever she tries to leave him, he proceeds to demean her, telling her that she can’t do that to him, that she would be nothing without him, that her parents would be so disappointed in her for getting a divorce. Persons caught up in a cycle of emotional and mental abuse find it difficult to escape from the cycle, especially when they are cut off from a wide support network. Cora had assumed in the past that such behavior was “normal”. She makes this comment more than once in the story and I wonder what her dating and home life growing up were like.

Frazer comes to resent how the terms of their relationship always fall on Cora’s terms. When Cora feels overwhelmed by guilt, it’s off. When Frazer wants to pull back, Cora gives her no space. Their relationship isn’t on solid or healthy footing, either. They push and pull each other until they can’t ignore the tenuous balance of having a workplace affair. Both women seek out crutches to help them along. Frazer dives into swimming and alcohol. Cora also goes out more often and wakes up with slight hangovers.

The story explores a range of topics, including emotionally abusive relationships; workplace romance; pregnancy; hospital bureaucracy; infidelity; divorce; and investing in yourself. Frazer comes from an Indian-Australian family and Cora’s family heritage brings together Thai, Korean, and Australian. While the two women’s families are important to them, the story includes only minimal scenes in which we hear that they had a get together or dinner. Those relationships are not expanded on, aside from Frazer’s sister Jemma.

Secondary characters provide shine and add much needed support, love, and reality checks for Frazer and Cora. Jemma, Frazer’s annoyingly persistent, yet much loved, younger sister. Tia, Frazer’s close work friend and secretary for Alec, holds her friend accountable with tough love. And Lisa, Cora’s indefatigable best friend. Lisa, puts her energies behind helping Cora.despite struggling with heavy issues of her own. Cora, for her part, expresses concern over her friend’s plight, but vacillates between self-absorption and attentiveness.

Jack, a bisexual transgender teen, is one of the pregnancy program’s first patients. His ex-boyfriend drops out of the picture after learning of Jack’s pregnancy. The novel explores the difficulties of Jack’s situation: homeless, pregnant, and dropped out of school. Frazer and Cora combine their expertise to provide Jack with essential support during and after the pregnancy. First and foremost, they listen to him. Although he is a minor character, his role is essential to how the two women’s relationship plays out.

I felt satisfied by the way their storylines played out. No one in this novel is perfect and the two leads make more than their fair share of mistakes, but Alec takes the cake for being vile and odious and utterly irredeemable. How sustainable a relationship can be when it starts off this way? If the women had not distanced themselves from each other and cut down on contact, the conclusion would have felt less than satisfying. A cloud would have hung over their intentions and expectations. Towards the end, though, the women are compelled to make critical choices that will decide how close they come to realizing their dreams, passions, and truest selves. Flinging It is a romance that inspires muddled feelings. I’d love to hear what others think about this romance. Please let me know in the comments!

You can read more of Julie’s reviews on her blog, Omnivore Bibliosaur (jthompsonian.wordpress.com)

Link Round Up September 25 – October 9

Posted on October 9, 2016 by Danika Ellis

Autostraddle posted

BCLA LGBTQ Interest Group posted Lesbian fiction by Canadian authors, eh!

GLBT Reviews posted Off the Shelf #16: Beyond the Inland Sea: Homosexuality in Japanese History and Culture.

Lambda Literary posted New in October: Chloe Caldwell, Sarah Schulman, Anna-Marie McLemore, Rita Mae Brown, and Rabih Alameddine.

LGBTQ Reads posted Ways to fill a gap: LGBTQIA representation in Australian YA and TBRainbow Alert #5: New LGBTQ Books.

“Give ’em Elle: Wonder Woman is Queer, and That’s Amazing! Now Say It In the Comic” was posted at Comics Alliance.

A Thin Bright Line by Lucy Jane Bledsoe was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Just My Luck by Andrea Bramhall was reviewed at Lesbian Reading Room.

The Clancys of Queens by Tara Clancy was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Girl Mans Up by M-E Girard was reviewed by Casey the Canadian Lesbrarian.

Letters to Zell by Camille Griep was reviewed by Shira Glassman.

Not Your Sidekick by C. B. Lee was reviewed at Rich In Color and Lambda Literary.

Princess Princess Ever After by Katie O’Neill was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

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Lauren reviews The Size of the World by Ivana Skye

Posted on October 9, 2016 by Danika Ellis

In The Size of the World, Theia is intent on traveling across her world until she reaches the Darkness. She travels across many lands, lands where people welcome, help, and feed her without prompts; where people eat fallen stars; where walls are icy-hot and made of waterfalls; where goods and services can be paid for with words. Along the way, Theia meets Tellus, a woman with many names. Tellus transforms Theia’s journey into one of self-discovery.

This book has an appealing interior, which is matched by a lovely rhythm that amplifies the storytelling. I especially enjoyed the subtle interactions between Theia and Tellus, which are captured in lines like:

Inside my dreams, light is still scattering through the sky, and each pinprick is one of [Tellus’] names.

The Size of the World is a utopian fantasy novella. This fact, however, didn’t curb my desire for the thrills of an alternate universe. So, there were moments that I wanted Theia to run into trouble— especially after she crossed the Third Sea and reached the Fourth Tributary. I wanted the inhabitants of this land to introduce the setbacks I was waiting for, setbacks that would stall or change the course of Theia’s travels. I wanted the Fourth to take matters into their own hands in order to fulfill (their) prophecy.

My desire for threats was not simple, wishful thinking. It’s the result of a well-written and poetic story that drew me in, prompting me to imagine exchanges between Theia and the lands of people she would encounter as I flipped through the pages of her journey.

This is a story that allows readers to linger in words and colorful settings, and to apply meaning to various layers of symbolism. Take ivy for example. Tellus likens Theia to ivy. Ivy grows aggressively… it is persistent. Ivy can grow in all directions… it travels. It can cover any structure… it transforms. Ivy trails the pages of this story, a story that will stay with me (and hopefully you) for days to come.

Lauren Cherelle uses her time and talents to traverse imaginary and professional worlds. She recently penned her sophomore novel, “The Dawn of Nia.” Outside of reading and writing, she volunteers as a child advocate and enjoys new adventures with her partner of thirteen years. You can find Lauren online at Twitter, www.lcherelle.com, and Goodreads.

Danika reviews Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera

Posted on October 8, 2016 by Danika Ellis

I don’t usually buy new releases. I acquire so many books that I tend to stick to used books and the library for new acquisitions. But when the reviews for Juliet Takes a Breath began to pour in, I couldn’t resist! I bought it brand new and moved it to the corner of my dresser, ready to be the next book I picked up. And then it sat there for about six months.

In that time, I heard more and more of the book blogs and vlogs I follow mention Juliet, almost always positively. But somewhere along the line the hype began to have the opposite effect. What if I was one of the few that didn’t like it? And then how would I even talk about it? I wanted to like it so much that I was afraid to actually read it in case it disappointed me. It wasn’t until booktube started the #diverseathon that I decided to finally take the leap and pick it. (“Finally!” My partner said. “I feel like I’ve been hearing about that book every day for our entire relationship!”)

As usual, my nervousness was completely unfounded. I can see why so many people fell in love with this book, and I can only agree. It may not be for everyone–its focus on feminist politics and how they intersect with race and other factors will feel unfamiliar to some readers–but I thought it did a fantastic job with that focus.

This is a coming of age story about Juliet, who’s just had her eyes opened to feminist ideals by a book titled Raging Flower: Empowering your Pussy by Empowering your Mind. She’s so blown away by this book that she writes a letter to the author and lands an internship with her. She hops on a plane and arrives in the alien world of Portland, Oregon: a very different place from the Bronx.

There are lots of things going on in this book, but what stuck with me is its recognition that people are complicated and flawed. You can have some things figured out and get others completely, devastatingly wrong. And it’s up to us to decide which people are worth sticking with despite their fuck-ups and which people are toxic for us despite the things they get right. I think that’s such an important and affirming thing to see in a book about social justice.

This also really captures the feeling of diving into feminism and social justice and just getting hit with waves of information that are counter to what you’ve been taught to believe, and the overwhelming process of trying to sift through all of these ideas and find what makes sense to you, what you’re not able to wrap your head around yet, and what’s actually hate wrapped up in the right vocabulary. There’s a lot of theory and discussion in this book, and that makes sense for what it’s addressing.

I loved this book, and I can’t wait for Gabby Rivera’s next one.

Kathryn Hoss reviews Juliana by Vanda

Posted on October 4, 2016 by Danika Ellis

Juliana is actually the story of Alice Huffman, “Al” for short, a small-town girl who moves to the Big Apple in the 1940s to pursue a musical and acting career. She ends up spending very little time working on said career, and more time alienating her friends while having a constant, back-and-forth existential crisis about her sexuality.

I knew I was in trouble when the book began with an apology:

“I wrote this novel to be accurate for its time. That means there may be occasional words used to refer to certain groups of people that would be consider [sic] inappropriate today; therefore, I wish to formally apologize to Roman Catholics, African Americans, Jews, the Japanese, and the disabled.”

That apology could have also gone out to the LGBT community. Though this is a story about and supposedly for queer women, there is so much homophobia depicted in these pages that I was tempted to give up 10% of the way through– and would have, if I wasn’t reading to review.

We pressed our own noses against the glass to see what was going on. Inside there were real homosexuals eating breakfast. When they saw us staring, the men homosexuals did a fairy dance like they were girls and the girl homosexuals, wearing suits and ties, kissed each other on their mouths. It was disgusting.

Worse than the homophobia surrounding Al is her own internalized homophobia. Every time it seems as if Al is about to grow from an experience, she immediately backtracks. In one scene she is kissing Juliana, in the next berating her for leading her down an immoral path. I failed to understand why a semi-successful club singer like Juliana would be interested in such a stick-in-the-mud, unless she wanted to take advantage of Al’s insecurity and naïveté.

The unhealthy nature of their relationship may be the main reason this novel didn’t work for me. At no point do we get a window into Al’s feelings, aside from sexual desire for Juliana. And even while Al’s body is saying “hell yes,” her mouth is saying “no.” Juliana pursues a sexual relationship with her anyway, making this an extremely uncomfortable read for people like me, who value such things as consent.

If the (lack of) consent between Juliana and Al isn’t questionable enough, Al is also sexually assaulted by one of her closest friends earlier in the story. She immediately forgives him and acts as if this violence never happened for the remainder of the novel, a response which I cannot logically reconcile without deciding Al is just an inconsistent character.

The supporting cast is not much better. The only living, breathing part of this novel, for me, was the setting. Vanda grew up in Huntington NY according to her bio, which is where this story begins. It is clear that plenty of research went into the location and time period, sometimes to the detriment of the plot. I got the impression that the author was more keen on hitting all the historical bases than in telling a coherent story. Yes, the setting is beautifully portrayed, but at what cost?

History buffs may find Juliana an engrossing read, but for those of us looking for lesbian romance, it leaves much to be desired.

Danika reviews SuperMutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Danika Ellis

I read most of SuperMutant Magic Academy when it come out in webcomic form, but I’d heard that the collected version added content to make it into a more continuous story, and it had been a while since I first read the comics. The comics themselves are just how I remember them: irreverent, funny, and just a little bit sad.

SuperMutant Magic Academy takes place at a boarding school for disaffected, superpowered teens. The stories are more high school drama than superhero comic, though. My favourite character is Frances, a guerilla artist who relishes in disturbing the comfortable and is only ever shaken by one panel where a teacher coolly observes that her art is “a little 70s”.

Although a few pages were added to give the thread of a narrative, these are mostly disconnected, featuring a large cast (including Everlasting Boy, who attempts to come to grips with immortality throughout all of time). Each page is great in itself, but they don’t really flow together, and I did find it a little tiring as a reading experience when I read big chunks at a time.

The plot that does exist surrounds Marsha, a sarcastic, often apathetic psychic student, and her best friend Wendy, a fox girl who she has hopelessly fallen for. Marsha is closeted and debates about whether to tell Wendy about her feelings. Marsha is acts superior about Wendy’s naiveté and optimism, often criticizing her about it, despite the fact that those are clearly the traits that made her fall in love with Wendy.

This isn’t a romance, and Marsha and Wendy’s friendship doesn’t take up a lot of room in the book, but it is at the heart of it. There might be a lot of supernatural elements in the story, but the experiences and characters are heart-achingly realistic–Marsha most of all.

I think that I preferred SuperMutant Magic Academy as a webcomic just because I absorbed it better page by page instead of binge reading, but I’m glad I got to read the extra content. If you’ve got a bit of a pessimistic sense of humor, you’ll love this one.

Cara reviews Dynama by Ruth Diaz

Posted on October 2, 2016 by Danika Ellis

Dynama deftly juxtaposes superpowers around the main romance and both good and bad family relationships. The characterization and dialog make the story, and while not without weaknesses, it offers a satisfying arc despite its novella length.

The first scene introduces TJ Gutierrez using her telekinetic powers to help take down a cyborg shark as she learns that her daughter is coming down with the flu at school and that her ex-husband Jon has just broken out of supervillain prison. She immediately suspects he’s going to try to kidnap their twins, Marisol and Esteban. The second scene introduces Annmarie, the daughter of two superheroes who has no powers herself. Unable to find a job as a teacher, she takes a job with the superheroes’ literal union as a nanny, and TJ hires her to help take care of the kids while TJ hunts for Jon. Diaz sets up the main conflict and introduces the two protagonists all in the first chapter, putting to shame novels that accomplish half as much in twice the length. Of course, the two women are attracted to each other immediately and start to develop a relationship even as Jon closes in and things get dangerous.

Diaz’s writing shines in the little details and the conversations that establish understanding or lack of understanding. There are so many of these I can’t include them all in a review, but I’ll give some of my favorites.

Annmarie… found TJ rocking a little girl against her chest and crooning quietly while an unpleasant mass of vomit hovered nearby in midair. As Annmarie watched, a large plastic bowl levitated itself under the vomit, which then fell into it.

That might just be the most amazing superpower she’d ever seen.

When TJ is thinking about her ex:

God, she still remembered her last argument with Jon, that gentlemen were the ones who sat back with their brandies and their cigars and ordered other people to do their murders for them. He hadn’t even tried to tell her it wasn’t like that—he was too far gone. He’d pointed out that, from a historical point of view, a few well-placed assassinations could have saved the world a whole lot of bloodshed.

I particularly liked Diaz’s handling of the two kids, who sounded and acted like real seven-year-olds, without making them little adults or treating them like nonentities. When Annamarie first shows up, Esteban asks if she’s the babysitter and observes, Oh good … When Mama starts floating things, she needs help. Later, when one of TJ’s friends tries to evade one of Esteban’s questions:

The Invincible Woman looked caught out, no matter how she tried to hide it. Friends of your mama.

God, Annmarie remembered explanations like that from when she was growing up—the kind that didn’t lie, but talked down to her in trying not to tell all of the truth. She remembered Esteban’s expression too. From the inside. Before he could answer, Annmarie said, You know how careful superheroes have to be about who knows they’re really superheroes, right?

That caught Marisol’s attention too. As Esteban nodded, she asked, They were other superheroes? How come she didn’t tell us?

Moments like these capture TJ’s incomprehension of how Jon changed so much, Annmarie’s resentment of her distant parents and by extension the superhero community, their shared values like their joint devotion to the twins, and their differences, best captured when TJ asks Annmarie what she wants: I don’t want to save the world. Her voice broke a little, and she focused on TJ again. I just want to save you. They give the characters real emotional depth, particularly because Diaz doesn’t shy away from experiences like TJ’s terror when Jon puts their children in serious danger while trying to kidnap them from her. I also appreciate how matter-of-factly Annmarie takes TJ’s bisexuality and likewise everyone else treats their relationship at the end.

I have only two major complaints, about the setting and the pacing. While Diaz deemphasizes the worst of the superhero genre conventions and averts others by making clear the superheroes have government sanction and are not just superpowered vigilantes, she places the events in a nonexistent city without giving us a clear sense of its geography or climate. The pallor of the setting stands in stark contrast to the well-drawn characters. The pacing suffers from cramming two main plots into one novella, and inevitably some elements get short shrift. TJ’s and Annmarie’s relationship moves fast, though I’ve seen romance novels build less connection in more words and there are no promises of everlasting love, just a mutual agreement they want to keep seeing each other and explore their feelings. That said, I would have liked to see more of the potential conflicts developed, like Annmarie’s reluctance to become involved with a superhero because of her parents and past experiences with being treated like she doesn’t matter because she doesn’t have powers, and (spoilers) [Annmarie’s relationship with her parents now that she has powers and how TJ feels about Annmarie not wanting to be a superhero even though TJ thinks the world needs more.]

Even with its flaws, though, Dynama succeeds as both a romance and superhero story. If you enjoy both, I recommend it.

The Lesbrary

Lesbian and Bi Book News and Reviews

Month: October 2016