Tag: LGBTQ+

Book Review

Moon Reads: The Last Firefox

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The Last Firefox by Lee Newbery. Illustrated by Laura Catalán

Rating: MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px

Read before: No

Ownership: Preordered because it was irresistible

When I saw this book I knew I had to read it and add it to my foxy collection.

The Last Firefox follows Charlie as he is trying to be a little bit braver and deal with bullies at school that make fun of him, while also considering he may need to be more brave as circumstances change in his house. So when he accidentally stumbles upon some chaos and ends up with a baby firefox in his arms that needs care and may well set everything on fire plus also did anyone mention it may be the last one ever? poor Charlie is well in deep waters and needs to figure out if there is any bravery down there because it is well needed.

Thankfully he is not alone and he has Cadno, the little firefox, alongside his best friends Lippy and Roo who have bene trying to help him find his own brand of bravery and ways to stand up to the bullies. And I will actually say that it was lovely to see that the book tackles that bravery comes in different forms and we all learn to stand up strong for ourselves sin our own very personal ways so what works for one person may not work for another but that still doesn’t mean we cant do something or try to be brave. And never mind the fact that the book also features two dads, which was a lovely dynamic to see alongside the topic of adoption.

The adventures are chaotic and made me giggle but it was also how lovely and cosy this book was, the parents arent absent and there is a lot of ridiculous things going on alongside some more serious ones, plus one of the main characters is a fox that has fire and well, if you know me at all, I love fire and fire-themed things and foxes, so this si absolutely perfect. A good balance of all the good things.

Book Review

Moon Reads: The House in the Cerulean Sea

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The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

Rating: MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px

Read before: No

Ownership: Preordered Waterstones paperback edition

I had heard a lot of good things about this book, but I am also wary of “hype” because it is usually not my thing. However, the premise of the story sounded like my kind of thing, wholesome but with a tinge of sadness, melancholia and grief. And it was exactly that, but softer and much better.

Linus has a predictable life, he has stuck to his job, he cares about doing his job well but only to complete his task. As a caseworker for magical children in government orphanages, he investigates incidents and helps to oversee their wellbeing. He is almost clinical about this, but he also cares and doesn’t want to be swayed by the adults. So when he is asked to report to the most high level of management, he is terrified.

They give him a very special assignment with little information since everything is classified, but the main thing is to go visit this particular orphanage that has extremely dangerous magical children: a female gnome, a powerful sprite, a wyvern, a green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and finally the AntiChrist.

But what ends up surprising Linus the most is Arthur, the caretaker of the children who works hard on helping them grow to the best of their magical capabilities while retaining dreams and their “humanity”.

Overall the story is about Linus finding what happens when your dreams suddenly fall onto your lap with some interesting strings attached and you have a choice. But it is also about equality and that being magical is not something to be afraid of just because it is different. And there are also a myriad of secrets kept in this house and in the surroundings, which Linus slowly starts finding out.

Overall, it was a feel-good story with some interesting social and cultural commentary about our times, with the help of magic it touches some intense aspects about what it is to be different and rejected, or to be labelled something and therefore dealing with prejudice, but also, about being allowed to dream even if it seems impossible.

This was a book that once I got going, I had to stay up until 2 am to finish it because I could not put it down and also because it felt like a balm to my soul. It was the exact right amount of sad, heartwarming and cosy I needed.

Book Review

Moon Reads: The Unbroken

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The Unbroken by C. L. Clark

Rating: MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px

Ownership: An Illumicrate copy, a proof copy and a normal copy because who doesn’t have enough books?

Spoilers: None

Disclaimer: Receiving a review copy from the publisher does not affect my opinion of the book. If you think I review it highly it is due to me knowing my taste well and therefore not requesting books I won’t enjoy. And I am not obligated to review the book if I do not like it, so you may not see bad reviews due to me preferring not to hype down a particular book. I only do reviews of books I disagreed with if I think it is worth bringing a topic or warning to light.

Don’t you love it when you have a wonderful model that is very excited to see you prepare the books for pictures? Puppy was very excited and wanted to be part of this, but I don’t think he would be up to the actual story because he is too softhearted.

The Unbroken is many things in one single book, and that is a lot to balance and work in the book, which is probably why it didn’t really wow me or win me over as much as I had hoped. It does feel at times like it is all over the place trying to get all the many many threads it is balancing and weaving into this tale, but other times you can see the tapestry it is making and it is breathtaking.

Because the Unbroken is about rebellion, and the dynamics of the colonisers and the colonised. It is about those tensions and the things that are imposed or changed or put on others because one side lost and the other didn’t, and how it may change perspectives the further down the generations or circumstances go from the time of the conquest.

But it is also about loyalty, about Touraine and Luca, about being a soldier, about the meaning of family and if it is the one you are born into or the one that is made through time and that survives the trials of life.

And finally, it is also a story about love and romance and emotions and identity. And therefore it explores the depths of oneself.

It does brilliant things in all of those areas, posing interesting questions on all the perspectives that you can have, but because it trying to achieve a lot, sometimes it fell a little short or was slow where it should’ve been fast and fast where it would’ve benefitted from a closer slower lense or scope.

Still, a worthy member of the sapphic trifecta and quite an interesting read, if anything it is quite different than others.

Oh, and the final thing to highlight, it is a bit heavy on the military parts as that is a huge part of Touraine’s identity. It surprised me how much it was focused on it since I expected a bit more of other parts of the story and kept getting a lot of this soldier military side. Interesting but another thread to balance in this tale.

One definite winner where the character dynamics and the way they interact with each other but also with their environment. They aren’t just placed there for atmosphere but rather they are living and breathing that place and you do so with them.

Book Review

Moon Reads: Minority Monsters!

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Minority Monsters! by Tab Kimpton

Rating: MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px Grey

Read before: No

Ownership: Bought for myself, after it was recommended by a friend (thanks Kayden)

Minority Monsters is like an adventure dive into a new world, where you get a two page comic of one of the “monsters” and then two pages on the particular minority this is focusing on.

The first thing you find is a map to Alphabet Soup Land where all the monsters exist and then a nice foreword followed by the very first two-page comic where you meet the not-so-invisible Bisexual Unicorn in all its glory and it is wonderful! From there you get to meet many more LGBTQ+ creatures, each with a small comic and then a helpful “encyclopaedia” mixed with “field notes” on that particular identity and what it means.

Honestly, the comics are awesome, the artwork is delightful, the details of each creature and their story, alongside the descriptions and more in-depth explanations are just the icing on the perfect cake of a good introductory book to queer identities.

I cannot recommend this enough to everyone as a wonderful book to have in your library!

*Our dog would not move and instead required copious belly rubs so he was added to this picture, he is the mythical belly rubs monster 😉

Book Review

Moon Reads: A Marvellous Light

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A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske

Rating: MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px

Read before: No

Ownership: Proof copy provided by publisher upon request

Disclaimer: Receiving a review copy from the publisher does not affect my opinion of the book. If you think I review it highly it is due to me knowing my taste well and therefore not requesting books I won’t enjoy. And I am not obligated to review the book if I do not like it, so you may not see bad reviews due to me preferring not to hype down a particular book. I only do reviews of books I disagreed with if I think it is worth bringing a topic or warning to light.

A Marvellous Light has an intense start about the circumstances that place our pair of main characters into the plot. Robin has been given a new job and has to make the most of it, even if it appears to be the wrong job and he is way out of his depth. He seems to have a lot of family drama and the book in this sense feels like a very Downton Abbey kinda thing but make it gay.

Then we have Edwin Courcey who is the liaison for the magical world and therefore has to work with Robin. Edwin is prickly and a bit not amused by how little Robin knows but slowly warms up to him. He gives the impression that he has better things to do than his actual role and therefore is just doing it out of politeness.

The plot centres mostly on the romance developing between Edwin and robin, which is probably where I went wrong with this book. I was looking forward to a historical kinda fantasy with romance, whereas the best way to describe A Marvellous Light is that it is a romance with some historical fantasy happening around it.

The magic system and the world are interesting and being dropped in as Robin does was also quite a good way to learn. We also have Miss Morrisey and her sister who are probably the best characters in the book and are the most developed secondary characters of this book outside of the main characters, which again is a shame because, given the development of the characters, it could’ve been something I liked more.

Overall, if you want a sweeping romance with plot and magic happening around it, with a lot of angst and romance and things to force the characters to make quick decisions and maybe have to put their lives on the line, that may read a little like good Downtown Abbey fan fiction with magic and gay, this is the absolute book for you. If instead, you’d like a magical fantasy set in a historical world with some romance in it that is gay, then this may not be exactly for you. You end up getting less of the plot as the book goes and more romance, which I felt sad about because the magic sounded very interesting and I would’ve liked more of that.

Book Review

Moon Reads: Last Night at the Telegraph Club

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Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

Rating: MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px

Read before: No

Ownership: Bought for my personal collection

Lily Hu has questions, particularly about herself and why the idea of two women falling in love makes her heart race, or why she clips certain butch female looks, but she is Chinese-American in the 1950s where it is dangerous to seem a little too different and to risk her father’s deportation.

So Lily keeps her questions quiet until she starts hanging out with Kathleen Miller, who is not afraid to go to the Telegraph Club with Lily and hang out there to watch a show. As her world and friendships shift, and priorities change, Lily suddenly is asking more and more questions and saying no to things she might have just shrugged away, and yes to things she would have just wished she did say yes to before.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club, is a trip through the US at the time of red-scare paranoia, and particularly what it means to be defining your sexuality alongside your identity and how you fit in this world and country. The story is written with that everyday type of writing that makes you go through the day of Lily and through things as they happen and it all feels luscious and mundane at the same time.

There are so many details about what being in a country that sees you as different in not only one way feels, and what finding the deep secrets you didn’t even dare admit you kept suddenly are more accept or have somewhere to be not a secret anymore and how liberating that can be but also the risks of letting the truth show.

Wonderful read, and highly recommended overall. It is a very different feel to Malinda Lo’s fantasy books but it still ahs the beauty of being an easy read and yet telling a big story, like an epic poem that everyone knows the lines to and can recite as if it was what everyone does.

Book Review

Moon Reads: Goodbye, my Rose Garden (Full Series)

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Goodbye, my Rose Garden by Dr. Pepperco (Full Series)

Rating: MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px

Read before: No

Ownership: Bought for my personal collection

Series: Goodbye, my Rose Garden, 3 volumes total.

I have been reading a lot of series, particularly graphic novels and manga, and sometimes it is hard to review a single book without adding spoilers, so now I will be adding some Full Series reviews.

Today I will talk about Goodbye, my Rose Garden. It is a female to female (F/F) series set in semi Victorian era England and focuses on Hanako, who dreams of becoming a novelist. Of course, this is not an easy path so she finds a job as a personal maid to a young noblewoman/lady. This seems to be a wonderful job since the lady, Alice Douglas, likes reading and encourages Hanako’s dream until she makes a very unusual request. Hanako has to kill Alice and end her suffering as she doesn’t deserve to be alive.

Initially, Hanako refuses but agrees to consider it if necessary. And so the story develops into a slow burn romance where Hanako feels it is not suitable to fall for her employer and therefore should tread lightly, but also, she is her personal maid and as such should do her best to help her lady. Alongside this, she has to figure out if she can convince Alice to bail out of the request to kill her, or why she thinks she should be killed. Add to that the path of attempting to become a novelist, Alice’s jealous fiance, and Hanako’s own past, and it is a soft romance with some high stakes.

I usually try the first volume of a series and decide, and wasn’t sure what to expect, but honestly, as I read I knew I had to get the rest. Goodbye, my Rose Garden packs a lot in very little space and it also does a good job of keeping all the plot lines and subplots going rather than abandoning them or half forgetting they are there, which was part fo what made it much dearer for me.

If you want a soft F/F manga set in early twentieth-century England, that focuses on the love of reading and on roses and just being dedicated to living life, this is the one for you.

Book Review

Moon Reads: All Our Hidden Gifts

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All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O’Donoghue

Rating: MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px

Ownership: Came in a Book Box club box.

Spoiler Free: Mostly, there may be plot points discussed.

When we first meet Maeve, she’s having a hard itme and has to help clean a cupboard forgotten behind in school, so when she finds some tarot cards, and they keep coming back to her, she decides to do some readings for fun. All she feels is that she doesn’t belong in her family and that she doesn’t belong in school, and even then she has become slight enemies with the person that used to be her best friend.

And hey, reading tarot in school is suddenly making her popular and having friends, so why not? And if they decide to push for a reading for Lily, her ex best friend, it isn’ther fault Lily it ends in screams and ebign upset. So when Lily disappears, Maeve feels slightly responsible and puzzled, she is sure the cards have something to do with it, and the city is becoming a bit odd.

As she slowly tries to confront her own ghosts, what caused the rift between her and Lily, her growing feelings for Roe, who is Lily’s sibling, and her overall place in the world, will they find a way to bring Lily back and find out what happened to her?

At times this went a bit too intense but it was interesting to navigate it frm the point of view of Maeve, who I didn’t really vibe on initially, but as the story develops I understood it better and it made sense. I like how it touches on unusual ways and the characters aren’t the out of the box kind but have very particular quirks and elements to each of them touching on diversity in various ways.

If you like tarot, a bit of the mystical and also some queer representation this is a book for you.

Book Review, Books

Hideous Beauty Review

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Hideous Beauty by William Hussey

When Dylan and Ellis’s secret relationship is exposed on social media, Dylan is forced to come out. To Dylan’s surprise they are met with support and congratulations, and an amazing reception at their highschool dance. Perhaps people aren’t as narrow-minded as he thought?

But Dylan’s happiness is short-lived. Ellis suddenly becomes angry, withdrawn, and as they drive home from the dance, he loses control of the car, sending it plunging into Hunter’s Lake. Barely conscious, Dylan is pulled free of the wreck, while Ellis is left to drown.

Grief-stricken, Dylan vows to discover what happened to Ellis that night and piece together the last months of his boyfriend’s life – and realises just how little he knew about the boy he loved.

Rating: MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px

I won this book out of a lotery during YALC, however that doesn’t change my review or do anything for or against it.

To start this review, at least one of the foxes given is purely due to the fact that I usually cringe at books that center on romance/a relationship and somehow this one didn’t annoy me, or make me frustrated or anything like that. I enjoyed the romance,so kudos to the author because somehow a 4 fox review has come out of a contemporary romance book. Someone save this one for posterity.

Maybe that should be the whole review, this book made me like contemporary romance. (But I am not going to go test the waters and ruin the experience I got out of this one book).

Now on to an actual review of it. It is a very interesting book, with a coming out, a high school dance where they are officially out, and then disaster. Both Ellis and Dylan were fleshed out as full characters and neither was just a ploy or just there, you could see and feel what they were going through. There are several parts of the story to follow. One is Dylan’s best friend and their friendship, which I enjoyed but also boy, was that intense (and no, no filthy thoughts).

Another part is what made Ellis to elusive and what was he keeping from Dylan? Why is Dylan suddenly getting pages from the sketchbook Ellis had? The mystery is there ever present but it is also something that is keeping Dylan going and in some ways keeing him from plunging deeper into his grief, but at the same time, he’s not letting go of that grief because he wants to keep searching for answers.

And of course, the last one, is grief (another grief book, definitely my type of book). It is on how his family and the rest of the world interacts with him, and it is about him reacting or interacting in return. On processing the grief, and trying to find a way in and out and somehow untangle the big tangle that grief is.

The book in general does well exploring the three points and the final discovery both surprised me in one of the things and was not that surprising in another. But it didn’t feel too far away from what could possibly be.

This is not a happy book, it is a book that is steeped in sadness an in discovery and just finding your place in the world and learning who you are and who your boyfriend was/is.

Still, definitely worth a read.

Book Review, Books

Gideon the Ninth Review

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Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won’t set her free without a service.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon’s sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.

Of course, some things are better left dead.

Rating: MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px

There’s been a lot of rave for this book, but I am not sure I will fully rave about it. I enjoyed it a lot and it kept me hooked and reading it, but the way it had been pitched and talked about meant I was expecting something else.

If you’re looking for lesbian necromancer in space, you won’t really find that here. This is NOT a space opera, there’s very little “space” part in it, which was what made me unhappy the most. I was expecting some crazy space opera with necromancers and most of the space talk is them moving from their planet to another, which takes a few pages and that is it. There aren’t really any more space themed things going on beyond the fact that tehy are on a planet (I mean, in most stories you read, the characters are in a planet or something of the kind).

We get most of the story from Gideon’s point of view, so if you don’t like much her prickly/snarky want to be a hero and not super focused but rather emotional way of being, you won’t like the way this is narrated (which seems to be one of the main issues I see others found not great). I liked the snark and sarcasm and prickliness of her and her interactions and shenanigans made me like her a bit or at least be fond of her antics.

The story is mostly about them trying to solve a big puzzle in an abandoned building to become the best necromancer for the emperor. But it isn’t easy and it comes at a cost, plus being a necromancer doesn’t mean you are immune to death (one wishes, right?). I enjoyed the way necromancy is divided by houses and abilities, where each house has a focus on how they use necromancy and what they use it for. I also liked the whole mystery how are we going to solve this, do we try to work on our own or team up? thing.

There’s a lot of competition and lots of backstabbing (figurative and literal) and a lot of fighting and crazy stints and I enjoyed this a lot. One of the downsides is that there are a lot of characters and at times I couldn’t really remember which house they belong to, who they had come in with and what abilities they had. Nor could I fully remember they had or hadn’t achieved to a certain point in the story because we get a lot fo the story from Gideon’s point so we miss a lot or only what she cares about (which is fine, but can make the story confusing and I only really cared for a few characters rather than the whole set).

All in all, it was a crazy fun necromancy read. Just don’t expect the whole crazy space part because it wasn’t that.