Queer families

Queer medieval utopias, polyamory and complicated adulthoods: December 2024 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Creative Non Fiction, Graphic Novels, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Queer Literature

The Con Artists by Luke Healy

I loved How to Survive in the North and Americana by the same author. I found this one in the library and immediately picked it up. This is an interesting story in that it’s framed in such a way that you are never sure if it’s autobiographical (like Americana) or a complete work of fiction (like How to Survive in the North).

This is the story of Frank and Giorgio, two gay men living in London. Their friendship goes way back: they grew up in Ireland and their families know each other. But as adults, they’ve also grown apart and even though they live in the same city, they rarely see each other. Frank is far too busy, focusing on his goal of becoming a reputable comedian and struggling with an anxiety disorder. However, when Giorgio gets hit by a bus and ends up hospitalised, it’s Frank he callsin the first instance. Horrified seeing Giorgio doesn’t have anyone else (and that he refuses to tell his family what happened not to worry them) Frank agrees to move in temporarily with his friend as he recovers from his wounds and needs a bit of help to get around the house.

As soon as they start living together, Frank starts noticing a few strange things. Giorgio is unemployed and living on benefits, yet there are a few luxurious items lying around the house. On top of everything, Giorgio spends his day buying extremely expensive designer products online, such as bags and clothing. Where is all that money coming from?

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Seahorses, aliens and willows: September 2024 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Creative Non Fiction, Graphic Novels, Horror, Queer Literature, Science-Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Weird Fiction

The Hollow Places by T Kingfisher

This is the third book I read by T Kingfisher and it’s possibly the one that I’ve found the spookiest. By now I know Kingfisher is an author I enjoy – I’ve literally devoured all her books. What I love the most is her fast-paced writing style and her characters.

In this story, we follow Kara, a thirty-something-year-old recently divorced who goes back to live with her uncle Earl in North Carolina. Now, Uncle Earl has quite a special job. He’s the owner and curator of a very particular museum: Natural Wonders, Curiosity and Taxidermy. You can imagine the deal: all sorts of quirky stuffed animals (including a Fiji siren) and strange artefacts. Kara, however, is anything but spooked. In fact, she has very good memories of growing up around the museum, so when her uncle offers her a job there helping him out she immediately accepts.

Things are going normal until one day, when she’s taking care of the museum while his uncle is in the hospital healingfrom back surgery, she discovers a strange hole in the wall. At the beginning she tries to patch it up but ends up realising that the hole is actually quite large – she gets inside (of course!) and discovers that she’s actually in a tunnel in a completely different dimension. That’s how she ends up accessing another world. Now, this new space she discovers is one of my favourite parts of the book. A strange alien, empty land filled only with water and willows.

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Thrutopias: May 2024 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Climate Fiction, Creative Non Fiction, Eco-criticism, Literary Fiction, Queer Literature, Science-Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Thrutopia

None of the Above by Travis Alabanza

This year I’m doing a lot of reading around gender (starting with books I really liked, such as A Real Piece of Work by Erin Riley and Disphoria Mundi by Paul B. Preciado). I was very excited to find this book at the university library because it is written by a non-binary author, which is a perspective I haven’t encountered all that often.

This was an entertaining book I read very quickly, each chapter centring on a specific theme around Alabanza’s experience of transness, queerness and being non-binary. It was thought-provoking – for example, their experience of being harassed in the street because of the way they look was painfully shocking. It made me think of the many ways appearances are policed, specifically when it comes to how appearances fail to fit the idea of ‘womanness’ ingrained in our society. For example, Alabanza’s anguish of showing themselves as someone who is femme but also has hair in their legs or even facial hair reminded me of a similar anguish I feel as someone who is femme and has hair in all these places but is not supposed to show it when being out in public.

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