Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Ben Miller, Huw Lemmey

4 reviews

emg3's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective sad slow-paced

3.75

Good: I learnt a lot and found the ideas built through this story really interesting. It made me want to listen to the podcast 

Not so good: The writing style was dense and hard to focus on. The structure was sometimes confusing. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Suicide, and Islamophobia

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

vagaybond's review against another edition

informative reflective

4.25

I love when books exist about queer culture, people, theory, sociology etc that use the word f

aggot

and refer to people as racist with the knowledge and fair assumption that I would not first need to be convinced racism exists. It's like a friend and comrade is infodumping to me in the alley outside a drag show while they're having a cigarette. It's writing that talks to me like a peer and a queer.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, Murder, Outing, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

This book profiles several different historical figures who have done a variety of different things which are by and large, horrifying. Some of these figures have died by suicide or assassination. There is a fair bit in the book which talks about older gay men being into young boys, but it doesn't outright state what exactly that means or what the age gap is, or how young these boys are. It's unclear if they merely mean adult twinks or actual minors. (I may be misremembering details, but this is my best recollection after listening to the audiobook.)

queerloras's review against another edition

funny informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

3.75

I thought this was a really interesting look at queer history, focusing not on the familiar heroes - Marsha P. Johnson, Harvey Milk, Oscar Wilde, etc. - but the messy types who we are less keen to claim as "one of us". The section on Magnus Hirschfeld was particularly interesting, and I liked how global the history was  admittedly generally the Global North, but the people covered were from everywhere between the USA and Japan.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Bullying, Cancer, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Lesbophobia, Outing, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, and Classism

ronan_lesh's review against another edition

challenging dark funny informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Racism, Sexual content, Xenophobia, and Colonisation

Moderate: Death, Mental illness, Terminal illness, and War

Minor: Infidelity, Transphobia, and Lesbophobia