bashsbooks's reviews
129 reviews

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out for by Alison Bechdel

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emotional funny lighthearted slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I've long heard chatter about Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For - how you can you be in queer spaces & not eventually hear of her groundbreaking comics? - but I didn't have much of an idea about what the strip was about, aside from dykes. Well, it's about their lives, loves, jobs, educations, families, and politics, and every messy bit that pops up in those areas. The strip has an extremely diverse cast of characters, parrying the conservative complaint that characters who are marginalized on multiple axes is modern woke bullshit. It's also refreshingly inclusive - though some of the characters struggle with the concept of transgender, the comic itself is affirming and depicts trans people as real human beings. This should not be a big deal, but it feels revolutionary to me. And, on a related note, Lois is my favorite of the dykes. (Seriously, the comic that discusses bisexual lesbians AND trans men in the same strip changed my life. Those are not modern made-up things or tumblr identities! Here they are, being discussed in our community long before the popularization of the Internet. So validating.) 
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God Themselves by Jae Nichelle

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emotional reflective slow-paced

5.0

Nichelle is a crazy-talented poet. Her poems scratch the itches in my brain just like the ones I was reading constantly in undergrad to learn the craft. I especially enjoy her meditations on religion - and how she grapples with the idea of god in the face of racial, queer, and class injustices. My favorite poems were "Jesus Saves," the soup poems, and "When the Last Time You Went To Church?", but all of them are sooo good. I love the way Nichelle plays with space, too - the footnote poems were also all really clever. I cannot wait to read The Porch (As Sanctuary).
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The Male Gazed by Manuel Betancourt

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

The Male Gazed is a compelling and engaging reflection of masculinity and male eroticism on both American and Columbian TV. It is also very personal to Betancourt's development and understanding of his own relationship to masculinity - he regularly asks himself the question, do I want to be him or am I attracted to him? which is an extremely queer and fun question to ask. The one small critique I have of this is that the essays were linked together a little clunkily at times. But overall, very good, and I recommend reading it together with Hi Honey, I'm Homo.
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Here and Queer: A Queer Girl's Guide to Life by Rowan Ellis

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hopeful informative fast-paced

3.75

This is probably my favorite quick-and-easy queer information guide that I've read. Generally, I find their definitions too stiffling and their presumptions about who is reading their books (and who... doesn't exist) to be kind of silly. This book was much better in those regards - although I wish there was a little more than just acknowledgment that the hypothetical teen girl who reads the book could become not-a-girl later. (If I had read this at 14, I would've been like, what do they mean by that???) Otherwise, it's very inclusive (very affirming of trans girls!), easy-to-read, and has gorgeous art. I would've rated it higher if not for one egregious problem... the colors of the pages. For some reason, many of the pages are darkly colored and the text on them is black, which made it hard for me to read those pages. For a book that talks about disabiltiy alongside queerness so much, my eyes were not feeling that their weaknesses had been considered.
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She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Sometimes when I hear a bunch of hype for a book, I find that it makes my expectations so high that I can be nothing but disappointed when I read it. Thankfully, She Who Became the Sun well-earned its praise. I was blown away by how immersed in the time and setting it was, as well as the carefully-considered jumps between character perspectives. All of the characters were undeniably bad people... but they were also so easy to understand and sympathize with. And don't even get me started about all the deliciously complicated gender stuff happening for Zhu and Ouyang. I Love This Book, and I can't wait to read the sequel.
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The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There by Angela Kinsey, Jenna Fischer

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funny informative lighthearted reflective fast-paced

3.0

As a former hardcore fan of The Office, it was a nice burst of nostalgia to listen to Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey reflect on their time on the show and everything about the experience - and I deeply respect their commitment to milking it for all its worth. In many ways, it is much like every book where an actor talks about their fame-making role; I don't think it's a necessary read or particularly special in that regard. I did think the layer of filtering through their friendship was a unique touch that worked well for them, though. 

Also, it's always a little annoying to listen to successful cis women discuss their relationships with other successful cis women in the most shallow vaguely-feminist terms ever. Obviously it's preferable to women bashing each other, but the idea that women support each other and stick together on the basis of just being women is so laughably untrue, and it feels fake and plasticky every time I hear it. Fischer and Kinsey made comments in this vein a lot, but they're by no means the only famous female authors to do this shtick.
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Penpal by Dathan Auerbach

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

What an eerie book. I was not expecting a horror that could, more or less, be real. I liked that aspect of it. I think that the jumping around in the timeline mostly works, but the sections where
Spoiler the main character spent time with Veronica and then she died, felt kind of random and disjointed compared to the rest of the story. I know it was to reconnect him to Josh but I just felt like she appeared out of nowhere just to die.
That said, I really enjoyed most of this book, and while I feel like I guessed a lot of what was going to happen, that didn't really ruin the experience of watching the mystery unfold. 
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Hi Honey, I'm Homo!: Sitcoms, Specials, and the Queering of American Culture by Matt Baume

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funny informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

Hi Honey, I'm Homo is such a fascinating and engaging queer-lensed jaunt through the history of sitcoms. I never realized the relationship between sitcoms and public acceptance of queerness was so symbiotic, but it makes a lot of sense. I especially enjoyed hearing about earlier sitcoms, like Bewitched, whose relationship to queerness had to be veiled. And the direct quotes from actors, writers, producers, S&P members, and the episodes themselves really enriched the text. As an audiobook-specific review, I will also add that Baume has a great voice and clearly knows his stuff. Highly recommend to anyone who wants to read up on queer and/or television history.
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If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 42%.
A friend recommended this book and said it was one of her favorites ever, so I really tried to get into it. But the writing style is very simple and the conflicts are kind of boring. I think maybe realistic YA fiction is not really the genre for me.
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American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

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emotional funny reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I read Gene Luen Yang's Boxers and Saints as a teen, but I hadn't thought about his work in many years until a friend of mine mentioned this book recently. I enjoyed American Born Chinese quite a lot - I found the three storylines interesting, and there was quite a bit of depth to the central theme, of coming to terms with who you are, of being an outcast, of finding people who want you to be you. The ending felt a little rushed - the way the three storylines came together seemed a little too quick. But otherwise, great graphic novel.
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