May Reading Wrap Up
I feel a new lease of life after the last month. I read a string of books featuring libraries or librarians which helped me see the parts of my job that I love again. I also spent four very sunny days in Glasgow, a trip I took to see and catch up with my best friend who I don’t get to see all that often, as well as have a break from the everyday.
Because my friend once encouraged me to read an Emily Henry book by leaving it behind in my flat after one visit, it only felt right to read another one while on this city break. Funny Story is now my new favourite Emily Henry! Not just because it follows Daphne, a children’s librarian, but also because it’s a romance that celebrates friends, siblings and community.
Talking of, May started for me with a gift on my desk from one of my colleagues: The Fires of Pompeii by James Moran, a book from one Doctor Who fan to another. Being gifted or recommended books seemed to become a theme of the month. Four out of the seven books I read during May were recommendations, and they were all hits!
This last month I also spoke at a school in Surrey in my position as a Just Like Us ambassador. I always enjoy doing these talks! We get to stand up in a school and tell our stories of what it was like growing up LGBTQIA+. It would have made such a difference to have a queer person come to talk to us when I was at school, so being that person always leaves me on a high. I also always love meeting the other ambassadors and, in the case of this time, talk about queer books and promise to stay in touch.
Unfortunately, I felt like I stumbled through an important question posed to me by one of the students, so you can now read the answer I would have liked to have given here.
May was sunny and colourful, and I hope this feeling continues on into June 😊
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Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii by James Moran ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A fellow Doctor Who fan at work kindly gifted me this book after they found it in a charity shop and thought of me - so sweet, thank you!
I read it during a lazy 24 hours. It was fun to remember and visualise the episode alongside reading the words on the page.
This is the third Doctor Who book I've read and I've enjoyed all of them
The Night Bus Hero by Onjalu Q. Raúf ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is a wonderful middle grade book following Hector's, a 10 year old boy's, bully to hero journey.
My partner picked this book out from the shelves at @word.on.the.water and kindly brought it for me - thank you!
I'm sure younger me would have enjoyed this book, and adult me found it engaging too. The narrative voice appropriately and amazingly reads as a 10 year old. And the story tells some important messages - be kind to others, don't judge someone by their appearance, and everyone has a backstory - alongside the crazier fun adventures of the final chapters.
This would also be an excellent introduction to children about homeless - how our society is letting them down and what we, as individuals, can do to help.
Notes from a Queer Cripple: How to Cultivate Queer Disabled Joy (and Be Hot While Doing It!) by Andrew Gurza ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Andrew is so open and honest about the aspects of queer life and culture that are inaccessible to them, and about their sex life as a disabled person.
We have very different disabilities, but a lot of this rung true to my experience too. Notably, the forced vulnerability on disabled people in intimate situations (and the deep, wonderful connections that can come out of that vulnerability), and all the mentions of things queer, disabled people have to think about which others don't (eg. Pee math, page 71)
This is the second book written by podcasters I've read this year; they do make for good storytellers
Boy Like Me by Simon James Green ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
"The sort of people who want to ban books are not the sort of people who are interested in truth"
This book was recommended to me by the wonderful @diversity_mel - thank you! I'm so glad to have read it and to have been able to get it from my library <3
Boy Like Me is a fictional account of the author's experience in sixth form under section 28.
The librarian at Jamie's school recommends him a book, Wildflowers of Great Britain, which changes the course of his school experience (and life) completely. The librarian's recommendation is in fact a cover for a story of two boys falling in love - illegal content in 1994 - and by responding to another student's note in the margin, Jamie sets in motion a whole other story about a boy who likes boys.
Section 28 is such a shocking part of recent history and this book demonstrates how this law caused so much harm. With in-text commentary and footnotes, I love how Green gives us some of his hindsighted thoughts on these events.
I personally found the narration on story structure scattered throughout the book a little jarring and unnecessary. But this is an amazing book and a story worth sharing!
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Nora has many regrets in life. At 35, she feels her life has no potential, and one evening, after the death of her cat, she decides she doesn't want to carry on. But instead of dying, she ends up in the in-between, a library where each book gives her the chance to undo those regrets and see how her life could have played out.
I think Nora's mental health is sensitively handled throughout the book. By going into these different lives, her views on life change and her regrets disappear. Essentially, this is therapy on fast-forward.
From the moment the library was explained it was clear to me where the story was headed, but that didn't take away from the journey at all.
I don't think the character of Hugo was necessary. The whole chapter of re-explaining what was going on by Nora's discovery of another 'slider' didn't add anything to the story.
But this is a popular book and now I know why.
I feel books have helped me so much in my own self-discovery and have changed my views on life so many times that I couldn't help but also love this being reflected by the Midnight Library
Funny Story by Emily Henry ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I think I've found my new favourite Emily Henry!
I love that this book centres two characters with unconventional jobs and that this is celebrated. Daphne is a Children's Librarian who is planning a Read-a-thon at her library throughout the story (love it!), and Miles works several jobs including being a host at a winery.
Daphne and Miles both suddenly find themselves single when their partners dump them to get together. Having built her whole life around her ex, Daphne ends up moving into Miles's spare room just until the summer, and the Read-a-thon, are over. But in that time she ends up getting to know Miles, her coworkers, and this town and starts to create her own life in the very place she wanted to escape.
There is such an emphasis on not building your life around one person even if you love them, as well as the importance of friends and a community and how one person can't be your everything. I loved the messaging and the story was a fun one too
So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The first of the Divine Traitors duology, this YA fantasy is 2POV following two sisters who get separated and want to find their way back to each other... while preventing war and saving the world.
I'm not a huge fantasy reader, and there is a lot of world building in this, which is probably why it took me a while to get into it. But, at around page 160 the pace picked up and there is a simmering lesbian sub-plot which keep me interested.
This was chosen for my asexual book club. There is talk of attraction and one character "not liking anyone" but all of this is very minimal and I read the ace character as demisexual.
There's magic and dragons and it was a fun read. I've put the second book on my tbr