Pride month!

 

Pride month is here! 

"Every June, Pride Month celebrates the diversity of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community. It’s a time to reflect on just how far civil rights have progressed in half a century and an opportunity to protest discrimination and violence. Australia is at the forefront of the push towards true equality and inclusion for LGBTI people, but there is more to do." -- UN Youth Australia

Whilst a lot of activities and events may be being postponed or cancelled because of the current climate; Pride Month can still be celebrated, acknowledged and (of course) written about!

Camden Libraries has a lot of items (more than what I can write about) where writers have used their creativity to bring awareness and goodwill through the power of their words. 

Nonfiction

Rainbow revolutions

This book looks at the rise of the LGBTQ+ rights movement in 1969 US and celebrates the courageous individuals who stood up and demanded recognition.

Yes, yes, yes: Australia's journey to marriage equality

The untold story of how a grassroots movement won hearts and minds and transformed a country from 2004 onwards to bring marriage equality to the law.

Little book of pride

A look at pride events across history and their impact and importance for the LGBTQ+ community.

Biographies

Untamed

A biographical / self-actualisation work by Glennon Doyle.

Not that I'd kiss a girl

Autobiographical coming out story of Lil O'Brien.

My thinning years: starving the gay within

The biography of Jon Croteau and his struggles for self-acceptance through abuse and anger.

All boys aren't blue

Memoir of George Johnson, American journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist.

Fiction

I'm a gay wizard

Young adult fantasy fiction that centres around a gay and trans character. 

Riverrun

A novel that follows a young gay man growing up in a dictatorship. The writing style is not straightforward and is filled with different writing styles, including recipes and songs; but it makes for a more authentic voice.

How it all blew up

How a young adult, Muslim gay man attempts to navigate the world in America today.

Love and other thought experiments

A book on more than just rust and philosophical differences. The book is told from a variety of perspectives to really look at the concept of love. 

There are plenty other books to check out at our Library! Celebrate Pride Month with us by getting into a great book! Or, if you want more than a book; visit an events page here for Australia-wide events that may still be on here.

YF highlight: George Lester's "Boy queen"

 

You can find this book here.

Robin is a teenager who has his life figured out; until he doesn't. When everything falls apart, Robin feels he will too. However, Robin falls for Drag and his life feels no longer lost or empty. 

This is the premise of the book, that highlights friendship, love and ideas and how really set they are. But it also shows how Robin is able to grow and develop into the person he really wants to be and how important it is to embrace that as well. 

Bridget Collins’ “The binding”

This book can be found here.

“Memories,’ she said, at last. ‘Not people, Emmett. We take memories and bind them. Whatever people can’t bear to remember. Whatever they can’t live with. We take those memories and put them where they can’t do any harm. That’s all books are.”

This book is set in maybe an 19^th - early 20^th Century-style lifestyle (don’t ask me specifically which one, I still might be wrong with that broad a guess). So, there is no technology, but there is a sense of industrialisation in parts. A concept of progress, whilst Collins, like Dickens, shows the limitations to the idea of progress. But this setting also, besides the gloominess of the future of people, also helps understand why the characters themselves might be more desperate, more closed, more … lacking hope as well.

I think the setting is solid (though not close to Dickens at all), though the realism comes more from the characters and their responses to situations and ideas. Whilst the characters aren’t completely lost in their hopelessness or so desperate as to be pathetic (in some cases, not all), there is a realism that helps you see how hard it would be to live in this society. And this is where the plot comes in.

Emmett Farmer (yes, his last name reflects his and his family’s occupation) is an ill, weak boy who after a nasty turn is given to a book binder Seredith, to learn the trade and hopefully recover. ‘Book binding’ I hear you say? Yeah, this is where the fantastical element of the plot fits in. Binding is taking memories that are unwanted by someone (they must agree to the binding) and turning those memories into a book that should be stored and secured, unless the living person wants to remember again at some point. I could say a lot more about the binding process, but it might spoil the novel. The main part being the fact that one of the Binder’s customers, Lucian Darnay seems linked to Emmett in some way … dum dum dah.

This, for the first part of the novel is not completely understood and adds mystery to the novel. However, the second part (it is divided into three), explains it all, and the third therefore reveals the conclusion of the consequences of such bindings. So, whilst the core of the novel seems to move around traditions and memory, there is also love (biggest spoiler of the novel, unless you can pick it early on once you start reading).

The thing is I think the plot moves slowly. It takes a long time to build up, and in a sense never really does ultimately climax. It also ends too openly, and almost too positively, for the period this world and characters live in. Probably not bad for a reader, but it removes the realism slightly.

The characters are well built. They are realistic; more so than the plot. They aren’t just “nice” or “good” or “kind”. The characters are completely flawed in multiple ways and … dark. They can just be downright awful. This is not just main characters, but secondary ones as well. You will have no real hope in humanity from this book (again possibly like some of Dickens’ characters); even if you think the end is uplifting. And whilst I think this is what Collins has done to balance the novel in a world where there are such things as forbidden love, it could be hard to read for some.

And where does that leave me? In a bind … ha ha. I really enjoy realistic novels, where there is a lot of grit and darkness. The characters were real enough for me; which was positive. However, the book is slow; so, it will take a while for any reader to get into. The fantastical elements of binding were also very solid and unique. However, if you don’t like characters being overly secretive, dark or gritty, don’t bother. Just look at the pretty cover.

Links for you:

Title read-a-likes in the Library:

The ten thousand doors of January

Alix E. Harrow

Harrow was chosen for its 19th and early 20th Century’s focus, and the lyrical way Harrow writes. The story also focusses on young protagonists seeking answers to their pasts through magical libraries (of sorts).

Title read-a-likes in cloudLibrary:

The starless sea

Erin Morgenstern

Morgenstern was chosen because of the multiple perspectives telling the story which features LGBTQIA diverse characters. There is also a connection to the theme of “books about books”.