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Category: LGBTQ2+

Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue

Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue

For those of you who have never heard of Anne Lister, she was a woman who lived in the early 19th century and who is known today as a very famous lesbian. She kept diaries written in code, and when the diaries were decrypted after her death, they revealed graphic details of her many lesbian relationships. I first learned of Anne Lister when I watched the BBC series Gentleman Jack, which focused on her relationship with Ann Walker, whom she “married” and was her partner until her death in 1840. Gentleman Jack is a fantastic series, and Anne Lister is a fascinating historical figure in how she openly lived an unconventional life for a woman of her time. She is what drew me to read Emma Donoghue’s latest novel, Learned by Heart, which is a fictional account of one of Anne Lister’s earliest relationships as a teenager with a girl she went to school with named Eliza Raine.

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To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara

To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara

I love Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, so I was pretty excited when I first heard about her follow up novel, To Paradise, until I started reading the reviews on Goodreads, which criticize the novel’s lack of cohesion and even suggest that it is boring. This put me off reading it until the paperback version came out. To Paradise consists of three very loosely connected stories about love, loss and finding one’s own version of paradise, and a Washington Square townhouse. I found the first two stories to be both interesting and boring at the same time, but the third and final story is what makes To Paradise worth reading.

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Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

When I first heard about Young Mungo, I thought it was going to be Shuggie Bain Version 2.0. Both novels are set in working-class neighbourhoods in Scotland in the late 20th century and both novels are about a queer boy with an alcoholic mother. However, while Shuggie Bain is by no means full of sunshine and rainbows, Young Mungo is a much darker, violent novel.

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She is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

She is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

I decided to give She is a Haunting a try because it sounded like it might be spooky, and because it has been compared to Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, which is a novel that I liked (except for the bizarre turn it takes towards the end). But I saw some reviews that also linked it to Wilder Girls by Rory Power, and I did not like Wilder Girls. So, I went against my instinct and read She is a Haunting, and of course I ended up let down.

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Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater

Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater

Greywaren is the third and final volume of The Dreamer Trilogy. I love Maggie Stiefvater’s novels, I enjoyed the first two books of The Dreamer Trilogy, but unfortunately, I found Greywaren to be an underwhelming conclusion. SPOILER ALERT: do not read further if you plan on reading The Dreamer Trilogy. Even though Greywaren is the weakest link, I still think the trilogy as a whole is worth reading if you enjoy YA novels.

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The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins

The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins

My feelings towards The Confessions of Frannie Langton are ambivalent. I do not hate it, but I do not love it either. It was just… okay. If you like historical fiction, you may enjoy The Confessions of Frannie Langton, but I do not think you are missing out if you never read it. The novel is about a Black woman (a former slave) accused of murder, but the slavery aspect of the novel becomes a subplot to the primary narrative of a forbidden relationship between a mistress and her maid. I found The Confessions of Frannie Langton to be a bit boring in the middle, which is too bad because I was interested in reading about a former slave’s life in England during a time when slavery was recently abolished, and slaves were supposed to be considered free people in England.

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Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

I have read a couple of Sarah Waters’ books prior to Fingersmith: The Little Stranger, which I ended up hating, and The Paying Guests, which I found interesting, but was not overly excited about. Usually at that point, I would give up on Sarah Waters, but Fingersmith is well reviewed, and it sounded like an interesting story, so I decided to give her novels one more chance. I am glad that I read Fingersmith. If you like Charles Dickens, or if you like historical crime fiction, then you will like Fingersmith as well.

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The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams

The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams

I had been interested in reading The Liar’s Dictionary for quite some time, and now that I have read it, I have to say that I found it to be disappointing. It is not at all as interesting as the blurb on the back cover makes it out to be. As I was reading it, I kept waiting for more plot to occur, but it feels like not a lot happens in this novel.

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A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

A Little Life is one of the most devastatingly beautifully written novels I have ever read. I sobbed my way through about the last quarter of this novel, but I still think it is one of the best books I have had the fortune to read and I am so glad I decided to read it. I will warn you, though, that A Little Life is very frank, and somewhat detailed, in its depiction of emotional, physical and sexual child abuse, which can make it very difficult to read at times. But it is such an exquisite portrait of a friendship that span decades, that A Little Life deserves to be read and loved.

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