Guest Review: Adijan and Her Genie by L-J Baker

While we recover from Real Life in order to return to more regular updates, here is a guest review for a book we have previously reviewed, Adijan and her Genie. The reviewer's contribution raises a number of points that didn't occur to us when we read the book, offering a different perspective and leading us to re-examine our own reactions to it.

I had a few issues with this book. When it was given to me I didn't have a lot of expectations, besides it being based on Aladdin and had a lesbian leading character.

Short Story Review: Honor Among Thieves by Amy Gaertner

Honor Among Thieves by Amy Gaertner is a romance about a professional thief who falls in love with a reporter while working undercover.

It's a pretty straightforward adventure romance. It's not high art, but it's a decently paced, enjoyable romance that features an actual plot, a believably bisexual main character and a couple of short sex scenes to earn itself a place in the hearts of those who like a bit of sensual erotica in their undercover adventure.

Danielle is a very professional thief working undercover in an art collection, with her partner in constant contact. Liz is a pushy and idealistic reporter who's investigating the provenance of the collection that Danielle is planning to steal. Danielle falls in love pretty much on sight, but has to push Liz away; Liz hangs around to cover the exhibition and slowly works her way under Danielle's defenses, finds out that she's a thief, runs away, and then ... well, predictably they end up together, but it's the dramatic climax so I won't share how. The main tension of the book was between Danielle's desire to connect with Liz, and her knowledge that she has to abandon her fake identity and leave no traces of herself behind, and she must certainly not make any emotional ties.

Book Review: The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily Danforth

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily Danforth is a memoir-style novel about a teenage girl growing up in small town, conservative America in the 1980s. It's very good, and it's nice to see something literary added to the pool of coming of age lesbian fiction, but it won't be everyone's cup of tea.

It wasn't quite what I was expecting. What I was expecting was a young adult book, of some flavour of the genre. What I got was a book twice as big as I expected, that read a lot like a memoir, and mostly used much bigger words than the typical YA book. And had an awful lot of depressing religious conservatism in it, hemming our main character around.

Guest Review: The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily Danforth

This is a guest review from Bookocalypse Book Reviews. They also wrote the Dare, Truth or Promise review.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a coming-of-age young-adult novel about a girl growing up in Miles City, Montana, USA. Her parents are killed in a car accident at Quake Lake the same day she kisses her best friend Irene for the first time. She’s twelve, and thinks it might be God punishing her.

For a book that begins with the main character being orphaned, it’s warm, funny and readable. Cameron is instantly engaging. She’s brave, independent, athletic, intelligent and daring. The book follows Cameron’s viewpoint and way of talking, giving the book a unique voice that is never forced.

It’s a lovely evocation of a small town, so well-drawn that it’s no surprise to read that the author, Emily Danforth, grew up there. I’m going to go ahead and assume that the book is somewhat autobiographical. The joy of the summer months, the confidence with which Cameron spends her days around town, the stores and festivals and local personalities, are wonderful to read. This does what a good book should: transport you to another time and place and make it feel real.

Anthology Review: Sidecar by Ann McMan

Sidecar is a collection of four short stories by Ann McMan, of Jericho fame (one of my favourite books of the year so far, which I reviewed back in January).

Sidecar contains four stories of varying length and a nice introduction by reviewer (and wife of the author) Salem West of The Rainbow Reader which discusses the type of writing you can expect from Ann McMan, and quickly introduces the stories. While obviously written by the same person, there's a nice variety in mood and characters and settings. They're all romances and feature Ann McMan's apparently trademark elements of witty dialog and fine wine. The longest and best is the hilarious "Bottle Rocket", a parody on lesbian publishing. The others are less comic and more romantic, but each seems to indulge a particular theme or impulse in the conversations, from parody to romance to rudeness, but always staying on the sweet side of interesting. I'd read at least one before, and I suspect a couple of the others may also be available to read for free online, but "Bottle Rocket" is brand new and exclusive to the collection.

There are some common themes; all our characters are reasonably literary and intellectual. Even the more backcountry, or stereotypically lower class ones turn out to be well able to hold their own. All but one of them is something of a wine lover. These are all romances, and generally involve a lot of punning, arguing and witty dialogue between the lovers. We don't get any sex scenes. While there's some kissing and groping and we're told that Sex Happened, it's a very non- explicit collection of stories. Entirely safe for work and children. Well, as long as they don't understand some of the references in "Bottle Rocket".

Like Jericho, the writing is elegant, intellectual (that means 'wordy but I like it'), and excellently edited. Finding a single missing quote mark in the third story felt like managing to pick the one piece of sky out of a pile of near identical jigsaw puzzle pieces. I wanted to photograph it and send it in to the author for a prize.

Anthology Review: OMGQueer: Short Stories by Queer Youth

OMGQueer, edited by Katherine E. Lynch & Radclyffe, is an anthology of GLBTQI short stories written by young(ish) queer authors.

So, I hate this book. It's the worst kind of anthology with the worst kind of short stories. The kind that are short. The kind that end after deceiving you into identifying with the characters and relaxing and getting really into the story. Oh, sure, some wrap up neatly and are perfectly paced, but others? Others cut you off just as you forget this was meant to be short story.

So I repeat, I hate this book. You should read it.

It's not perfect. Some things about it are downright disappointing. A few stories don't appeal to me (though they may to others), only two of them are genderqueer/transgender (and one of them has a lesbian main character), and some of them would have fitted in much better in an adult anthology (about a third of the stories feature older teens or adults in their early twenties).

The majority are actually lesbian stories - which is great, in a genre still dominated by gay male stories, but sad, because this book was touted as an all inclusive anthology dealing with the entire spectrum. I suspect that the number of lesbian and 'adult' stories might be attributed to the editors' taste or author connections (Radclyffe writes adult lesbian romance - and is well known for it).