Pride – Anxious Nachos

Hi everyone,

If you haven’t thought about what you can do today to support Black Lives Matter, here’s a link to a Twitter thread of petitions which still haven’t reached their goal! There’s so many there, and even spending just 10 minutes of your time would get a TON of these signed. (And if you spent just 10 minutes a day signing, I bet you’d get all of these petitions signed before the weekend is over).

Today we’re going to look at books with bi rep! We have contemporaries, fantasy, horror, adult and YA so hopefully you can find something that suits all your bisexual desires in this post.

I wanted to do a pan rep post as well (especially since I tend to prefer the term pansexual over bi for myself, though I do go by both depending on the situation) but I’ve only read one book with pan rep. This seriously needs to be remedied, so if you have any recs, please do let me know! And in case you’re wondering what that one book is, it’s The Library of the Unwritten which featured in yesterday’s science fiction and fantasy post and it’s one of my favourite books so you should definitely pick it up!

Deposing Nathan by Zack Smedley

Deposing Nathan is one of my alltime favourite books. It’s a very important book, very close to my heart, AND this year was nominated for a LAMBDA for Bisexual Fiction! Deposing Nathan is part courtroom drama, part YA coming of age. We open in a courtroom, where Nate is giving evidence against his former best friend, Cam, who stabbed him. We cut between this courtroom and the past, where we see Nate and Cam’s relationship develop as they go from BFFs to Stab City. This book also very personally and honestly deals with religion and sexuality, as well as the validity of bisexuality and it’s pretty much one of the most important books to me because of this. Smedley also manages to have some of the most realistic, dramatic writing I’ve seen, I felt so connected to Nate and his very moving story. This isn’t a happy story. But it’s a very important one. You can read my full review here.

Missing, Presumed Dead by Emma Berquist

I won a copy of Missing, Presumed Dead in a Twitter giveaway (pretty much one of the only things I’ve ever won in a giveaway or raffle situation). And it also had the honour of being my first ever SIGNED book, so it has a rather special place in my heart. And that’s on top of it being an incredible f/f ghost romance murder thriller. Whenever Lexi touches someone, she sees their death in vivid detail. When she forsees Jane’s death, she does nothing to try stop it. So, when Jane comes back to haunt her, Lexi agrees to help her hunt down the killer. This is a very dark and gritty book, but with a very realistic take on what it would actually be like to have this magic power. Lexi is deeply depressed and lonely, and I love that this book really talked about the shitty sides of having magic. Check out my full review here.

Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett

Full Disclosure has one of the funniest scenes in YA, an epic heroine, nerds for musical theatre, and a sweet, lovely romance. Simone has lived with HIV since she was a baby. Having moved schools after she was bullied for her HIV status at her previous school, Simone plans to stay away from boys and avoid another reaction like at her past school. But as director of the school musical, she begins to fall for Miles, a sweet, adorable guy who she vows to teach all about her favourite musicals. But then she starts getting threats warning her that if she doesn’t break up with Miles, her secret will be revealed. Simone is such a brilliant character, so funny and strong and I loved all her musical references. I also really appreciated the different discussions of sexuality that showcased the spectrum of bisexuality and queerness, including those questioning and unsure of their sexuality. There is some internalised (and external) biphobia but it’s questioned and addressed within the narrative. Check out my full review here for more details.

Reign of the Fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh

Necromancy is one of my favourite magic systems to explore so I was so excited to read this bisexual necromancer book! Our main character, Sparrow, is a necromancer. Whenever a noble dies, she walks into the Deadlands to retrieve their soul and brings them back to their body. But once raised, the Dead must stay shrouded in life. If they are ever seen by the living, they became Shades, deadly monsters. When a necromancer is murdered, Sparrow realises someone is purposely making Shades to bring down the empire and must hunt down the murderer. Reign of the Fallen had such a cool magic system. Everyone is born with eye colour which determines their magic, blue eyes for necromancers, green for beast masters, brown eyes for inventors, and lots of other interesting magics. There is a big fight between Living and Dead in the empire, with the Dead ruling nobles outlawing inventors as they want to stay in the past and not progress. It was a really interesting world, with normalised queerness and lots of creepy dead people.

Shatter the Sky by Rebecca Kim Wells

Bisexuals with dragons! Bisexuals with dragons! Bisexuals with dragons! Shatter the Sky is the first in a duology which concludes later this year, about a bisexual (obviously) who goes to rescue her girlfriend by stealing a dragon. The magic system around the dragons is so interesting and unique – aromatherapy magic anyone?! There are different scented oils which can work the dragons up into different states (such as put them to sleep, make them angry etc). There’s a very dark undertone to this fantasy, with the enslavement of these dragons who can think and have minds as clever as humans but are reduced to nothing by use of these drugs. Plus, we have a bisexual m/f/f love triangle which I love to see. Check out my full review here.

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

Onto one of my favourite ever books, Into the Drowning Deep is the novel which all horror will always be held up to in comparison. This book is chilling and terrifying and so, so, so damn good. In this book, mermaids are real. But they aren’t the lovely ladies of the sea everyone thinks them to be, instead they’re ferocious face eating monsters from the deep who will hunt you down if you enter their realm. So of course, the only thing to do is send a research ship to them to investigate. What follows is a gore covered mess of chaos and terror as the ship fights against the monsters. And it’s so. fucking. good. Check out my full review here!

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This book is iconic in sapphic Twitter and I read it so long ago I am never going to be able to sell it better that pretty much all other people I follow on Twitter. But I shall try! The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is the story of a retired film star, Evelyn Hugo, who has hired someone to write her biography. The story is told as Evelyn recites her life story to this writer, of her seven husbands, and of the great love affair of her life. It is beautiful, tear-enducing, historical fiction at its best. Anyway Evelyn Hugo is a bicon (that’s a word right?) and hence has to be included in this list.

Steel Crow Saga by Paul Krueger

Steel Crow Saga is on my TBR for this month but I couldn’t resist adding to this list because we needed some adult fantasy bisexuals on this list. Steel Crow Saga is a chonky, standalone fantasy novel with MAGICAL ANIMAL COMPANIONS that fight alongside you in battle. I feel like I need to highlight that part. A soldier, a thief, a detective and a prince unite together to defeat an enemy with unstoppable power; five different nations, all coded after different Asian countries (this sounds amazing?!?!); and POVs from the colonised and the colonisers to create a political fantasy of epic proportions. And lots of magical companions uniting together too?? Hopefully? I just love magical animal companions, I used to have a cat that followed me around in Elder Scrolls and it was truly magical.

Not Your Sidekick by C.B Lee

If you’re into superheros, then this is the book for you! A Vietnamese-Chinese American bi teen, Jess, lives in a town where superheros are common. She’s looking to beef up her college application and lands a great internship. There’s just one problem: it’s with the heinous supervillain in town and her superhero parents are going to kill her. But a bonus? She gets to work with her longtime crush. What could go wrong?

Let’s Call it a Doomsday by Katie Henry

It’s very rare to get any sort of questioning rep in YA, so it is really great to get this bisexual questioning religious girl, who also suffers from extreme anxiety. Though, it’s probably definitely not the book to read whilst the world is as Fucked Up as it is right now. It’s about two girls who meet in their therapists waiting room, one who is terrified the world is going to end, and one who knows when it will end, because she had a premonition.

Do you have any other bisexual favourites to add to this list?

Hi everyone,

Well, Pride month is here. I’d like to preface the first of my posts by saying that this isn’t a year for celebration. It doesn’t feel right to celebrate our freedom and identity when others are fighting right now to have the right to the same freedom. I hope this year everyone is challenging themselves to look back at our history and discover how we got here. That you look back and thank god for Marsha P. Johnson and the other Black trans women who rioted for our rights at Stonewall, that you look back at the violence that got us where we are today, and you reflect on why that means we now need to stand up for the Black people who are suffering today and support their actions. Change doesn’t come easily, and it doesn’t come if we just sit around waiting for the right time. There is never an easier time.

To the white queer people who follow me, when celebrating this month, I want to ask all of us to use our platforms to support Black people and lift their voices. This is a month when our platforms get more views, when those outside our community try to support us: so use that focus to amplify the voices of Black people in your communities. We need to help fight their cause, because we owe them for how far LGBTQIA+ rights have come since Stonewall.

Racism is a problem everywhere. I’m seen too many people on my timeline saying “thank god we’re not as bad as the US”. You are wrong. So look to your local community and find out what you can do to help. We all need to do better. Be prepared to get shit wrong, be prepared to feel guilty, be prepared to be uncomfortable. It won’t even be close to the pain and trauma millions of people have lived with.

So this month, use your platform to speak out about racism. Support Black authors. Support Black content creators. Give money if you can. Raise their voices on Twitter. Spread information. But most of all, don’t forget about this in a few weeks time.

How can you continue your support and activism in future? I am considering this question too and will be trying to find ways in my local community here in Australia to help support and fight racism in a country that was founded on it.

Over Pride, I’ll be posting every day on both here and my Instagram account. Every book featured will (obviously) be queer – and currently there’s almost 200 books that I’ll be talking about across the month so I hope your TBRs are ready. There will be lots of recommendation posts and I’ve tried to keep different titles in every single post so there will be new books every day to avoid being repetitive, which is how we ended up with almost 200 books and many hours spent working on these posts for the month.

Last year during Pride, I read the most books I’ve ever managed for one month (15), so today, here’s my ambitious TBR for the month. However, I’m very doubtful I’ll manage to finish all these because there are a couple of pretty massive fantasies in here (yes, I’m finally vowing to read Priory). This Pride, I’m also really trying to expand my reading outside of my usual genres, so we’ve got memoirs, literary fiction, contemporary, fantasy, historical, science fiction, and mystery! And thank you to my library of reopening on June 1 so I can collect all the books I had reserved and read them this month.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

This will be the very first memoir I’ve ever read and I am absolutely thrilled it’s by Carmen Maria Machado. I’ve heard incredible things about her writing so I’m sure this memoir about the author’s experiences in an abusive same-sex relationship will be so so powerful.

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

Real Life is on many ‘most anticipated books of the year’ lists and I predict it’ll be one of my favourites of the month. This is a book about a Black queer biochemistry student from Alabama who studies at a very white Midwestern university and his dealings with both overt racism and the more subtle microaggressions in his friendship group.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

In my efforts to read more widely, I’m trying to read more queer literature classics (or more like books not released in the last five years), and this 2002 sapphic Victorian murder mystery sounds very up my street.

Goldilocks by Laura Lam

Goldilocks is set in a future where the Earth is close to environmental collapse and there’s lots of restrictions on the freedoms of women, so a group of women steal a spaceship which is going to explore a potentially habitable planet.

When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Khan-Cullors & Asha Bandele

And now for my second memoir, this one by cofounder of the Black Lives Matter movement, Patrisse Khan-Cullors. When They Call You a Terrorist is a memoir about being a Black woman in America and what led her to cofound the movement aiming to transform the US.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

I’ve been meaning to read this book since it was released and finally picked up a copy last month. This is written as a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read about the son’s life as a Vietnamese-American growing up in the US.

The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar

Is this one of my monst anticipated books of the year, YES IT IS!! This is a contemporary YA about two girls who set up rival henna businesses for a school project, but one of them is appropriating the other’s culture.

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

And another of my most anticipated books of the year on this months reading! I’m also pretty sure this is my favouritve cover of the year (although more on gorgeous queer covers later this month!) Felix Ever After is about a trans teen who decides to catfish his bully and ends up in a quasi-love triangle.

The Gods of Tango by Carolina de Robertis

The Gods of Tango is set in Argentina, and follows Leda, a genderfluid/trans man (it isn’t clear from the blurb) who moves to Argentina to be married but finds their husband dead. So they dress up as a man called Dante and join a a group of tango musicians, but find the lines between Leda and Dante begin to blur and feelings they have supressed begin to reveal themselves.

Hex by Rebecca Dinerstein Knight

If you want a dark sapphic book about poisons this is for you. This is about an expelled phD candidate who studies poisons and antidotes and the obsessive relationship she has with her mentor.

The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski

This is the sapphic book everyone is talking about and I’m very excited to read it this month! I haven’t read The Winner’s Trilogy so very new to the world and universe of The Midnight Lie but everyone seems to love this book so fingers crossed I do too.

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Here there be dragons. I still can’t believe I haven’t read this book. But it’s finally the month, because since we’re all isolating I don’t need to carry this chonky book about on public transport to read.

Steel Crow Saga by Paul Krueger

Pretty sure this will end up being one of my favourite ever books because it sounds brilliant: diverse fantasy discussing colonialism from the perspective of both colonised and coloniser, five nations all inspired by different Asian nations, talking animal companions?!! This is going to be incredible.

Everfair by Nisi Shawl

This sounds like the sprawing, decades long, heavily political epic historical fantasy that I love. This is a steampunky, alternate history set in the Belgian Congo if native populations had learned about steam technology earlier.

Scavenge the Stars by Tara Sim

Scavenge the Stars is another of my favourite covers of the year! This is a retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo, which I haven’t read, so going into this totally new! All I really know is that one of the main characters is bi, and that that’s a pretty badass dagger, so this book already rocks.