Rogan Shannon

Video: https://youtu.be/E7XUEoxSteQ

Hello and welcome to a BookTube post! Today I have seven books and one comic. Yes, I read comics. And yes, I consider them books because you read them, so… In my previous post, I mentioned that I was reading Coming Out. I’m still reading that, so it won’t be in this post.

The first book I read was Arabella of Mars. This is AMAZING! Literally, I started reading and I didn’t want to stop reading. I just flew through it, I finished it in a day? 24 hours together, so… Yeah… It’s really good. It’s set in the 1800s, and they have space travel! They invented a way to do it with the technology they had at the time. And of course, there are a few things that are different than our world. But it’s really, really, really good. And as you could tell from the name, Arabella, the lead character is a woman. If you like science fiction, read it! Its’ excellent.

Next book! You’re in the wrong bathroom! and 20 Other Myths and Misconceptions About Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming People. A really long title, but there you go. This book is good for people who don’t really know much about trans people, or about that community. It covers a lot of things that people commonly don’t understand about the trans community. So this is really good for that. Though if you’re already a part of it, know it fairly well, you might already know most of this. But yeah, they include resources. A thick resources section in the back. (I’ll see if I can find the list online somewhere. If not, I’ll try to create a doc or something to list it, and I’ll link it here.) Also, they have a lot of evidence in the back, notes. It’s to show that we really do have evidence for this, to argue the myths and misconceptions.

The next thing that I read was actually a comic, Rock and Riot. I loved it. I know people will argue oh, this is not really a book. Yes it is. Ah, ah, shh! I do not want that argument here. Rock and Riot is beautiful. It’s a queer-inclusive, queer book set in the 1950s. I will link it here. It’s good! It’s a completed comic, from beginning to end, on Tapas. (It used to be called Tapastic.) I want to mention comic books really quick. On one of my videos a while ago, someone asked me if I read comic books. And I replied, no, I don’t really read comic books. I have a few but I don’t really read that kind of book. Not because I don’t like them, no, just not what I read. But webcomics on the other hand… I’ve been reading them more lately than I normally do. Part of that is because webcomics will often have a lot of inclusivity. Maybe not even a major point of the story, it’ll just happen to have a character be trans, gay, ace, whatever. So that’s part of why I started to read webcomics, because they’re really inclusive. A good example is Rock and Riot. The thing is, I haven’t really recommended any on here because most of the ones I read aren’t finished. They’re in, a work in progress. Rock and Riot is finished. My question is: should I make one video, about what webcomics I read right now, and what I would recommend. Yes or no? Okay! Back to books.

Calumet City. I was reading this in the last video. It’s good, a standard cop noir. But what I do like about this is that the lead character is a woman, working in the police force. She has a traumatic childhood, a dark past. The story includes that and is based on her dark childhood. So I thought that was really good, including several aspects of a character. Not just “oh, she’s a cop. Great, this is a cop story.” No, it’s about her past too. It’s really good.

Next.*cringe* The book: At the Broken Places: A Mother and Trans Son Pick Up the Pieces. This was written by two people – the mother and her trans son, like the title says. I want to emphasize that I am not trans, so I do not have this experience. I’ve always been supportive of trans people so I had a hard time reading this because of the mother’s essays. The style of this book is like essays, kind of going back and forth. For example, one section will talk about telling their story to others. It will have an essay by the mother and by the son. The son explains his experiences coming out to other people, and how they reacted, how he felt about that. Then you have the mother, how she tells people that her child is trans, when it’s important or not. Or if she makes a mistake, should she correct it or is it not that important? Overall, I think it’s good, yes. But there are some parts that I’m a little mhmm. Because the mother—often, the mother sounds almost…whiny? Like, oh poor me, the doctors ignored me. They didn’t give me any say in what my child’s life is… [Then I went off on a tangent on how I feel for a few minutes. I might make a longer post/video specifically about this book.] The way the mother comes across often in this book is a little–ugh, I don’t know. Again, I’m not a parent, I’m not trans, I don’t have a trans child. So I do not have the experiences that these people in the book have. It’s good, just. A little hard to read. By hard, I don’t mean hard to understand. I mean emotionally hard to read.

Luckily, the next book that I read… Yesss. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. This is SO good. This is a must-read! One, the two main characters are Mexican. Two… This book doesn’t explicitly say they’re gay, or bi, or whatever. They don’t explicitly state their sexuality. But the characters are queer. It’s really good. I started reading it and just flew through it. I have the second book. The second book by the same author (meaning not a series) is the Inexplicable Logic of my Life. I haven’t started reading it yet, so this will be in my next book post. Definitely read this one.

Next! Born Both: an Intersex Life. It’s a really interesting book. The author’s name is Hida Viloria. She is intersex, and she didn’t know that until later in life. She writes about her experiences growing up. When she started to question herself, “am I not normal?” About those experiences. It’s also overlapping with her experiences as a Latina. She was involved with advocacy for intersex people, for queer people as well, but more focused on intersex advocacy. It’s really good. She calls herself “her,” but she also considers herself non-binary. Growing up, she experimented with presenting more masculine, more feminine, in between, both. She talks about that experience too, growing up as intersex, but also the fact that her identity matches her body, being non-binary. So that was different, interesting!

Next book and last for now. It’s a really long title. Mythology 101: From Gods and Goddesses to Monsters and Mortals, Your Guide to Ancient Mythology. It also has a bubble on the cover that says A Crash Course in Greek and Roman Myths. Growing up, I was really fascinated with Greek mythology, so when I saw this book on the cart at the library, I grabbed it because it looked interesting. After reading it–yep. It covers pretty much every important person in Greek mythology and some not-as-important, but fairly well-known figures in mythology. One thing that I was a little disappointed about. The cover is a little misleading. It says a “crash course in Greek and ROMAN myths.” Hmm. Not really. As I read through, I started to wonder where are the Roman myths? It sometimes would mention the Roman names of the Greek gods/goddesses. But it doesn’t have anything about Roman myths until the very end. The only story that they really mentioned was the founding story of the city, Rome. So… A little misleading. But. At the same time, it’s kind of eh, whatever. That’s because a lot of the Roman myths are the same as Greek myths. Just different names, sometimes different characters maybe, but the basic story is the same. The Romans took from the Greeks, and they took over a lot of Greece, so there’s that. Anyway. That book is a good overview of Greek myths.

And that is all for today. I hope you found some interesting books to read. Let me know in the comments below, if you’ve read any of these and what you thought about them. Also let me know what you think about me making a video about all webcomics. Of course, as always, if you have any book recommendations, leave them.

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