Hello, I’m Rogan and welcome! Today, all the hosts of this round are sharing our TBRs, or To Be Read. This is what we hope to read during this week full of wonderful queer books. Kathy and I tend to try and go for a full blackout, which often results in having a list of five to ten books. I just want to be clear this is not what you have to do to participate! If you read even just one queer thing, you have taken part.
A few things before I go into the books. Multiple books are from the library, and I should be able to have them all during the readathon. For clarity’s sake, I will only be telling you the title and what challenges I’m applying them to. Many of these books also cover other challenges on the board, but I don’t want to bog this video down with repeating the challenges. I also won’t be going into much detail of what each book is about, because I’ll be doing a wrap-up at the end of the week, possibly a vlog if I remember! After the list of planned reads, I’ll throw in a few honorable mentions at the end.
I’ll go through the library books first, starting with Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi, which is the Group Read. It’ll also go toward Hard-Hitting Contemporary, and I already know it is, because this will be my second time reading this book. However, I have a different perspective on it since I last read it, so I’m interested to see how differently I read it now.
Next, I want to read She of the Mountains by Vivek Shraya. This will cover two challenges: Shorter Than a Novel, and M-Spec. Last round, I read something by this author and was okay with it, I’m hoping that this will be a much more enjoyable read.
Me, Myself, They: Life Beyond the Binary is a Memoir by Luna Ferguson. I’m very interested to read about this person and the work they’ve done!
This is a book that I’ll be reading first, since it’s due back the second day of the readathon, The Princess and the Fangirl by Ashely Poston. I’ve read one other book by this author, Geekerella, and really enjoyed myself. I’ve seen this one recommended multiple times by Kathy, so I’m finally picking it up. This will Bring You Joy and Summer Vibes, because I’ve been told this is a fun, fluffy read, and it happens at a con, which always gives me summer feelings.
Then I plan to read The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali by Sabina Khan, which will meet the Religion, Recommended, and Underrepresented Identity challenges. I’ve seen this recommended by multiple people, and I’m putting this in Underrepresented, because we so rarely see anything about queer Bengali people in literature or media.
Now we’re onto the books that I own! First, The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi. I didn’t even realize that this book was queer when I got it, but I’ve see reviews listing queer characters. This will hit the most challenges at once: Not Set on Your Continent, set in Paris; Vintage, happens in the 1880s; Choose Your Own Category, historical fiction; Intersectional, multiple queer characters that have other identities from my understanding; and as an bonus, there’s disability rep in this as well.
And for the final book on this list to be read during the readathon, we have Draw the Line by Laurent Linn. I’ve had this for a while, and it looks really interesting because it’s a mixture of text and graphics because the main character is a comic artist. This will hit the Superheroes challenge, I hope!
With those books, I have mentioned all of the challenges but one – 40%+ BIPOC. The intent of this challenge is to get you to make sure you’re reading widely and intersectionally, not all from white authors. I have seven books on my list, and four of them are by BIPOC authors, so this challenge is ticked off as well.
Books I want to mention that I considered for this readathon, but ended up not going with for a variety of reasons – the hold time is too long, it’s not available at my library, or other.
The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore. I actually have this checked out at the moment, but I’ll likely be reading it *before* the readathon because it’s also due on the second day of the readathon and I don’t want to attempt to finish two full books in the first two days, especially when there’s a hard return time, because they’re both ebooks. This would have gone toward M-Spec and Hard-Hitting Contemporary.
A People’s History of Heaven by Mathangi Subramanian. It also would fit Hard-Hitting Contemporary and Intersectional. I already had these challenges covered by other books, so I decided to read this another day.
And for the last book I was considering, Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo. This hits the most challenges this round: Choose Your Own which I decided would be historical fiction, Intersectional, Vintage, Underrepresented Identity, and Recommended loudly by Adri. I would have definitely gone with this book for the readathon, but the library waitlist is so long, I’m still three or four weeks out from even being able to get my hands on it.
Those are the seven books I’ll be reading, plus some recommendations for this round! Let me know what you’re most excited to be reading this round, if you’re participating. Bye!
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