My November Reading List (and Review)

November was a bit of a mad rush of writing and then reading as often as I could between the chapters. NaNoWriMo constantly reminds me that writers are readers, first and foremost. So, in search of inspiration or escape or whatever I needed at the moment, I picked up a lot of books last month, a good portion of which were LGBT.

Here, in a post that will probably convey how tired I am of writing large amounts of text, is a rather short review of the books I read in November.

Huntley Fitzpatrick's My Life Next Door was the last book I read in November, but the first on the list. It was a decent read with a sweet teenage romance, but overall felt too long. Almost 400 pages, My Life Next Door took forever to develop the actual conflict beyond falling in love with the forbidden boy next door.

I think the only thing that kept me going was how much I liked everyone who wasn't the main character. Samantha may share my name and a few key traits, but I like to think that I'm a little more interesting than she is, considering her main personality trait was that she was dramatically dissatisfied with her current situation in life. Tim's struggle with addiction and his sister's overwhelming need to succeed no matter the cost was a much more fascinating story, especially since his was essentially a redemptive arc.

The romance itself was sweet, and the love interest, Jase, was everything a fictional teenage girl could want. Unfortunately, that left him a little two-dimensional, so that his defining personality trait for most of the book was that he liked Samantha.

If I'd read this book back in high school, I probably would've liked it more, so I shouldn't complain too much, given that I'm possibly aging out of certain young adult trends (????).

Next up on the list is A. S. King's Ask the Passengers, which I adored. The story line follows a teenage girl named Astrid who questions her sexuality and finds comfort in sending love to the passengers of the airplanes flying above her. She struggles with a family of mix-matched pieces, city folk trying desperately to fit into the tiny town Astrid's mother forces them into. Her best friends are closeted and her girlfriend is pressuring her for sex and what Astrid really wants to do contemplate philosophy with her imaginary friend Socrates (who she lovingly renames Frank).

Not only did I appreciate the LGBT representation in this story, but the character's struggles were both hilarious and tumultuous. I wanted to stay with Astrid and send her back some of the love that she was giving to other people. King does a marvelous job including philosophical points in anecdotes about Astrid's job deveining shrimp and her mindset in trying to discover who she really is, both in regards to this town and her sexuality.

This was probably my favorite book of the month.

Sandy Hall's Been Here All Along was a cute LGBT friends to lovers story, although I wish there had been a bit more conflict. It was a quick read with a happy ending and a great cast of characters, but the overall story line felt lacking. I'll leave this review short and sweet, since I've already lied about the length of the others.

A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend, byt Emily Horner was also a rather enjoyable read. This one had a double timeline and a compelling double story. It kept me asking questions and refusing to put the book down until I got some answers the entire ride. Again, the characters can make or break a story, and this one had some great ones that I was happily willing to trail after for 260 pages. It was a sweet love story and a redemption, a road toward self-discovery and a musical about ninjas. I genuinely enjoyed this story, and the writing was both tender and real.

I was hesitant to talk about David Levithan's novel Two Boys Kissing, simply because the title sounds so juvenile. But this was probably one of the best books I read this year. Narrated by the generation of gay men lost to the AIDs epidemic, the story follows several gay boys (closeted, out, transgender, record-breaking) through a couple days of falling in love, finding themselves, and breaking the world record for longest kiss.

Personal and intimate, I adored every part of this story. The second-person/third-person hybrid point of view started out a little rough, but once I committed to loving the characters and cheering for Craig and Harry to break the record, I was hooked.

The book meanders in places, talking about the future and the meaning of living on and the importance of loving one another. There are lines where I broke my rule about writing in books and underlined, simply because I had to know where to find them at all times. I got to this one on page 9 and immediately texted my sister that she had to read this book as soon as I could get it to her:

"Love is so painful, how could you ever wish it on anybody? And love is so essential, how could you ever stand in its way?"

I fell in love with this book and the strange way it enfolded me into the story. Bravo, Mr. Levithan, bravo.

Finally, the last book in this ridiculously long review, is Lisa Wingate's novel, Before We Were Yours. This book isn't YA, isn't a romance, and isn't anything I probably would've picked up on my own. Luckily, a friend lent it to me, so I was able to consume this incredible story.

If you're like me a blissfully unaware of a big chunk of history, you've probably never even heard of the Tennessee Children's Home. In the late 1930's, middle America, Georgia Tann developed a children's home for orphans, the first sort of set up that actively sought out wealthy parents to adopt young orphans and children of poor families. However, many of these children were stolen from their homes, streets, and hospitals, leaving their birth parents without any rights or ideas of how to get their children back.

Before We Were Yours tackles two stories at once, the 1939 kidnapping and subsequent adoption of Rill Foss and her four younger siblings, and the present day story of Avery Staffords, who, in the midst of her aging father's health crisis, becomes determined to unearth the secrets of her grandmother's previously unknown past.

Both stories are winding and compelling, and in many cases I couldn't put the book down, too fearful for Rill's safety or anxious for Avery's sleuthing. This book was both heart-breaking and happy, spilling years and secrets across the pages to a tune most people have never heard of. Based in facts from eye-witness accounts of Georgia Tann's cruelty, Wingate depicts a beautiful family buried in a tragedy so deep that no one even knows it exists.

Overall, November was more good reads than bad, and in the midst of writing NaNoWriMo, it was nice to take a break and read someone else's words.

Keep writing, friends!

Sam

Movie Recommendation: About Time (2014)

Literary Recommendation: Rebecca Lim's The Astrologer's Daughter

#review #literaryreview #LGBT #books #list