May Reviews

Hello! May was an exciting month, partly because I was busy doing fun things and partly because every book I read this month slapped. All of 'em 5/5. So let's not waste any time and just get right to it.

I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

I had the honor or meeting McQuiston on their tour for this book, and they are as funny and delightful as their characters. Then I consumed this book in like two days.

Chloe Green came to Alabama from California four years ago and has spent every moment since then trying to beat False Bech's golden girl Shara Wheeler. Then Shara does the unthinkable; she kisses Chloe (and her boyfriend, and the boy next door) and disappears, leaving only a trail of pink letters in her wake. Now it's up to Chloe, Smith, and Rory to find where she went and drag her back before graduation, so Chloe can win valedictorian fair and square. But their goose chase is more complicated than they thought, and with each letter revealing more and more of the Shara none of them really knew, they also learn more about themselves, and the ways they can grow even in a little conservative town in Alabama.

Nobody writes an ensemble cast like McQuiston, and this one was an memorable and hilarious as their previous books. Chloe is intense and intelligent and yeah, a little bit annoying, but that made her all the more endearing and interesting. Rory and Smith were a delight, subverting and clinging to their own respective stereotypes. I adored Georgia, and it sort of felt like each character that was introduced and explored was just as fleshed out and interesting as the ones who came before them. McQuiston knows how to make people real and quirky and human, whether they exist for just a handful of pages or are dragging the plot behind them.

The town they created was just as individual and fascinating as the characters, and for as much as they claim worldbuilding is not their forte, they have managed to craft something that is unique and universal all at once. It's a modern teen story that draws in anyone who grew up queer or religious or afraid of the parts of themselves that the world around them seemed to scorn. Chloe has an outsider perspective while being just an entrenched in it all as the kids who grew up in False Beach, and exploring those dynamics through I Kissed Shara Wheeler was an enlightening as it was personal.

The mystery of the book was also absolutely brilliant. It's Gone Girl but queer and teenaged and bizarre and wonderful. It's two girls reaching for the other while denying that they are, building a relationship that neither of them understood until they saw the other. And the boys that went with them along the way had their own stories and mysteries and growth that added so much more to both Shara and Chloe's story as well as their own. I Kissed Shara Wheeler is a bubble in my chest that is warm and bright and seen, and I feel lucky to be alive in a time when it can be read.

McQuiston is a brilliant writer with great quippy dialogue and descriptions that broke my heart and made me laugh from one page to the next. This is a victory of a queer YA novel and a beauty of a book, and I loved it.

Similar to: McQuiston is really in her own league here, but in some ways this felt a bit like John Green's Paper Towns in a queer subvertive way?

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

I picked this book up at a cute bookstore in a cute town an hour or so from where I live. I know it's won awards and it pretty famous in the queer book community, so I figured it was about time I read it.

Lily Hu is a Chinese girl growing up amidst the red scare of 1950's San Francisco, where the threat of deportation hangs over her family and the community of Chinatown is tight knit and gossipy. Lily knows what she needs to do to keep her and her family safe, but when she meets Kath and the two of them venture to the gay bar The Telegraph Club, Lily's world opens up. Suddenly she's questioning everything she's known and building a life outside of Chinatown, one with her and Kath and secrets they can't share. But their secrecy can't last forever, and when it's threatening, everything comes crashing down.

I loved the history of this book and getting to take a step into a time period and place that was so interesting. A lot was happening back then, and this story slides right into that time so easily, sharing snippets of life in Lily's Chinese family and the greater scope of the red and lavender scares. I know about the pulp fiction books that Lily reads, and to have an even greater context for it was so informative.

I loved Kath and Lily and their relationship, the way they both looked toward the sky wanting something more and finding a piece of that in each other. the respective interests in aviation and space made them a bit more outcast from their peers, almost as much so as their queerness did. Women were just starting to really enter those fields, so for Kath and Lily to have the opportunity to be themselves in multiple capacities made the whole thing feel like a triumph, even as they dealt with betrayal and a society that wasn't ready to accept their love.

The story wasn't entirely linear, including small chapters from Lily's mother and her aunt Judy from previous times in their lives, things that helped inform the history of their family but also Lily, building her up as a point of view character and an observable one by the older women in her family. The characters very much matched the time, speaking and acting in ways that really showed off the research that went into this book.

Overall this was a really good book, one that meandered and panicked and loved.

Similar to Pulp Fiction by Robin Talley

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun

I saw this book all over the internet, which isn't always a good thing, but the premise sounded right up my alley so I knew I had to give it a go, and I was absolutely not disappointed.

Dev believes in love more than he believes in anything, even if his own love life is a recently dumped train wreck. But he's a producer for Ever After, a Bachelor-esque fairy tale realty TV show, so it's his job to make people fall in love. Enter Charlie, the newest season's bachelor, an anxious genius trying to fix his recent PR blunders who does not believe in love. Dev is assigned his handler, and what starts as an impossible challenge quickly becomes something else. Charlie and Dev realize they have a better connection than any contestant on the shows, but to reach for a relationship like this means risking everything.

I devoured this book. I'm an absolute sucker for friends to lovers, and this one threw in a tiny bit of fake dating and a whole lot of pining, which I adore. The story was heartbreaking and triumphant and, despite the cliché nature of falling in love that way, it was a bit of a fairy tale. Dev and Charlie are hilarious main characters with their own very human, very unique quirks. Charlie is certainly not a typical reality TV star prince, but he was sweet and funny as he got more comfortable, and there were parts of him that grew and changed and parts that didn't, and that was okay. Dev was just as messy and real and made a fabulous also atypical leading man.

The dialogue is funny and real, and the descriptors both Dev and Charlie use in their point of view chapters are beautiful. They fell in love with all the weird and awkward and ugly bits of a person, which felt especially real compared to the facsimile of "love" created by the show. Dev and Charlie both made mistakes and lashed out and opened up in ways they hadn't before, and not only was this a book about finding queer love, but it was about recognizing mental health issues and the importance of putting yourself and your health over other things, even when it's hard.

The supporting cast of the book was excellent as well, and I loved the diversity even as it was contrasted with a very heterosexual reality TV show backdrop and homophobic comments. It made the triumph even sweeter, to know that the victory gained was one on several levels.

Everything about this book was simultaneously fun/flirty and a genuine look at mental health in relationships. Charlie and Dev both struggled with their mental health, and they weren't fixing each other by falling in love, but they did grow to accept themselves and the fact that they deserve love. The book had my heart racing and I loved every minute of it.

Similar to Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

And that's it! I traveled a bit the last weekend in May so I only got through three books this month, but all of them very so good that it's still a very successful month.

Until next time, keep writing, friends!

Sam

Literary recommendation: Extraordinaries by TJ Klune

Media recommendation: Obi-Wan Kenobi just dropped the first two episodes on Disney+ and I hate to be another person to promote the mouse, but I am truly a Star Wars bitch so