I'm straight. So how are my bi vibes through the roof?
Is it really just the aesthetic? Am I two lemon squares and a haircut away from making out wi
I'm straight. So how are my bi vibes through the roof?
Is it really just the aesthetic? Am I two lemon squares and a haircut away from making out with girls at a Clairo show?
Or does it all come down to confirmation bias?
Kayla and Declan think I give off bi vibes. Because Kayla and Declan think I'm bi.
so this is a personal book for becky albertalli. obviously.
tl;dr of the backstory, for those unaware: in 2015, becky albertalli writes simon vs. it gets big. there's a movie. there are then a thousand years of discourse about whether it is morally correct for a cishet author to write a book about a gay teenager. in 2020, becky albertalli comes out as bisexual:
But labels change sometimes. That’s what everyone always says, right? It’s okay if you’re not out. It’s okay if you’re not ready. It’s okay if you don’t fully understand your identity yet. There’s no time limit, no age limit, no one right way to be queer.
And yet a whole lot of these very same people seemed to know with absolute certainty that I was allocishet. And the less certain I was, the more emphatically strangers felt the need to declare it. Apparently it was obvious from my writing. Simon’s fine, but it was clearly written by a het. You can just tell. Her books aren’t really for queer people.
You know what’s a mindfuck? Questioning your sexual identity in your thirties when every self-appointed literary expert on Twitter has to share their hot take on the matter. Imagine hundreds of people claiming to know every nuance of your sexuality just from reading your novels. Imagine trying to make space for your own uncertainty. Imagine if you had a Greek chorus of internet strangers propping up your imposter syndrome at every stage of the process.
(the essay is worth reading in full, btw; i do think there's a conversation to be had about cishet authors writing gay characters, but it's a conversation that cannot be had without the acknowledgement that sometimes people are closeted, even to themselves.)
this book is not only about albertalli's own experiences, but it's also pretty clearly about that. and because of that context, and because it's YA, i can forgive it some heavy-handedness. i was worried a book that delves so deeply into The Discourse (as in very specific modern internet brainrot about whether, like, an actor being closeted is queerbaiting) would get exhausting, because i am on the internet, and see enough of the nonsense. but imo this book (though, again, about as unsubtle as a brick) intertwines said discourse with imogen's story in a very honest way. imogen is also on the internet! she grew up surrounded by gay people! and for nearly four hundred pages, she's kicking herself about whether she's somehow appropriating queerness, stealing a struggle that isn't hers, fooling herself into being attracted to girls. you know. the way i did. the way a lot of people do. the way it seems becky albertalli did. look, i'm not saying these internet conversations about representation and queerbaiting are net bad, but questioning is hard enough without having to bend backwards to analyze your feelings as if all of twitter is picking you apart.
because, yeah, questioning is really hard! that's the aspect of this book that resonated with me most strongly. imogen's internal struggle about her sexuality took me back literally seven years to feeling the exact same way: was i making it up? was i just trying to do the "cool" thing, because i had gay friends? shouldn't i have known by now? and how CAN you be sure about something like this, when the concepts of "crushes" and "attraction" are so nebulously you'll-know-em-when-you-see-em?
If I were queer, wouldn't I at least sort of know?
It's my own brain. I have open access to it. No one's redacting parts of the story. Especially not something as fundamental as who I'm attracted to. And I know denial exists. But this isn't denial. Denial's a curtain with a clear truth behind it.
There's no curtain to pull back here. I'm staring straight at this question, shining every light on it, and still--
even down to the goddamn am-i-gay quizzes. and imogen was so right for getting frustrated by that, because, dude, WHAT. you open an am-i-gay quiz and the first question is like "are you attracted to members of your gender" and it's like YEAH GIRL THAT'S WHAT I NEED TO KNOW. "did this happen in the book?" yes, and also to me in real life, multiple times. (and i had actually forgotten about this specific source of rage/confusion/misery/shame/rage until i read that scene, so props to becky albertalli for once again reminding me of an extremely specific gay experience i had left in the past.)
so if the questioning storyline resonated, why three stars? well, i guess the rest of it didn't. i mean, i liked imogen; she's delightfully sweet and i felt for her. and tessa's cute, if less developed than she could be. (and gretchen i could throttle. perhaps the character who made me feel the strongest emotions here, even before she (view spoiler)[really came out swinging with the gatekeeping (hide spoiler)]; that was awful, obviously, but albertalli also took care to make her perspective and pain clear. but for the entire book she's just so goddamn patronizing to her friend for no reason dear god i would not last a day.) but this didn't have me beaming and curling up to read for hours on end the way simon vs. or leah on the offbeat did, even if albertalli does write decently authentic teen-dialogue (decently. most people i know don't use that many gifs or emojis, but maybe i run with weirder gay people) and very cute romances. and like with kate in waiting, i found the style of the prose and the short choppy chapters a little jarring. and the book, on the whole, could have been shorter. this isn't a badly-done book--it's very pleasant! but i don't know how long it'll stick in my head.
there's a chance i'm just aging past an interest in YA romance, even if that romance is LGBT. which is perfectly fine! i'm still fond of albertalli's writing; i'm just not exactly the target audience anymore. i'm sure the people who are will really love this one. and as silly and parasocial as it might be, i'm glad becky albertalli got to write it, loud and clear.
in the kindest way possible, this Feels like a debut, mostly in that the prose is kind of clunky at times (exposition dumps, awkward dialogue). but itin the kindest way possible, this Feels like a debut, mostly in that the prose is kind of clunky at times (exposition dumps, awkward dialogue). but it's a sweet and incredibly important story! for me this is a similar situation as with You Should See Me in a Crown - i'm not super into contemporary romances (and i knew that going in), but i can appreciate this book for telling a classical romance story with a heartwarming ending about a fat brown girl who's never seen herself in one of these stories before but comes to accept how much she deserves to be loved and valued.
the irony is how badly i want to write in this book that is deeply about the things written in books and what they mean. oh man, oh my god, oh man. i.the irony is how badly i want to write in this book that is deeply about the things written in books and what they mean. oh man, oh my god, oh man. i... do not usually seek out books that are Mostly About Romance, especially straight romance, and so i was wary going into this one. but it's not really mostly about romance at all - it's about grief, and change, and love, and mostly it's about really really loving books and really really loving people. and it is currently making me feel like a shelled egg and this image [image]
i have... extremely mixed feelings about this book. it was a cute YA f/f romance; it's always nice to see black wlw especially; and overall it was an i have... extremely mixed feelings about this book. it was a cute YA f/f romance; it's always nice to see black wlw especially; and overall it was an enjoyable read! but i didn't feel like the main couple really had a lot of chemistry (maybe because i just. did not like christa all that much) and GOD this book really tried to hit me with "homoromantic bisexual" 20 pages from the end huh....more
"this book is really fucking bad, but at least it's, like, entertaining, so two stars," said i, before i reread some excerpts from this book and reali"this book is really fucking bad, but at least it's, like, entertaining, so two stars," said i, before i reread some excerpts from this book and realized that it is actually just really really fucking bad. 0/10 stars for worldbuilding -10/10 stars for thee misogyny...more
i'm always like "i don't like romance" and then i read a becky albertalli book (this was my first adam silvera book but it won't be my last!) and i'm i'm always like "i don't like romance" and then i read a becky albertalli book (this was my first adam silvera book but it won't be my last!) and i'm like fuck okay maybe i like romance. specifically well-written gay romance, which this is. oh my god, this book is so well done. the characters are so well-drawn and i won't spoil the ending but imo it is genuinely perfect for the story and characters that have been built up. good conned tent...more
unlike a lot of books that deal with teen romance and love triangles, this one feels very... realistic. molly is seventeen and confused about what sheunlike a lot of books that deal with teen romance and love triangles, this one feels very... realistic. molly is seventeen and confused about what she wants and that makes SENSE, and it feels very authentic without being overdone. i also really appreciated that it shows how some teens are interested in sex/etc and others aren't and that's Normal! also the romances were just... so sweet... het romance that actually makes me happy? unrealistic and yet. becky albertalli has the RANGE....more
two things before i start: 1. i like shakespeare so, so much. 2. i can be occasionally coaxed into the classic american (5/28 off the 2022-specific TBR)
two things before i start: 1. i like shakespeare so, so much. 2. i can be occasionally coaxed into the classic american pastime of "being a hater."
i have felt, as of late, wherefore i know not, that i might be growing out of YA—not in the sense that one can ever be too old to enjoy a genre, but in the sense that i, personally, have found that i get the most enjoyment from... how do i say "books written in subtle prose that are about really shitty people" without making myself sound like a complete lunatic or like i'm shitting on YA (which CAN be subtle and intense and involve shitty people i know i know i know i know). whatever. the POINT is that YA hasn't been doing it for me as much lately, which makes sense because i'm not in high school anymore, and this is a YA collection, and i understand that & the fact that i'm not entirely the target audience! that said, i am at least partially the target audience in that i fucking love shakespeare and i fucking love shakespeare retellings, especially retellings that include gay people (as a great many of these did), and so i was pretty sure going in that i was going to enjoy this. and i did. i'm rating this collection 3 stars overall because these individual stories were REALLY hit or miss, but on a holistic level, i had so much fun regardless of all the hater things i am about to say.
without further/much ado: the stories.
severe weather warning (the tempest): 2/5
The weather worsens with every minute. In the neighbors' yard, the wind knocks over the plastic play structure, pushing it into the fence. The rain is incessant, and new clouds have gathered on the horizon. I know one thing for certain. We're all trapped here—together—for a while.
this is a rough start to this collection because it is, to put it plainly, not very good. i mean, the writing is fine, but a storm, a cat named ariel, and a sibling rivalry does not a tempest retelling make. the bulk of this story is 1. prosper being bitter about her sister (sure, cool, let’s get into that more!) and 2. Another Bland Ass YA Romance. and i get it. people like romance. i like romance sometimes! but the tempest specifically is SUCH a cool play, & then this story is like.
I never figured he wanted me, with my face full of freckles, frizzy red hair, and overly large soccer sweatshirts.
(and not even for a miranda/ferdinand dynamic, which would maybe have been apter; the main character is a prospero figure and the "he" here is just some random guy.) i mean, each to their own. do what you will. but i came here to read fun shakespeare retellings, not high school romance #32: The Boy Has Abs.
shipwrecked (twelfth night): 3/5
Vi entered the gymnasium through the eastern door. They smoothed down the lapels of their red velvet suit. Over and over and over. A nervous reaction born of the cliff that seemed to open at their feet.Be you. Tell everyone. Suffer the consequences.
loses points for the clunky prose (i think i just don't love mark oshiro's style. why is it so choppy), the cheesiness of it all, and the sense that it needed a bit more resolution (felt like a lot of buildup and then it all just sort of worked out; a story with this many characters really deserved more page time). wins points for nonbinary viola (YESSSSSSSS FUCK YES), viola/olivia (RE: YESSSS FUCK YES), putting all the gayest parts of twelfth night on-page, and being generally fun. not sure how i feel about this malvolio interpretation, but i’ll let it stand [tossing aside my large rock].
taming of the soul mate (taming of the shrew): 2.5/5
"My name is Petrucio," he said firmly. "And I'm your fucking soul mate."
folks. folks, i am not gonna lie to you. i really do not love making petruchio the polite reasonable character and katherine the antagonistic irrational character in a retelling of a play about a woman being gaslit and abused by her husband. otherwise, i like the concept, and i think the ending was effective even if the writing didn't always hold up (yes. i got emotional at the end), but i think this one is hobbled by its source material being what it is and the story not really pushing back on any of it.
king of the fairies (midsummer): 4/5
Titania tells me that my mother would have wanted her to have me.
LOVE the whimsical gorgeous writing LOVE the reckoning with colonialism in general and in this play (the story is from the perspective of the changeling child oberon and titania fought over) LOVE the way it makes midsummer somehow gayer LOVE the fact that trans people are real because dear god no one ever puts us in anything. and i LOVE that stupid line about nick bottom. only 4 stars because it never made the nebulous jump to 5 in my head, but it did make me think that god, i need to read more mclemore.
we have seen better days (as you like it): 4/5
Dad swore Camp Arden used to be paradise, but every year that I was there, it got a little bit worse.
i wish this one had been longer; i love how well it captures the spirit of the original play and the characterizations of celia, orlando, and ESPECIALLY rosalind. i agree with rachel in that i was somewhat startled the story didn't take the chance to play with gender, but i'm willing to accept that it had a different focus: rosie's disenchantment, particularly with her father and the camp she used to love. (summer camp AYLI... fucking inspired.)
some other metal (much ado about nothing): 3.5/5
"They set us up... to live out the story of Benedick and Beatrice. To fall for one another or some such nonsense."
TRAAAAAAANS PEOPLEEEEE. but also head-hopping? also, the main characters in this story did not need to be named tegan and taron. this story is set in space, which isn't really relevant but does allow for what i find a very clever title (the quote being that beatrice won't marry until god makes men "of some other metal than earth"); i wish it had done more with that setting, and i think all of these characters talk too stiffly for a story presumably set in the future, but i'm forgiving it because i like when trans people exist and are t4t.
i bleed (merchant of venice): 5/5
"So if you don't pay the money back in a month..." "I get to cut that 1488 out of his skin."
yeah this is the one. this is the one. standout story in this anthology, reason to read it, well-written, all i could ask from a merchant of venice retelling, etc etc etc. i'm a gentile, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but god this story is so fucking good.
his invention (sonnet 147): 5/5
All at once, she felt a welling in her mouth, the sudden desire to spit. She parted her lips and let a long bloom of blood spread down her chin and to the floor. Sophie touched her face with both hands and took them away warm and stringed with red. Outside, she heard Michael singing along to the radio. She stood with her mouth open.
this is a really really good short story. probably the best in the book on a technical level. i have no fucking idea what it has to do with shakespeare. it’s not based on a play, it’s based on a sonnet and has, like, a thematic connection? tangentially? love as frantic and corroding i GUESS? am i just too dumb to get how this relates? enjoyed it but confused about its inclusion.
partying is such sweet sorrow (romeo and juliet): 1.5/5
I love you I'm sorry tonight got so out of control You're the most important thing in the world And I swear I'm going to protect you
man, come on. this reads like every archive of our own fanfiction written by high schoolers who were forced to read shakespeare in english class and wanted to make it funny. i'm biased against any r&j interpretation where romeo is a creep (i am emphatically of the belief that he is just some guy who is sad a lot and feels too much), but even disregarding that, this did very little for me. i didn’t love the characterizations or the style (despite the texting thing, none of these people sound like teenagers) and i especially didn’t love the shoehorned-in quotes. i did like this juliet a lot, though ;__; which is preventing me from giving this a flat 1-star.
dreaming of the dark (julius caesar): 5/5
The thing about the gift is, it doesn't matter how you call on it, not really. What matters is believing. What matters is knowing yourself and what you have to bargain with. And Julia—there is nothing she wouldn't give.
first line is the brutus and cassius characters being heterosexual. huge L. however. i fucking love julius caesar and i fucking love the conceit of “group of high school girls [and one they/them iirc] who have summoned a dark spirit” and god the characterizations in this are SO good. and line references! caesar as literal sacrifice! if a retelling of something i love can entertain me while also making me think "god [source material] is so good" then it wins in my mind and this wins. the only genuine issue i have is that the story keeps hinting at something that happened to briony and i don’t think it ever tells us? which felt very anticlimactic. my other complaint is that brutus and cassius should be lesbians. however. caesar and antony WERE lesbians so i’ll allow it.
the tragedy of cory lanez: an oral history (coriolanus): 4/5
There are no monuments to Cory Lanez in the Rose Park neighborhood of Long Beach, California. Briefly, on Ohio Avenue, a poster of the rapper/singer had been taped to a palm tree and, over the course of a few days, several bouquets of goldenrod and roses had been laid at the makeshift memorial. Within the week, the whole thing had been dismantled, but not before the poster had been vandalized, a red X spray-painted across the seventeen-year-old boy's face.
this is a REALLY interesting spin on coriolanus (coriolanus and aufidius are rival rappers; coriolanus's postmortem story is told by his friends and family in interview format). my first thought upon finishing it was “this could have been longer; i would read a whole novel of this” and honestly, i would, but upon reflection i think the length suits the formatting of an oral history. 3.5 for content + .5 for said formatting because i LOVE innovative formatting.
out of the storm (king lear): 3/5
CORA: Please. Don't do this here, with him there. Still breathing, still sucking the oxygen out of the room. Still tearing us apart.
i love to paint the titular king lear as the villain i LOVE to focus on his daughters over that shitty old man (and i do think lear is a fascinating and multifaceted character who merits exploration, but i also understand why this story used him mostly as a setpiece, for length and thematic reasons). that said, this one fell flat for me, which sucks because i love both this play and—i'm gonna say it again—weird formatting.
elsinore (hamlet): 1.5/5
When she looks at me, she wears the wickedest smile. Camilla faces me, the near product of the monster we face. Now I know, now I am certain: my father was killed by a vampire.
speaking of plays i love and stories that didn't work for me. i had this one down for 2 stars in my notes app but the more i think about it the more it annoys me. vampire hamlet is a banger fucking concept, but this was just... not all that well-executed. it was set in the 1890s, but none of the character voices read that way, nor did the journal entries read like journal entries. the dialogue was fake-deep. the prose in general was mediocre. we did not need a straight-up "alas poor [name]" reference. i did like the dracula references, but the journaling thing didn’t work here; the story seemed crunched into the length allotted. also, L + no horatio + your hamlet and ophelia are both girls but they’re not even lesbians
we fail (macbeth): 2/5
It wasn't like I was going to graduate at that point anyway. I refused to go to class, and the counselors had urged my teachers and principal to let me take "as long as needed" to heal from my "traumatic incidents," the first of which was losing the baby. The second was the wreck.
another one where i love the concept and am getting increasingly irritated that the execution fell through. the writing was fine, i guess, but the story suffered from constriction to such a short space, and honestly it doesn't really tangle with any of the themes of macbeth at all. the ending was clearly meant to be ambiguous and imply further things, but it just left me unsatisfied.
lost girl (winter's tale): 4/5
"The story can end however you want it to end. Even if it doesn't make sense. Even if it doesn't seem likely. The Greeks loved a deus ex machina."
this is one of the best stories in terms of how it works as a retelling, and also, honestly, in how much i liked it. a lot of these stories try to tackle everything happening in their play at once, and rarely succeed, but this story balances its narrower focus with a clear consciousness of its self-referential status to the overarching plot of the winter's tale. the way the storytelling thing and the classics thing and the tree thing all weave together as motifs... the way i love this straight couple i saw less than 20 pages of... really well-executed & a good ending note.
and a final ranking, because i fucking love sorting shit: 1. i bleed 2. dreaming of the dark 3. his invention 4. lost girl 5. king of the fairies 6. we have seen better days 7. the tragedy of cory lanez 8. some other metal 9. out of the storm 10. shipwrecked 11. taming of the soul mate 12. severe weather warning 13. we fail 14. elsinore 15. partying is such sweet sorrow...more
i read this book in about four hours and i feel like i've been steamrolled, in a good way. holy shit. this was absolutely gorgeous.i read this book in about four hours and i feel like i've been steamrolled, in a good way. holy shit. this was absolutely gorgeous....more
i'm a visibly gay and trans person. these days i introduce myself with my pronouns to most of the people i meet. i haven't had to "come out," in the ti'm a visibly gay and trans person. these days i introduce myself with my pronouns to most of the people i meet. i haven't had to "come out," in the traditional sense, in over a year. this book brings back the exact feeling that i've almost forgotten, and it does it perfectly. like. it is CRYSTAL clear that becky albertalli worked with LGBT kids, just from the amount of empathy her narration shows us. simon coming out to people and then, instead of feeling comforted, feeling unsettled and anxious and like he's crossed a line... bram coming out to his mother and then feeling so jittery he can't sleep... the sense of surreality it all carries... martin, a straight kid, saying he "didn't realize people still did stuff like that" when confronted with homophobia... (AND the added bonus of the scene in the gay bar being handled perfectly, with the college boy immediately guiding simon back to his friends when he realizes simon is underage/too young for him... "go be seventeen...") this book really does Get It in a way books written by cishet people RARELY, rarely do.
also it just makes me smile unbelievably. i read the last ~30 pages with a huge grin on my face. becky albertalli can have little a writing about gay people, as a treat.
2023 edit: i did not know when i wrote this that becky albertalli was closeted and i would write it differently now that i have more perspective on this. but everything else i said stands...more
was the ending of this book a little rushed? were some loose ends left untied? yes. did i grin through the last 10-20 pages like an idiot and make smawas the ending of this book a little rushed? were some loose ends left untied? yes. did i grin through the last 10-20 pages like an idiot and make small delighted noises to myself? also yes i am a homosexual -...more
max theodore
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