nat's reading diary <3 (2025)

[Nataweeee]

hi! welcome to my book blog thingy. i've gathered this is the main focus of the forum so i guess i'll start one. i'm going to include the stuff i've read since i started keeping track a few months ago but i'm only going to review stuff from this point on.

 

01. Ducks, Newburyport (Lucy Ellmann, 2019) ★★★½

02. A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing (Eimear Mcbride, 2013) (reread) ★★★★★

03. Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (Julia Serano, 2007) (audio) ★★★½

04. Escape from Incel Island! (Margaret Killjoy, 2023) (audio) ★★½

05. The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969) ★★★½

06. Warriors: Power of Three - Eclipse (Erin Hunter, 2008) (audio) ★★★½

07. The Passion According to G.H. (Clarice Lispector, 1964) ★★★

08. Origins of Desire in Orchid Fens (Lynn Hutchinson Lee, 2025) ★★★½

09. Warriors: Power of Three - Long Shadows (Erin Hunter, 2008) (audio) ★★★★

10. Black Flame (Gretchen Felker-Martin, 2025) ★★★★

11. Warriors: Power of Three - Sunrise (Erin Hunter, 2009) (audio) ★★★½

12. The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath, 1963) ★★★★

13. Peaces (Helen Oyeyemi, 2021) ★★★★

14. Dayspring (Anthony Oliveira, 2024) ★★★★½

15. Your Body Is Not Your Body (V/A, 2022) ★★½

16. Rainbear!!!!!!!!! (Never Angeline North, 2022) ★★★★½

17. Spoiled Rotten (Natalie Tautou, 2023) ★★½

18. Bury Your Gays (Chuck Tingle, 2024) (audio) ★★★★

Edited 50 minutes ago by Nataweeee

[Nataweeee]

#17: Spoiled Rotten (Natalie Tautou, 2023)

 

I always feel bad trashing independent queer art (as well as my first review here to be a mostly negative one) but like five of the seven stories here are sadly just not good. They're so edgy and blandly written generally and often times the edginess doesn't go beyond just being bad representation and when it does it's eye-roll inducing. The first story is trying to be perverse and creepy but its also trying to be vague and subtle with the creepiness and the writing just can't hack it. The second story is a bland coming out story with some really mild forcefemming i guess? doesn't move the needle. The third story about a sex worker in over her head at a porn shoot is the first one with a snappy premise that could have been interesting and I like some of the imagery here but again it also just reads as bland. The fourth one comes off so tryhard with the content (I'd likely get banned if I elaborated) which, in a way is what I wanted, but the writing is still the issue here, just no flair to it and even though a more blunt style could work for shocking imagery it doesn't here. The fifth has some slightly more engaging writing and though I'm not super into stuff that makes this many references (music in this case) but you get a bit more of who the author is when they talk about art they like and that's something I guess because the story itself isn't, like just completely forgettable. Fortunately, the last two stories are a noticeable increase in quality, we're getting more of the author's voice coming through and the edgier content in these stories feels a lot more real and transgressive. The whole collection covers a lot of taboo subject matter but these last two stories are the only times it feels like its not just there for the shock value alone and the final (and by far best and longest) story is actually a pretty neat Fight Club-esque metafiction about the author herself and it actually lands, surprisingly. So yeah, mostly bad but it sticks the landing and the best story being twice as long as the others makes the whole work feel a bit better than the sum of its parts.

 

5/10

[Nataweeee]

i guess i need 10 posts before i can use the edit tool? this is post 10 lol.

[Madeleine]

Hi Nat and welcome to the forum, great to see you're such a keen reader!

 

there are guidelines and rules for newcomers at the top of the thread list if you want to have a look through them.  They're under "The Office", 2nd line down.

 

Have fun here.

[Nataweeee]

2 hours ago, Madeleine said:

Hi Nat and welcome to the forum, great to see you're such a keen reader!

 

there are guidelines and rules for newcomers at the top of the thread list if you want to have a look through them.  They're under "The Office", 2nd line down.

 

Have fun here.

thanks so much ❤️

[muggle not]

Three books for you to consider by Rebecca Yarros:

 

Fourth Wing

Iron Flame

Onyx Storm

 

i am anxiously awaiting for the 4th book in the series to come out.

 

[Nataweeee]

7 hours ago, muggle not said:

Three books for you to consider by Rebecca Yarros:

 

Fourth Wing

Iron Flame

Onyx Storm

 

i am anxiously awaiting for the 4th book in the series to come out.

 

thanks! tbh i'm not too into high fantasy but i'll definitely keep this mind <3

[Nataweeee]

#18. Bury Your Gays (Chuck Tingle, 2024)

 

Listened to the audiobook of this to get through a couple of long night shifts and since its spooky month I went with some horror instead of my usual listening fair (middle grade cat books). You may be familiar with Mr. Chuck Tingle as a living literary meme, known for writing an absurd amount of parody smut books usually with a very long title that starts with "Pounded in the Butt by..." and the character doing the pounding often being some kind of anthropomorphized object or even abstract concept. At some point a few years ago he decided to follow his passions and write some "real" books and the lane for his serious work is queer horror. The story follows Misha, a Hollywood screenwriter who is being pressured to kill off the gay characters in the show he writes by the studio while he is haunted by his past.  This is the second Tingler i've read (listened to) the other being Camp Damascus which I thought was surprisingly effective (until it fumbled the final act), it had a compelling mystery and some strong horror imagery but in Bury Your Gays those elements take a backseat to the character growth and the frankly impressive amount of themes and issues the book gets into. Even just looking at all the ways he uses the titular trope (which refers to the longstanding requirement from publishers/studios etc. that any queer characters had to be punished, often killed, to discourage the sin of homosexuality) from a literal examination to a metaphor for being in the closet, "burying your gay" inside yourself to queer characters' queerness being relegated to subtext in mainstream media not to mention all the other stuff he touches on to do with the industry like the rise of AI in creative fields, algorithms and trend-chasing, capitalism (rainbow or otherwise), tabloid and sensationalism, all that good stuff. As I said before the horror elements, which are mostly expressed via the horror villains the main character has written coming to life to haunt him, isn't one of the stronger elements of the book but we get these flashback chapters to the events in his life that inspired the writing of these villains, usually related to his burgeoning sexuality, and these chapters hit so hard, like i almost cried a few different times. Even though this is far from a literary masterpiece and the writing is nothing special the emotions in these scenes come through so strong and clear and feel so real. Its these bits that really elevate it because the series of events on its own isn't anything to write home about and I was worried about it having a Camp Damascus-esque fall off as it kind of has a similar third act with the big villain standoff and too much resolution where the characters know what they have to do and then go do it for far too long but this one really truncates this stuff and it felt like less of a disappointment this time since my enjoyment wasn't hinging so much on the story. Far from perfect but its so passionate and the end is a triumphant cry for queer joy and i couldn't help but be moved.

 

8/10