Queer – Page 13 – Marked for Plot

I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

About an hour into my listen of this audiobook, I was convinced that it was going to be my first 5/5 read of the year. I was lost in Marisa Crane’s intensely emotional writing, and felt like I was living in the skin of another person, feeling what they felt. Then, as the story shifted from something amorphous and reflective into a more traditional plot, I ran headfirst into walls of frustration and disappointment. The things I love about this book are intoxicating, but it wasn’t enough to hold the story together until the ending for me.

The Premise
In this version of America, those who harm others receive an additional shadow. Those with shadows are second class citizens: taxed higher, let go from jobs, harassed on the street. And of course, fairness and justice aren’t particularly high on the list of concerns for the government organization assigning shadows, and people of color, queer folks, and those living with mental health challenges are much more likely to get one. That list includes Kris, who just lost her wife in childbirth, and her newborn baby who got a second shadow for ‘killing’ her mother during birth. Lost in grief, Kris must find a path forward in this world and figure out how to life her life (and raise a child) when the lodestone of her world is gone.

Read If Looking For: meditations on grief and motherhood, dynamic queer relationships (romantic and platonic), thoughtful depictions of mental health struggles

Avoid if Looking For: dystopian settings with the intensity of The Handmaid’s Tale, realistic depictions of children

Light From Uncommon Stars

Sometimes you run into books that are really difficult to pitch. Light From Uncommon Stars sounds like a comedy book. Aliens running a donut shop certainly doesn’t sound like a book that takes itself particularly seriously. But this story made me cry, made me furious, and made me feel more deeply than I expected when opening the cover. This book is an emotional roller coaster, and a journey that isn’t happy, but is filling.

The Premise:
A young trans girl flees and abusive family with her violin. The ‘Queen of Hell’ seeks to find a seventh student and convince them to sell their soul to a demon for musical immortality. An alien on the run from the End Plague runs a donut shop. Their stories – and others – connect and intertwine in a tale of what it means to be human (or alien) and what it means to live a life worth living.

Read If Looking For: character-led stories, phenomenal music recommendations, genre bending novels, romance subplots

Avoid if Looking For: stories avoiding queer trauma, classic fantasy or science fiction plot beats

Sufficiently Advanced Magic

Progression Fantasy is a subgenre that happily draws on video games, anime, and tabletop RPGs as inspiration points. Sufficiently Advanced Magic happily wears its influences on its sleeves. It’s a big magic school story with lots of cool fights, badass moments, without a whole lot mental load required of the reader. And while I think I ultimately prefer Journals of Evander Tailor for my ‘queer kid enchants items in a big magic school’ read, this is a phenomenal option, and definitely the more widely popular one.

The Premise:
Corin enters the Spire hoping for many things: an attunement to grant him magic, clues about the fate of his brother, who vanished years ago in his own Spire trial, and maybe a fun magic weapon or two. He comes out with all three things (though perhaps none as intended), the attention of one of the immortal Visages who can destroy countries with a thought, and a pissed off abusive father who can’t stand his son got an enchanting attunement instead of one designed for combat. Corin heads to school, hoping to develop his abilities to eventually be able to find his brother and gain independence.

Read If Looking For: anime vibes, overly analytical characters, dungeon crawling

Avoid if Looking For: books without filler, mystic magic, healthy parent/child relationships

Yield Under Great Persuasion

Alexandra Rowland is one of my favorite authors, and I adore romances, so this book was an easy choice to pick up. I will say Rowland’s past romance (A Taste of Gold and Iron) was a great book, but probably my least favorite thing they’ve put out. Considering that their worst book is one that I’d happily reread, Alexandra Rowland is definitely an author who is right up my alley.

The Premise
Tam knows how to hold a grudge. He’s had a grudge against Lyford for ages, despite that fact that he keeps sleeping with the man. When Tam agrees to volunteer for the town’s yearly festival, mostly out of spite, he ends up paired up Lyford in the matchmaking tent of all places. Tam is forced to confront his own character flaws, his repressed feelings for Lyford, and his habit of sabotaging anything good that enters his life.

Read If Looking For: trope-filled Romances, meddling gods, melodramatic descriptions of penises

Avoid if Looking For: healthy relationship dynamics, sophistication in any sense of the word

A Botanical Daughter

This book has been pitched as a mashup between Mexican Gothic, Frankenstein, written through the lens of Oscar Wilde. I don’t think that’s a perfect description, but it (and some phenomenal cover art) put this book on my list as I tried to tackle the new releases of 2024. Gothic fiction may not be my favorite genre, but there was a lot to love in this debut novel, even if there were places it was rough around the edges.

The Premise:
A botanist and taxidermist who live in a greenhouse dig up a dead body, throw an intelligent fungus inside it, and watch as their experiment grows into something utterly unexpected. As Chloe (their ‘daughter’) grows in ability and sentience, it strains the relationship between Gregor (the botanist), Simon (the Taxidermist) and Jenny (their housekeeper, and the ex-girlfriend of the human whose body hosts Chloe).

Read If Looking For: realistic gay relationships, cool fungi, gothic vibes

Avoid if Looking For: Romances, something viscerally scary, satisfying character arcs

Angels Before Man

Like most Queer kids raised Christian, I have a complicated relationship with religion. I grew up going to church in Topeka, Kansas, a city known for being utterly boring and home to the Westboro Baptist Church. Childhood was a state of constant tension. The church my parents attended was having gay marriages decades before it was legal, and one of my Confirmation mentors was an open Lesbian woman. Yet often we would see ‘God Hates Fags’ signs protesting our church, or once at my school thirty minutes outside of town after a local father murdered his children before committing suicide. The kids at my school were not from a progressive congregation in any sense of the word, and routinely lectured me on how God put animals on this earth for humans to hunt, amongst a wide variety of other topics.

All this to say, that a gay retelling of the fall of Lucifer was something that immediately caught my eye. Christian Fantasy (or religious fantasy more broadly) isn’t something that always interests me, but when queerness is layered in, I grow much more attentive. This book definitely wasn’t the ‘happy ending romance’ story I expected (or craved if I’m being totally honest), but it won me over with its willingness to be dark, deranged, and fascinating.

The Premise:
Angels Before Man begins with Lucifer’s awakening as a newborn angel. He is God’s favorite of all the children. As the book progresses, Lucifer explores Heaven, connects with other angels, and struggles to find purpose beyond the beauty that everyone else sees in him. He grows older, and begins questioning what other angels take for granted, eventually leading him down a path of blood and debauchery. And there for it all is Michael, his best friend, and perhaps something more. But loving something more than God is definitely not allowed.

Read If Looking For: gay rage, villain stories that avoid cliches, critiques of Christianity

Avoid if Looking For: capital R Romances, books free from disturbing imagery or sexual assault

The Enchanter

I was a Harry Potter kid growing up, and despite falling out of love with the series for a wide variety of reasons, magic schools will always hold a special place in my heart. I also loved Shoenn Manga, and remember buying the newest Naruto books released to see what was happening during the Chūnin Exams. This has since transformed into an adult love of the Progression Fantasy genre, featuring readable prose, fun battles, and lots of power ups. There’ve been a couple good marriages between these two elements, and even a few with lots of queer rep (Arcane Ascension and Mage Errant both get a big shout out for this!), but Journals of Evander Tailor is by far my favorite. The Enchanter is the first book in the journey, and I’ll keep singing its praises as long as I can.

The Premise:
Evan is the human adoptive son of an elvish tailor. When he discovers that he has magic, albeit weakly, he decides to take the risk of attending an expensive university to broaden his future prospects. When he arrives, he discovers a system set up for nobility to succeed on the backs of commoners, strange eldritch creatures in the woods, and a desperate need to grow his power quickly and avoid being drafted into the military via flunking out.

Read If Looking For: breezy reading, detailed magic systems, supportive relationships, consequences for actions, a thoughtful and pragmatic lead character

Avoid if Looking For: beautiful prose, queer-friendly worlds, magic that remains mystic and unexplained

The Witness for the Dead

The Goblin Emperor won me over with its baroque tangle of royal ettiquette, its optimistic worldview, and a wonderful inversion of typical portrayals of monarchies. It’s sibling series is none of those things, and presents a story that feels very familiar in style, yet the polar opposite in tone. A subdued noir novella, Witness For the Dead does not require reading The Goblin Emperor to enjoy; it follows a side character far from the action and events of the previous story. In fact, there were surprisingly few easter eggs connecting the two.

The Premise:
Celehar is a Witness for the Dead, a priest with some small ability to connect with the souls of the recently deceased. He lives far from the courts of power, and mostly uses the skill to solve murders, arbitrate wills, kill ghouls, and make sure the dead are treated with respect. This book follows a nasty noble house dispute, an accusation of spousal murder, and the death of a famed opera singer. And all the while, Celehar hides his homosexuality from a world which despises him for it.

Read If Looking For: gloomy priests, representations of internalized homophobia, simple and careful prose

Avoid if Looking For: upbeat stories, highly structured mysteries

The Last Sun

Historically, Urban Fantasy hasn’t been a genre that I’ve found particularly compelling. As a kid, I was looking for more grand adventures; and as an adult, werewolves and vampires just didn’t call my name unless they were doing something interesting and creative with them. The Last Sun was a book I gave a shot while looking for queer leads in fantasy, and while it wasn’t a perfect book, it’s certainly one that I’ll be reading more of in the future.

The Premise:
Rune is the last member of a fallen house of Atlantis, which has relocated to Nantucket in the modern era. Once raised in opulence, he now finds himself working contract jobs for those with the same kind of power and influence his father used to have. He’s been hired to hunt down a missing son of Judgement, but it quickly devolves into something altogether more complicated, both for Rune on a personal level, and the island as a whole.

Read If Looking For: punchy mysteries, fun action sequences, underdog stories

Avoid if Looking For: books without graphic sexual assault, books that resolve every mystery in one book

The Darkness Outside Us

I intended for this book to be a light, fluffy read. Picked up in an airport bookshop as something to occupy me as I headed out to a summer teaching gig in Boston, I thought I was going to read a cute (and possibly spicy) romance set in a spaceship. I did not expect the emotional rollercoaster of stress, excitement, and sheer existential dread this book would pull out of me. It’s stood the test of time and is just as good on a reread as that first experience.

The Premise:
Ambrose is an astronaut from ‘not UN’ and Kodiak is from ‘not Russia’. The two countries, in a long cold war, have sent the two young spacefarers on a rescue mission. They aren’t supposed to interact at all with each other unless absolutely necessary, but Ambrose is curious about his hot neighbor, and who else is he supposed to talk to on this ship? But there are also some unexplained oddities that are nagging at him.

Read If Looking For: space thrillers, emotional romantic connections, looming dread

Avoid if Looking For: straightforward romances, thorough worldbuilding