Noble Thought Reads Books · 2:49am Jul 9th, 2015
Why yes, I do read books. Lots of books. I read four this week. And tried to read a fifth that I had to put down because it was basically a telly, poorly researched, perspective hopping mess.
I've been reading lesbian fiction lately. Surprise, right? Romance and coming of age, coming out, etc. So here's a few short recommendations and one "Sorry, but you tried" recommendation.
More below the break!
1. Safe Harbor
by Radclyffe (Yes, that's the author's pseudonym)
The first I tried, because it had a high rating on Amazon and the most reviews.
This was... bad. Like bad fanfic bad. Not in the sense that there were grammatical errors everywhere and the characters were out of character, but that the writing was so amateurish. I can't rightly call this omni-perspective (bad choice for a romance, by the way), because it doesn't sit still long enough, and often rides around in third close for a few paragraphs, switches to the new character on page, and then back. Jarring doesn't even begin to cut it. The characters feel like poorly controlled marionettes and I'm out in the audience trying not to hang my head in shame for the marionettist's incompetence. But... she tried, I guess. It feels like it was written down, hastily edited, and self-published just cuz.
Oh, and apprently Provincetown is a real place and a very popular spot for the LGBTQ community to vacation. Might have to go there someday. Pst. I'm a part of that community. But I'm not saying which letter.
Status: Moving on...
2. Zero Visibility
by Georgia Beers
This was the second I tried, and actually liked it. The character does do the perspective swap thing again, but does so only at chapter breaks, leaving us to sit firmly in someone's head for the entirety of a chapter without swapping back and forth incessantly. So... here we go.
Setting:
It's there. The town has little verve to it that isn't told to us. It's a place, but it doesn't really pop out at you. Maybe the next story kinda spoiled me for that.
Characters:
Oh, my, god. I love Emerson. She's real. And she's a lot like me. Sort of. But not really on further reflection. She grows throughout this story, and it's fascinating to watch her grow with it. In all honesty, I felt more for her than any of the other characters because as far as journeys go, she has the farthest to travel, and I felt like I was with her the whole way.
Cassie is so-so. She's well characterized as, I hesitate to say this, but she's a lesbian soccer-mom almost. She's always happy before she meets Emerson. Afterwards, she's up and down in time with the beats of the story. That's pretty much her personality. She has a job, she works job, and she's really attracted to Emerson. Oops? Did I spoil that for you? No? Okay. She doesn't really grow a lot.
The side characters are kinda there, and we switch perspectives to them to basically info-dump a bit. They were there. They had a purpose, but that purpose could have been better served from one of the main characters' perspectives.
Plot:
I've come to accept this plot as pretty bog-standard for Georgia Beers, and you'll see why in the next couple books. Judging by these two, it appears that Georgia has one story and two characters that she writes about, over and over. It's not badly written, but it got predictable after one book, so take from that what you will.
Sex:
Because it's a romance, and romance's ultimate goal is to have sex, this story had it, too. Not a lot. Two, maybe three scenes. Well handled and didn't drive off the rails into erotica. The sex is steamy but ultimately forgettable and didn't really serve the story all that well. It was like, lesbian romance: Check. Sex: Check. Just another thing to tick off on the story checklist and while it fit, it didn't really flow with the story or add much to it.
Status: It's okay. Could be a lot better.
3. Something True
by Karelia Stetz-Waters
I wish, oh how I wish this author had already written more in this little corner of the world. I have this hunger now to go visit Portland, drink in its sights, and maybe even be absorbed into its culture. Wow.
Setting:
The author does a magnificent job of selling the magic of Portland to me (duh.) It's clear that she either grew up in, or has lived in, Portland for a significant portion of her life. The city is vibrant and colorful in ways that I don't even know how to describe. Just... read this book. It's wonderful for just how masterfully the author wove in the city's life into the character's lives and used it to shape the story and moods.
Characters:
Tate is a living, breathing piece of a community, and it's clear from every interaction that she's tied to the secondary characters in the story, and those characters are far from superfluous. Each one of them stands out and has a life.
Laura's dilemma tugged at me throughout the story, and I won't spoil any of it because it's really gripping to see how she struggles with the circumstances that life placed on her shoulders and the one little rebellion that leads to her finding the strength to no longer be the Atlas to her own closeted world.
One thing to be said about this story is that the characters do feel real, and in this part of Portland, with its large LGBTQ community, there are some characters that hold some rather extreme beliefs and views on sexuality, gender, and feminism. On the flip side, neither of the main characters seems to subscribe to such extreme sidelines. It gives the side-characters a bit of eccentricity that is very, very real for the community they portray.
Plot:
The plot follows a fairly straightforward Romance, but it's the characters that really make this stand out, head and shoulders, above a crowded field.
Sex:
It's a romance. Formula, yada yada, right? Wrong! Yes, there is sex. Graphic sex. But it opens a window into the characters that lets us see what it is that they're afraid of in that moment of intimacy, before, during, and after the act, and it haunts both of the main characters throughout. It's a story where I would say the sex added more than its lack would have taken away.
Status: Must Read
4: 96 Hours
by Georgia Beers
See my review of Zero Visibility. Seriously.
Setting:
A little bumpkin town in Canada, and mostly one house in that town, following 9/11 (and published 2 months to the day after 9/11 Coincidence? I think not!) The limited setting really hurts this story. The opening is fairly standard, but gets more interesting and intriguing following their plane landing in this little town of 8000 people.
Plot:
Zero Visibility, in a nutshell. Minus the jealous exes, and also minus a lot of personal growth exploration. Most of the growth takes place behind the scenes, after the events of the titular 96 hours, but before the four chapter epilogue.
Characters:
Emerson Erica is a scientist, and holds her emotions far from herself. Just like Emerson.Cassie Abby is a free-spirited flutter-bird who flits about the world (no word on how she gets money to do that, she has no job and no trust fund).
They fall in love. They have sex.
Sex:
Zero Visibility. I kept having flashbacks to Zero Visibility and had to double-check the title on my Kindle to make sure I was reading the right book.
Status: Made from 100% Recyclable material.
5. Forgive Me If I've Told You This Before
This is the book that convinced me to write about my reading experiences this week. And I say this week because I started reading on Monday and just finished the fourth and fifth today. This is, again, an excellent story by this author, and really really makes me wish I was able to read more by her, but the rest of her books are not romances or slice of lives, or coming of age/coming out stories.
Setting:
Mostly a very religious little town out in Oregon in the early 90s. The setting is there, but it doesn't really stand out, aside from supplying a framework upon which to hang the happenings of real historical events.
Character:
I put character here because this is all told from first person Triinu Hoffman, the daughter of an Estonian refugee and an American professor. She is smart, she's funny, and she's very, very compelling and real. I almost think this is a sort of auto-biography of a sort, but not exactly. Sort of a "This was my high school experience, with different names".
Triinu starts out the book shy, and it's understandable why. She's amazingly well characterized as a smart teenager.
Her parents are awesome. Again, as in Something True, all of the characters feel like they could be walking around out there right now (or were, back in the early 90s.) The truest best friend, the fake best friend, the first love... they all feel like they belong in the town they live in. Even the bullies, the bigots and the most assholish of them all (the principal) feel like they belong where they are.
Plot:
The meandering life of a lesbian teenager mostly in the closet until the end during the end of Bush v1's years and near the start of Clinton's years. No politics, just stating that's where the story takes place. But the story itself is highly invested in those politics. You cannot separate them from the story because this is a very conservative little town with a rather divided populace, with the majority not really giving a flying squirrel about it all.
It's mainly about Triinu growing up and gaining the courage to look outside the closet and see what the world is like and, on finding it's not to her liking, hides again until she's not alone. Hint: She was never alone, but her feeling of isolation... that was well portrayed.
Sex:
This isn't a typical romance. There is barely touched upon sex, and where it is, it plays an important role in the story. There is a first love, and it's sloppy, and it hurts in the end, but Triinu learns and learns that a one-sided love and sex with the other side of that love hurts more in the long run than it does feel good for the bliss.
Status: Must Read.
Anywho... That was my forray into romance from the Amazon E-Books selection. Some very good ones, and an author I'll be following, a couple so-so ones with recycled characters, and one... that read like a bad fan fiction of a real place.
Greeeeeeat. You sell me on the one that's so-so, then blog about two must reads. Stop making me want to spend money!
3221598
Yeah... sorry about that. When I sold you on Zero Visibility, I had just put away the awful mess of Safe Harbor and was blown away because it wasn't shit. Then I read Something True and was blown away by something that felt real.
*runs off to see if e-books are covered by Prime memberships*
My money 's on the T, but in all seriousness I didn't expect lesbian fiction reviews on my pony site. Might check them out..
Uh huh. Sure.
3221598 Hey, I have some land in the Sahara I'd like to sell you...
3221708 Haven't you been paying attention? Pony fanfiction is all about lesbians.
Anyway, I'm going for the Q, because that one is so vaguely defined that I can always say I was right
3221624
Some of them are. A lot of the books I got were list priced at almost double what I got them for.
3221708
The two must reads are very good reads.
3221807
I would be perfectly happy reading a romance without sex, but the problem is that it's a formula for the industry. I actually have one that's PG-13 on my read list (Too late... I already love you), but there is still sex. It just happens after the fade-to-black at the end of the scene.
3222211
Fine. Two letters.
Lesbian fiction, you say? You should look up Dayna Ingram. She's a friend of mine, and her first (I think) novel was about lesbians in a zombie apocalypse. I mean, you can't go wrong with that. :D
Next you should read the Temeraire books by Naomi Novik. *massive hint.*