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justabean_reads's review
5.0
This is a collection of about forty first person essays/stories/rants/raves/musings about queer life. A couple of things really rocked about it.
1) while the majority voice was white, able, cis-gendered North American, the editors made sure to promote a wide variety of viewpoints in terms of race, culture, ability and gender identity. This was really nice as a lot of queer lit tends to be either young cis-gendered white dudes or middle-aged cis-gendered white lesbians. This wasn't as diverse as it could have been, but seeing even this much variation felt like it actually earned the subtitle.
2) It wasn't about being gay. I don't think there was one story that was the classic "Coming out story," or a traditional version of the "how I realised I was queer" story. Yes, there were variations, like Nalo Hopkinson's story about the evolution of her sexual identity, but it wasn't a retread of the same story that everyone told each other in the '70s. Rather, the stories are about "I'm queer, and that's a baseline, a given, and..." These are stories about living life, when you happen to be queer.
I didn't like all of the essays, or the voices, or the people, while others I adored. Which is what it's like being part of any community, really.
1) while the majority voice was white, able, cis-gendered North American, the editors made sure to promote a wide variety of viewpoints in terms of race, culture, ability and gender identity. This was really nice as a lot of queer lit tends to be either young cis-gendered white dudes or middle-aged cis-gendered white lesbians. This wasn't as diverse as it could have been, but seeing even this much variation felt like it actually earned the subtitle.
2) It wasn't about being gay. I don't think there was one story that was the classic "Coming out story," or a traditional version of the "how I realised I was queer" story. Yes, there were variations, like Nalo Hopkinson's story about the evolution of her sexual identity, but it wasn't a retread of the same story that everyone told each other in the '70s. Rather, the stories are about "I'm queer, and that's a baseline, a given, and..." These are stories about living life, when you happen to be queer.
I didn't like all of the essays, or the voices, or the people, while others I adored. Which is what it's like being part of any community, really.
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