Some queer book recs!
Dec. 9th, 2020 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sasha_featherMy BFF gave me this wonderful book, "Self Evident Truths: 10,000 portraits of Queer America" by iO Tillet Wright. An awesome tome of black and white photos spanning 10 years and many different places in the US. I got lost in this for a while and will get lost in many more times for years to come.
Interview with the creator, also featuring some pictures:
https://www.them.us/story/self-evident-truths-io-tillet-wright-interview
Cross-posting my Goodreads review of the graphic novel "Flamer" by Mike Curato.
Absolutely incredible book. The art is stunning-- mostly black and white, but then some things in red, orange, and yellow, the color of the campfire flames lighting up the night at Aiden's boy scout camp.
Aiden loves boy scout camp and feels more free and accepted there than he does at home or school; he loves being outside and clowning around with his friends. But he experiences almost constant homophobia, and sometimes racism, from his fellow scouts. He has body image issues. His home life is not great: his dad constantly yells. He likes church, but has been taught that being gay is a sin.
Aiden learns archery, orienteering, basket weaving, and other skills at camp. He forms a crush on a popular boy and begins to realize that he's gay. Confusing dreams, fights, and other events-- all portrayed with the heightened emotions of adolescence-- culminate in a brush with suicide, which he survives.
Aiden is 14 in 1995; the same age I was then.
This is an important book about growing up gay in a hostile world. The beauty of the art accentuates an intensely emotional journey. This is bravely told.
Interview with the creator, also featuring some pictures:
https://www.them.us/story/self-evident-truths-io-tillet-wright-interview
Cross-posting my Goodreads review of the graphic novel "Flamer" by Mike Curato.
Absolutely incredible book. The art is stunning-- mostly black and white, but then some things in red, orange, and yellow, the color of the campfire flames lighting up the night at Aiden's boy scout camp.
Aiden loves boy scout camp and feels more free and accepted there than he does at home or school; he loves being outside and clowning around with his friends. But he experiences almost constant homophobia, and sometimes racism, from his fellow scouts. He has body image issues. His home life is not great: his dad constantly yells. He likes church, but has been taught that being gay is a sin.
Aiden learns archery, orienteering, basket weaving, and other skills at camp. He forms a crush on a popular boy and begins to realize that he's gay. Confusing dreams, fights, and other events-- all portrayed with the heightened emotions of adolescence-- culminate in a brush with suicide, which he survives.
Aiden is 14 in 1995; the same age I was then.
This is an important book about growing up gay in a hostile world. The beauty of the art accentuates an intensely emotional journey. This is bravely told.
