#bisexual rep

Rating this one 3.5/5 Stars

Two twenty something women, who were first loves one summer as teens, became roommates and tried fake dating which became real very quickly. They pretended to be together because Jo's ex-fiancée, Kelsey, now planned to marry their boss, Becky. The couple hired Jo as their wedding planner and her roommate and her other past love, Hunter, as their photographer. Extremely emotional story with a lot of internal talk about being worthy of love.

Jo and Hunter fell in love again over shared time at their apartment with their pet bearded dragon, Dolly Parton, during events for Becky and Kelsey's wedding and time spent with Jo's big and supportive family. The big conflicts in the story were over how Jo wanted to quit her job and start her own business and how Kelsey claimed to still have feelings for Jo, but Jo, rightfully, rejected her. Also, Jo was unsure if she was ready for another serious relationship with Hunter because of their shared past and her own recent split with Kelsey.

Written in first person, which I always skim at points because it's hard for me to read 'I' statements with internal monologues. Lots of stream of consciousness telling and not showing.

There were several very spicy and steamy sex scenes between Hunter and Jo.

Rating 4/5 Stars for overall series content. This is a 10/5 stars as a romantic comedy. The first book is absolutely phenomenal and the short follow-up had great snippets from their HEA life. All told in third person from Brooke's POV with some omniscient narrator.

Brooke Kent was a shy, soft butch computer engineer from a well-to-do English family who fell for Anna Fourchette, a half French, gorgeous gourmet chef and steak restaurant owner. They both nursed serious crushes on each other for nearly a year before Brooke invited Anna to be her fake date / girlfriend for her younger brother's wedding in England. She had not seen her family in over a dozen years because of her parents' rejection of her sexuality when she was a teen. Her brother and his wife-to-be welcomed her and Anna with open arms as he truly missed her.

Brooke and her friends were regular customers at Anna's restaurant and Anna always paid special attention to Brooke. The week before the trip, Brooke and Anna met several times and got to know each other much better. Over dinners and other shared meals, cheek kisses and warm cuddles on the couch they very clearly greatly cared for each other.

Anna was incredible in all her interactions with Brooke's homophobic mother in England, which led Brooke to stand up to her. Brooke and Anna were so adorably loving and supportive of each other the whole way through. Their love confessions after only a week and a half of 'fake dating' didn't even feel rushed.

Included: Fools in love with so much mutual pining/yearning, Unsure of the others' feelings, 'Fake dates' that were very realistic, Falling asleep together on couches, Only one bed/sharing a bed, Steamy kisses and sexy, sultry smut, Found family with friends, Astounding initial love confessions and their later proposals and wedding vows were amazing

Main Cons for Me: Author briefly mentioned her characters were reading another queer/sapphic author's book that I haven't read, but that other author and book gets tons of hype that I'm not sure it warrants, the first story was a very long read at over 400 pages and the main characters were basically just two well-off young women who only had trouble in the love area of their lives

Rating this one 5/5 stars

This one was an absolutely incredible, perfectly paced sweet treat of a second chance romance between Korean / Korean American college ex-girlfriends. The conflicts and all other various situations were true to real life. Told in first person from alternated POVs, but primarily Gemma's.

Horizon magazine features writer Gemma and freelance photojournalist Celeste first met and fell in love during college in LA. When family health issues arose, Celeste very abruptly broke up with Gemma and returned to South Korea. Gemma moved to San Francisco and worked with her last semester of college boyfriend. When she returned to California only months after she left, Celeste was devastated when she found out Gemma had so quickly moved on with a man so she never attempted reconciliation with her.

About 8 years post-breakup, the ladies met anew when they were slated to work together on a feature article on great loves through different generations for a Valentine's Day magazine issue. They quickly fell back in step in sultry kisses and lust into a friends with benefits situation that grew to more as both admitted stronger feelings. However, they both questioned if they were even ready for a real relationship that wasn't just something casual as that's all Celeste did have after Gemma and since Gemma's male fiancé only recently broke up with her. They went their separate ways again. A year later, they both had clarity about what held them back before and they decided they finally wanted a chance at a real relationship with each other.

Included: Grumpy x Sunshine but both of them had those qualities, Queer POCs, Korean bisexual paired with Korean lesbian, side Hispanic lesbians/sapphics, Found family with friends, Korean culture, food and traditions, Steamy sex scenes, strap scenes

Read these two books that go together this week.

The Love Lie was written first. Overall, giving it a 3/5 Stars rating. The story started as fake dating that quickly turned to real dating. Think all the characters and settings were well-developed. The smut was extremely spicy. The couple worked well together and made sense.

Two rich and smart and sexy women Sydney and Reese found a second chance at love with each other when they pretended to be together and stirred up trouble with Reese's brother, who previously dated Sydney.

It was awkward how much Sydney needed to know why her long time ex-boyfriend cheated on her. She hooked up with his sister, Reese, without having a conversation at all with her like 'isn't this weird that I dated and was physically involved with your brother before?' There was too much time given to the brother and him being stupid in the story.

Despite those things, Sydney and Reese had mutual pining and good communication and were supportive and very trusting of each other. The title seemed odd to me because they weren't even fake dating that long. The lie seemed to be more about the brother not caring about the women in his life and being destructive and manipulative about that than the two women falling in love while pretending they were dating.

Actually enjoyed the second story The Pining Paradox a lot better. Giving it a 4/5 Star rating. The brother's former fiancée Brynn from the first story ended up romantically involved with Hallie, who was the female best friend of his ex-girlfriend, Sydney, he had before Brynn, who got together romantically with his sister Reese in the first story. The characters were in different ways very messy, but more developed with stronger personalities. There were conflicts and discussions about belonging and family and grief and loss in this story.

The smut was spicier than in the first story, but it took awhile to get there. Both women were bisexual or demisexual. In their own ways, they came across as neurodivergent. They tried dating other people before coming to the quick realization that they belonged together. So much pining and yearning between them.

My rating for this book is 4/5 Stars

This story was a very sweet, well-written romance with believable characters and obstacles in their way. Two biromantic/bisexual young women fell in love when they met at an Armenian neighborhood center in San Francisco as they attended Armenian cultural events together.

The story was all told from the first person point of view of Nareh whose long time boyfriend proposed to her at the beginning, but she never agreed. He went away and she told her mother she would attempt to meet an Armenian man. Instead, she met and fell for another Armenian woman. They shared some steamy and sweet kisses, one short smut scene and woke up in bed together a few times.

The story showcased Armenian food, dancing, religion, witchcraft and the occult and the Armenian genocide and its continued significance today.

First, thanks again for responding me, it meant a lot to this gal. And I think I should clarify before someone gets the wrong idea, but we’ve had movies and series with bisexual (or implied bisexual) characters in this class, but they were never the focus. Like, the most we would get is a side character or a character of “questionable sexuality” (not my words). Bisexuality isn’t avoided, like I said, but it’s definitely ignored if the character is not canonically bisexual or isn’t literally shagging every person that breathes near them.

But, on a brighter note, apparently Shiva Baby will be on the topic for next week and it has na oppenly bissexual protagonist. I don’t know if you ever watched it, but I did and it is quite fun. A very messy movie and if you ever watched Bottoms, Rachel Sennott is the protagonist. The take the movie takes on bisexuality is much more humanized and explored than it normally is.

As for bisexual media, I am trying to make a little list but it’s been very hard to find. Most movies that depict bisexuality, be it explicit or not, are all full of the same stereotypes and I kinda want to find ones that don’t. Unfortunately, most sites that curate on queer media don’t have a big bissexual archive :/

This is spicier than what I typically go for, and the heroine sometimes makes silly decisions. But overall I had a fun time with this one (& really enjoyed the mMC)!