The First Book I Read In the Dark: Queer Witches and a Whole Bunch of Redwood Trees
The Lost Coast by Amy Rose Capetta
Let me set the scene...we start Day 1 of this experience curled up next to the white painted fireplace desperate for warmth with two blankets, an extra hoodie, a stocking cap, and my trusty lazy husband for that much needed lumbar support.Â
Now The Lost Coast was a book I had checked out multiple times over the past year of silence on this blog because every time I saw it on the shelf I would pick it up, flip to the blurb, read it and go, âMan, that sounds so good! I gotta read it!â Then Iâd check it out and it would sit in my locker, or in my car, or on my desk for three weeks and Iâd turn it in completely untouched. But this time...this time I swore I was reading this damn book! Even if I was reading 10 pages a day during my breaks at work I was gonna finally read this book, it wasnât going unread sitting somewhere for three weeks again. Little did I know how right I would be!Â
So as a bit of a precursor this is the only book of those I read in the dark that I had already started. I was 90 pages in when I started reading on Day 1 and I only get more incoherent from here so letâs do this!
Unicorn Rating:
Blurb: Our protagonist is pulled across the country to the yawning redwood forest of northern California and discovers more than she could ever imagine. Her mom thought Danny kissing girls was the worst of her problems but now she has to deal with witches and magic and is that a dead body! This non-stop ride is just getting started!
Disclaimer: I will try my best to not spoil anything from the book, but my book loving rambles may give more away than a traditional review. Here we go! Ramble time!
Review:Â
Okay so I would say this book pretty firmly falls in a middle ground of okay for me. It was some really great escapism for me in a time when I really needed it, but the way the book was structured and written just didnât really jive with my usual reading tastes. It felt to me like it was trying so hard to be poetic and artistic that it got a little lost at times, no pun intended with the title of the book.Â
Now for the plot, which I think was maybe the strongest element of this book. The driving plot of the book never changed and was always consistent and I really liked how the author wove the magic of the world and the unique structure of how she was telling the story while never losing the plot in that unique structure. It was always peeling away one layer at a time and showing us just a bit more without holding our hand. It was very well done and kept me guessing and trying to figure out what was going to happen and how it was all going to end. Next we have what is usually my favorite part of a review but this time...isn't.Â
I have so many conflicted feelings about the characters in The Lost Coast. On one hand holy giant redwoods I havenât read a book since Not Your Sidekick that had this many casually queer characters just strutting about doing their thing, but on the other hand I feel the way the story was written leaves so much to be desired. The characters feel so thin and lacking when they had the potential to be so rich and diverse. Donât get me wrong they are diverse in the bare bones definition, but we know so little about them at the end of the day it feels like it doesnât really matter. We have our protagonist, Danny, who we know has a strained relationship with her mother but is close enough with she was willing to move her across the country in an attempt to try and give her a fresh start. Now there are somethings that take place in the story that explain a lot of the odd things about Dannyâs character and made me a lot less unhappy with her by the time the book ended but it was really hard to get behind her as a protagonist at the beginning not because I didnât like her but because I wasnât motivated to follow her into the story. She was just going along from one event to the next with no real drive of her own, which brings us to the Grays: Hawthorne, June, Lelia, and Rush. They at least have a consistent motivation, but they had such potential to be really interesting characters but each one fell just short for me. The closest one to a compelling for me was Rush, we learned the most about her and I think that was mostly because Danny paid the most attention to her for obvious gay reasons. Now I canât really expand too much more without going into massive spoiler territory for the plot which I donât want to do, because the book is good and is an experience I donât want to take away from anyone it just fell flat for me.
So yeah, this book wasnât what I expected and I think a huge part of that was because the blurb is so much different than what is in the book itself. And I know, as a lesbrarian I should know not to judge a book by its cover or its blurb...but that is your first exposure to the story you are going to be reading and in this case the tone was so much different. Now let me reiterate this book wasnât bad. There were parts that were so beautifully written I had to reread them several times to take in the layers of imagery and sheer poetry of the prose, but I feel like at times that style took away from the story itself and most of all it took away from the characters so that by the end of it they just fall a bit flat for me. I do recommend you give it a shot though because you wonât find a book with a queerer cast out there and maybe it will speak to you more than it did to me.Â
Queer Wrap-up: Alright lets look at the this stellar tally shall we. Even with my own lack luster feelings toward the characters from a story perspective you canât over look the fact that all but one character we interact with on page regularly is queer. That is something I have never seen before, so it more than earned its five unicorns, even if the quality was a bit lacking on the tail end the quantity really pulled it out. So we have our protagonist who is unapologetically kissing girls from page one and doesnât ever shut up about it but also doesnât shy away from the fact she also finds boys undeniably adorable and cute. In a scene that makes this tally easier than most she defines herself as queer so we are gonna stick with that. Within the Grays we have Lelia who is a tiny nonbinary gray ace person who will get in your face and is not afraid to be called a weirdo, June is a âfemme as fuckâ lesbian who is also not white (I belive Danny describes her as vaguely pacific islander at one point. I swear it was more specifically stated what her ethnicity was somewhere later in the book but I didnât write it down at the time and couldnât find it in my quick flip threw the book when I grabbed it to jot down their stated sexualities, but she is definitely not white), Hawthorne is a bisexual black witch who states she has âa strong lean toward masculine folksâ which is refreshing to see bisexual representation that isnât just âgay but guys exist I guessâ, then we have Rush who very succinctly sums herself up with âFat. Queer. White. Cello Player.â She is also some add rep in the form of having synesthesia where she can taste words. We also have some disability rep as June has an injury to her leg from a fall out of a tree that never healed properly and it does cause problems for her throughout the book, not the greatest rep but itâs there and shouldnât be forgotten or not included. Man, oh man, this is the longest wrap-up I think Iâve ever written but I am still not done yet. We have Imogen who is the missing Gray mentioned in the blurb and brought up pretty quickly in the story and without spoiling anything we do get confirmation she is also undeniably queer as well as another character that I canât even begin to talk about without a giant redacted stamp for spoiler reasons, but just know this book does have queer rep coming out its ears.Â
Links:Â
Amy Rose Capettaâs Website
Goodreads
So yes here we come to the end of the first Book I Read In the Dark it was a whimsical journey through redwoods with witches and more queerness than you could shake a widowmaker at (if you donât get that reference read the book). I finished this book on Day 1 and immediately dove right into Book 2 because well I didnât have anything else to do and I was kinda reeling from the confusion of this book and wanted something to ground me. The next book was one I had wanted to read for a very long time. Youâll see whether it did the job or not.Â
As always if you want to read this but donât want to spend the money without knowing for sure you are going to like it, go to your local library. Youâd be surprised what they have on their shelves just waiting to be discovered. Trust me, Iâm a lesbrarian.
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For the first review in this series I am going with one that I picked up while I was at ClexaCon 2018. I had the lovely experience of getting to meet Audrey Coulthurst during a panel and in Artist Alley. It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to sit down with her for a moment and talk about building fantasy worlds and how she and her editor worked hard to make sure the world that Of Fire and Stars takes place in has no concept like homophobia. We deal with that kind of hate enough in reality it doesnât need to be in our fantasy worlds as well. Now onward to the review!
Unicorn Rating:
Blurb: Two princesses who couldnât be more different are forced to ride horses together and magic happens. Literally! A great show of LGBT characters and their stories taken into the fantasy realm.
Disclaimer: I will try my best to not spoil anything from the book, but my book loving rambles may give more away than a traditional review. Here we go! Ramble time!
Review:
This book as a whole was far too much fun to read. I tend to shy away from high fantasy novels, even in the Young Adult vein, because they try too hard and tend to have âyikesâ level themes, but this book did an excellent job of immersing me in the world without forcing me to slog through an introductory lore dump cringe-inducing interactions. It did an excellent job of pacing out the necessary lore as we needed to know it without forcing it into the narrative. As a writer myself I lean more toward third person narration, but I can enjoy reading first person if the characters are engaging. This book does that really well, even when the perspective switches between Mare and Denna, it would be incredibly difficult to confuse which character is the narrator at any given moment.
The other aspect of this book overall that I genuinely enjoyed was the absence of homophobia. As I mentioned in my intro I knew about this aspect before I even opened the book, but it was still so pleasant to not have the constant sour taste of homophobia coloring the drama of the story. Donât get me wrong, there is drama! Oh boy, is there, but the homophobia is refreshingly missing. Letâs look at the plot a bit now shall we?
I found the plot of the book was simple while also being twisty enough to not know what was coming next everytime. I did predict a few things before they happened but as someone who had timed contests to try and figure out the murderer in CSI episodes with my dad, Iâm real good at figuring this kinda shit out. So surprising me is an accomplishment to say the least. I think the plot could have been a little stronger in places but it definitely kept the pace up and moving when it needed and slowed down for the more personal scenes with our heroines. Speaking of which let's dive into some character talk.
Our protagonists are Mare and Denna or more accurately Princess Dennalia and Princess Amaranthine. And let me tell you I love these two girls so much! They are very different in pretty much every aspect of their lives, and it shows in their interactions with each other and those around them.
Denna won me over quickly with her palpable nerves about meeting the prince that would one day be her husband, but also her immediate want to help in the struggles of the kingdom. As a middle child who always felt the need to excel in what I was doing I could really relate to Denna and how much she put what was right for her family and country before her own personal wants or needs. This chick is smart and is gonna be one hell of a queen some day if certain people, Iâm looking at you Prince Thandi, would just get out of her way and let her help.
Mare, on the other hand, puts up the facade of not caring at all about being royalty when she genuinely does care about her family and the people of Mynaria. She was a delight to delve into, because she felt so genuine and real. I will admit I have a weakness for the more closed-off characters who have that extra depth to them. I like the ones that make me dig for the good bits, and Mare gave me my fix. Nothing about her character fit the usual mold of the princesses that society is used to. She was foul-mouthed, wore pants 9 times out of 10, and honestly just wanted to ride her horse as far away from the castle as possible, but the more we get to know her the more we see a girl underneath all of that.
As far as the romantic subplot, all I will say is it was masterfully done with the right tension filled moments and soft caring ones paced perfectly. I am weak and gay! I am a sucker for the rough and tumble character who is softened by the eternally optimistic one, gets me right in the feels every time.
The only other character point I want to talk about in this review before wrapping up is the relationship between Mare and Nils. Without ruining anything, Nils is a guard in the castle whom Mare has known for most of their lives. Nils on his own is a good character who is a bit of a Fabio but always respects the women he woos as far as we see. Which is not at all surprising with how we see him interact with Mare. From my interpretation of their relationship has not always been the platonic one we are treated to in the story. Whether Nils wants more to happen there or not is up to you, but the fact is he doesnât treat Mare any differently regardless. He is there for her as comfort and a confidant when she needs it and I loved it so much because you donât see that between queer female characters and their male friends very often. There is always an uncomfortable tension written into those interactions the were refreshingly missing here.
For my final thoughts I just want to say as a writer I really appreciate the way the story building was built into the story. Do I still have questions about the world as a whole? You bet I do! But those questions didnât keep me from enjoying this story thoroughly and has me very excited for the sequel coming out later this year.
Queer Wrap-up: Okay, so now to talk about the brass tax. Why did I give this book five unicorns? There are two queer main characters who we get to spend time with and watch the plot unfold around them both. We get a world where Denna is more concerned about her personal feelings hurting an alliance that has been in the works since she was born, than the fact hose feelings happen to be directed at another woman. This book shows what I wish we could see more of in fiction, especially YA fiction. It shows our protagonists being unapologetically queer while also having to deal with everything else the plot requires. Outside of the romantic subplot their queerness is just another part of who they are. They arenât defined by it and it definitely isnât a weakness. I will say I was torn between giving this four or five, but it was the platonic relationship with Nils that actually pushes it over for me. As a queer woman who had a lot of guy friends it was so refreshing to read a relationship that fit my own friendships for once. Good on you Of Fire and Stars, five unicorns for you!
Links:
Audrey Coulthurstâs Website
Goodreads
Amazon
To close up this review I just want to encourage you to give this book a shot if you are a lover of high fantasy and want to read about princesses being badass, quick witted, and just...so gay. Also if you want to read this but donât want spend the money without knowing for sure you are going to like it, go to your local library. Youâd be surprised what they have on their shelves just waiting to be discovered. Trust me, Iâm a lesbrarian.
This was another book I discovered during the Queering YA panel of ClexaCon 2018. That panel really was where these reviews and my current mission to shine a light on the queer fiction that is present in the library world started. I was blown away by this book! Literally squealed so many times, youâll see down below. Now onto the review!
Unicorn Rating:
Blurb: Â Superheroes? Paid internships? Pretty volleyball players? Oh my! This book is one you will not want to put down and then be sad when it ends, because you just never want to leave the world of Andover and the cast of characters that C.B. Lee has created.
Disclaimer: I will try my best to not spoil anything from the book, but my book loving rambles may give more away than a traditional review. Here we go! Ramble time!
Review:
Have you ever read a book where it was physically painful to put it down? That was exactly what it was like reading this book. The characters are immediately real in your mind the moment they are introduced on the page. The world draws you in and just doesnât let you go.
One thing that is always hard to swallow in stories with superhuman abilities is how those abilities come about. Who gets them and why? C.B. Lee did a fantastic job of establishing the world that these types of abilities are not only possible but recognized and strictly regulated. There wasnât a single moment that I, as the reader, had to go beyond a normal suspension of disbelief to make the world work. On that note letâs take a closer look at the plot.
I know I already mentioned how much I loved this book and I am gonna reinforce that statement here with the plot. It was the kind of story telling that pulls you in but also keeps you guessing. Even when you think youâve figure it out you really havenât...or at least not all of it. I love the feeling of unraveling a story and spinning theories to see if Iâm right and this book was no exception, but usually when I figure something out easily it takes away from the story in the end cause Iâm not surprised, but with Not Your Sidekick I was delighted when theories panned out or when I was taken by surprise. A huge part of what made that possible was an outstanding cast of characters that you fall in love with immediately.
Jess, our main character, was an utter delight to read. From her first moment on the page she felt real and vivid. Her sarcastic wit was refreshing and brought some of the best laughs of the book. One thing that was nice to see was that her sexuality was figured out long before the story takes place so it is just part of her character and is mentioned in a passing description. Her bisexuality is just part of the many things that make her who she is but isnât at the forefront, which gives her that authentic feeling that some queer characters lack. Her attitude towards her family and how she didnât have any abilities was a truly interesting dynamic. She didnât have over-the-top resentment that a lot of characters in her position tend to have in todayâs media. She wasnât stoked about being the only âaverageâ member of her family, but she decided she would do the best with what she had. That kind of mindset is rarely seen in heroines, because most we see are created to be even more extraordinary than a typical hero to make sure no one can say this girl isnât the hero of the story. There was never any doubt who was going to be the hero of this story even though she had no abilities that anyone knew about.
The dynamic between Jess, Bells, and Emma was very fun to dig into as well. These are three friends who just function through their lives with each other. If one is involved the other two are just a given. Watching as that dynamic changed into one of a less codependent nature but still didnât change how intrinsically important they were to each other was fabulous. It was so true to real life (super powered shenanigans aside) that as the book progressed they each had different things that required their attention, like jobs and family and school projects, but at the end of the day they were still close and wanted to be around one another after the dust settled.
Now on to one of the unexpected but brightest spots of this book. My baby boy Bells Broussard. He is precious and deserves to get pampered every day and told how much he is loved. From when he was introduced he was a rather literal definition of a colorful character, with his hair and out-loud personality, but you could immediately see the depth under the fabulous hair. Then one line took him from the usual sidekick/comic relief character into a whole new dimension. Finding out he was a transman resulted in uncontrollable squealing and hand-flailing. The fact the reader has no idea that Bells is not a cis male from the beginning is something completely out of the norm. Usually a trans character is defined by that gender identity but he isnât at all! This is the kind of trans representation that has been so badly needed. I could go on for ages but Iâll save that for the sequel, but when we get there I make no promises!
I wonât say much on Abby as a character, which doesnât mean I didnât like her (quite the opposite actually), but I have a hard time discussing her without going into spoiler territory. I will say that the most refreshing aspect of her character was that she wasnât just the token love interest. She had an entire story and purpose and drive that had nothing to do with Jess. Even though her first mention was as Jessâ long time crush, the moment we actually meet her on the page she doesnât fit the mold of the bland love interest that is nothing but a pretty face for our heroine to ogle at. The romantic subplot was so well done and woven into the story that it flowed naturally and never took away from the actual plot. Iâm gonna wrap this up before I give myself any more chances to spoil this masterpiece of a book.
Something must also be said about the racial diversity in this book! Of the core group we meet, only one is Caucasian, which I have never seen in my life time of reading and it was awesome! Overall, this book and the world it brings you into through Jess, Bells, Abby, and Emma is so engaging that you donât want to leave when the book ends. It is a brilliant example of how you can have queer characters be the center of your story but not have it focus on that aspect of them. This story is about superheroes and villains and everything that comes with that. It just so happens to be happening to some awesome diverse queer teenagers. Â
Queer Wrap-up: This one wracked up quite the tally at the end of the day. We have the main character who is openly bisexual and pining after a cute volleyball player and her friends pick on her about it like you would expect in any other teen book. We also have my BABY BOY BELLS!! He is the best trans rep I have ever read! I literally tossed the book down to call my brother because I had to talk to him about this precious bean. This is also a case where I will count the love interest as an additional queer character cause Abby definitely qualifies, but again I am incapable of talking about her without spoilers, so if you want details then send me some asks. That is why this book not only gets a five unicorn rating but will also be the first inductee to the Sparkly Unicorn Hall of Gay.
Links:
C. B. Lee Website
Goodreads
Amazon
If you love superhero books and are looking for some queer rep wrapped up in excellent racial diversity and a truly enthralling world this is definitely the book for you. I will eventually be doing a review of the sequel Not Your Villain and will link it after itâs posted. If you guys want to discuss anything please donât hesitate to send me asks. As always if you want to read this but donât want spend the money without knowing for sure you are going to like it, go to your local library. Youâd be surprised what they have on their shelves just waiting to be discovered. Trust me, Iâm a lesbrarian.
I actually saw this book on the hold shelf at the library I work at and was drawn to the bright green cover. When I first picked it up I had no idea it was the sequel-ish book to Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda until I looked up the author and realized they were connected. Being my usual OCD self I had to read Simon first just in case I would miss something and I am so glad I did, because it did give some good insight into the characters that became the focus of this story. I do think it goes without saying though that if you have not read Simon there will be spoilers for it in this review as the two are very closely connected. You have been warned! Onward to the review!
Unicorn Rating:Â
Blurb: This book was a fun look into the life of a high school girl who acts like she has it all figured out but is actually as lost as the rest of us. Sometimes you just have to embrace the suck and not think so much! Leah is a dead-pan sarcastic genius that made me laugh through the entire book.
Disclaimer: I will try my best to not spoil anything from this book, but my book loving rambles may give more away than a traditional review. Here we go! Ramble time!
Review:
All I feel I need to say is I read this book in 3 hours. I picked it up planning to read a few chapters before I went to bed and next thing I knew I had finished it and it was 1 am. My exhausted self regretted it the next day but it was also so worth it. I was intrigued by the character of Leah when I read Simon but didnât know much about her outside of what Simon told me. This was a look inside her head that I couldnât get enough of, but before we dive into that letâs talk about the plot.
The plot here was very well woven and made it so I didnât have to read Simon to understand what was going on so it made since that this was called a companion book and not a direct sequel, even though chronologically it does take place during the groupâs senior year at Creekwood high. Things are very much the same as where we left off in Simon, Leah is rocking out in her girl band and dealing with being a senior in high school, but all is not exactly as we knew it from Simonâs POV. One of the biggest changes is now that we are seeing the story from Leahâs POV we know that she is bisexual and has been out to her mom for ages. This is a good segue into shining element of this book. The characters, oh boy!!
I donât know if I just related to her more but I loved Leah even more than I loved Simon, and that boy is precious! Leah was so relatable to me in the way she overthinks everything and ends up coming off as aloof and disinterested, but I loved how much deeper her thought process was. I also loved the dynamic between her and her mother. I have a similar relationship with my own mother and I have never really felt that represented in a story so this was refreshing. I know I must be sounding like a broken record at this point but I do want to point out how Leahâs sexuality was something figured out long before even Simonâs story in the first book. Does it inform on her decisions in this book? Of course, but it isnât about her being bisexual outside of the romantic aspect. The other part of Leahâs character I really liked was how she is a bigger girl and she doesnât let it hold her back from what she wants to do most of the time.
We do get the return of Simon and Braum, which are just the cutest couple it is honestly sickening (in a tooth rotting fluffy way). I am really glad we got to see that months after the first book ended they are still together and happy. It sends a really good message that young queer couples can be happy and that not all their stories end badly.
Now the rest of the cast is just as quirky and endearing as they were in Simon but we get to know a few of them a bit more, mainly Abby, who was someone we got to know through Simonâs story but seeing her through a different lens gives us even more. I donât want to say too much because of spoilers, but I was very pleased with the way her part in this story unfolded.
I probably connected to this story a bit better simply because I could understand and feel what Leah was going through more than Simon. I feel this book did an even better job of capturing what it feels like to be a queer teen in high school especially with knowing Simonâs story first. It shows that every experience really is different even within the community itself. For those wlw fans of Simon I wholeheartedly recommend this follow up that I devoured in record time even for me.
Queer Wrap-up: Okay so letâs break this down! We have our sarcastic bisexual lead, Leah, of course. I am tempted to count Abby because there really isnât a plot outside of the romance in this book, but since I did not count Blue/Braum in the first I will not count Abby here for fairness. Then we also have Simon and Braum back in all of their adorable cuteness. Just like with the first book we have a few throw away characters that are also hinted at being queer as well but those donât really count. So now the important question? Why did this book get five unicorns when Simon only received four? The main reason for it is that in Simonâs story he was the only character that the audience knew was queer, aside from Blue/Braum, but as stated in the review I donât count him. Now that we have read this story we know that for the entirety of Simonâs story Leah was also queer and Abby was at least questioning, but the audience did not know that so it felt like much more isolated queer rep, where this story felt a lot more true to life, because queer people tend to congregate together. That feeling is enough to earn the last unicorn in my book.
Links:
Becky Albertalliâs Website
Goodreads
Amazon
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda Review - Link Tumblr post
This story is one that I devoured and then went back to re-read certain parts that were favorites. If you have any questions or want to start a discussion about the book please send me an asks. Also I will eventually do a discussion post comparing the first book in the Creekwood universe to the movie. A lot of my opinions are also connected to this book as well so I will link that when I post it. As always if you want to read this but donât want spend the money without knowing for sure that you are going to like it, go to your local library. Youâd be surprised what they have on their shelves just waiting to be discovered. Trust me, Iâm a lesbrarian.
