non, je ne regrette rien

[muladhara]

I read a whole two books in less than a week! \o/

The first one was If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo, which is a nice straight forward story about a transgender teenage girl. I really liked it, and found it really readable. It's just a nice, hopeful story, and I really needed something like that right now.

(People complain about how idealised the situations are in the book but, to be honest, it came across to me exactly like the books I read as a teenager? Except that the female protagonist was trans instead of cis. But I actually think those people who complained wanted it to be about how angsty it is being transgender, and I'm glad this didn't go there).

The second one was Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard, which I've heard a lot about recently, presumably because the TV series based on the books has just finished. While I thought it was written OK, I found irritating because:

a) apparently I am supposed to feel sorry for these navel-gazing spoilt rich girls. I don't.
b) she was clearly intending to write a series from the beginning, and so nothing is resolved by the end of the first book and
c) it's essentially wish-fulfilment plus a book version of a soap opera and ugggghhhh. *rolls eyes*

I did like the way she wrote the relationship between Emily and Maya, though. That was about the only genuine feeling thing in the entire book.

I bought both of them on a whim as WH Smiths was having a three for two on YA fiction (I also picked up Fans of the Impossible Life, as I had been thinking about getting it for myself anyway. I then went back the following day and acquired three quarters of the Raven Cycle, which was all they had, and which mum paid for, which was nice of her).

~

I have not bought my copy of FFXII yet. I was going to go for the steelbook, but I think I won't, since the only difference between that and the ordinary copy (apart from the price) is the cover, and a download of the soundtrack.

~

I watched Inception again the other night, as it was on TV anyway, and I thought it'd be nicer to put the DVD on, since there would be no adverts.

I'm glad I still like it (because I do), though I wish I hadn't watched it, as I was in entirely the wrong frame of mind to deal with everything to do with Mal's suicide and also everything to do with Fischer and his dad. So, by the time it finished, I was essentially a sobbing nervous wreck, and I didn't think I'd be able to get to sleep (luckily, I was so knackered that I did).

I'm still sad that Saito doesn't get more to do, but that's probably just my Ken Watanabe bias talking... ;)

Comments

[collartheory]

My issue with most books(/other media) featuring LGBT+ representation in real world settings is that either a) everything is a colossal fucking downer and isn't worth reading in the slightest, or, less commonly (really, I mostly only see it in fanfiction), b) so idealized that it lies entirely outside my frame of reference, making it impossible for me to take seriously.

Like, I don't want to read something where a teenager comes out to their parents and is summarily thrown out/locked in/sent to some hell camp/potentially even killed (to serve as an Important Life Lesson for their luckier but oh-so-sad straight cisgender friend). I really don't need confirmation that I was/am right to lie constantly to my family and IRL friends about aspects of my identity. I already know the world is bullshit in myriad ways, and I feel like this stuff is just basically sadness porn for other people.

On the other hand, and proving that I'm just a giant asshole for whom nothing can ever be good enough, I don't feel like reading something where everyone in someone's social circle (parents, friends, coworkers/fellow students/grandmas/whatever) is instantly supportive. Because then I just feel this blend of broken immersion and outright resentment. But I'm at least more forgiving of this sort of thing existing, because I think younger people especially need something hopeful and positive to counter what most of the world (and their own internal sense of self-preservation) is telling them about what will happen if they ever come out.

Less seriously, I have some really embarrassing memories of nightmarishly saccharine longform fics with summary descriptors like yaoi/don't like, don't read/includes lemons, which, in retrospect, were essentially high school AU coming-out-stories with genre romance novel plots. A part of me wants very badly to try and search out this one "Akuroku" (*screams internally*) fic that I followed for like, two years, and lord I'm ignoring that voice.

I'd rather read and write stories with LGBT+ representative characters in speculative settings, because at least then there's no reason to even expect that this stuff would be an issue.

[muladhara]

I completely agree with all of your first three paragraphs, which is why this book came as a relief to me (though obviously I realise that not everyone is going to feel the same). Like I said, it is idealised to some degree (e.g. friends are supportive no matter what), but it's not like a perfect walk in the park, and it's not hyper idealised like that one David Leviathan book I tried to read that I ended up throwing on the floor because it just threw me as being far too perfect.

I'd rather read and write stories with LGBT+ representative characters in speculative settings, because at least then there's no reason to even expect that this stuff would be an issue.

I totally get that.