Books I Liked: 2021 Edition

Ok, so, I missed making a list last year, but I'm back to it again now. This list, as ever, is not necessarily of books or collections that were published in the year, but are among what I actually read during the year, keeping in mind my to-read reach will forever exceed the number of hours in my days.

This year was spectacularly awful in so many ways, both personally and globally, but, as ever, books have helped guide, distract, amuse, centre and engage me, pulling me out of myself when I need it most, and encouraging me to reflect in ways large and small. I hope you've found ones to do the same for you.

First on my otherwise in no order list this year is One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston. This was a brilliant, creative, sexy, funny and an all-around queer must-read. I won't go into more detail here, but if you liked McQuiston's debut Red, White & Royal Blue, you will love One Last Stop. It is more queer, more diverse, more class aware, and, despite also being speculative fiction involving psychics and time travel, more deeply real.

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas (technically YA, but brilliant for any age) not only tells a captivating and exciting story, but has fierce, complex and engaging trans and queer main characters and one of the best examples I can recall of interplay between two languages, in this case Spanish and American English. River of Teeth, a novella by Sarah Gailey, is not only highly creative but will make you care deeply about its entire cast of characters very quickly. I'm listing it here with the caveat that it has an abrupt ending, but the fact that it's labelled "#1" gives me hope there will be a follow-up to take us on more of the characters' journey after the central adventure of the novella has ended. 

Dearest Milton James, a romance across two eras, wrapped in sweet humour and a fundamental understanding of queer history) by Australian author N.R. Walker also stood out for me this year in fiction, as did TJ Klune's House in the Cerulean Sea, which my entire family has been recommending to anyone who will listen ever since each of us read it. 

This year, I tore through all three books (a fourth came out in December and I have it on order already) in the queer, historical urban fantasy Magic in Manhattan series by Allie Thieren. The series came recommended by my good friend Kathleen, to whom I am forever grateful. I equally enjoyed reading further this year in the fabulous Whyborne & Griffin series, by Jordan L. Hawk, in the same genre.

My favourite delayed read this year was Christian Baines' Puppet Boy, which I finally got to, having somehow previously omitted it while reading the rest of Christian's books ages ago. Puppet Boy reads like a far more insightful, keenly intelligent and more richly layered When Everything Feels Like the Movies. Do not skip this book.

I read two classics, in particular, this year that will stay with me for all eter nity and that I think should both be taught in school (perhaps replacing some other "classics"): the 1956 novel of bisexuality and exported Americana Giovanni's Room by the iconic James Baldwin, and Parable of the Sower, the first in the dystopic Earthseed series by brilliant and heraldic science fiction author Octavia E. Butler. I remain deeply resentful of myself and of the social constructs that lead me to be well into my 40s by the time I read either of these authors. Do not make the same mistakes I did.

My absolute favourite poetry of the year has been Pebble Swing, by Isabella Wang. Her talent is spectacular, and that she has such a wise and insightful approach to language and life at such a young age is practically alarming. Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers' Poetry (eds. Amber Dawn and Justin Ducharmes) I actually read and reviewed for Arc Poetry Magazine last year, but it deserves to be on one of these lists. It's an excellent poetry collection from voices we don't usually hear from, but should. David Ly's queer, speculative poetry collection Mythical Man was a stand-out for me as well, with its somehow both economical and ornate use of language, and its magical allegories of queerness and being via a world of mystery and monsters.

In graphic novels, I loved the latest trade in the Monstress series by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda, which only gets more interesting as it goes on. Due to shipping and retailer issues, I have not read the latest trade yet. I've been doing my best to avoid all spoilers as a result, which sometimes means fleeing Twitter at the drop of a reference. I have to say, only slightly begrudgingly, that I was also honestly impressed by the Pride collections that both DC and Marvel put out this year. There is so far to go still, but the big houses have certainly come a long way. 

Lastly, I want to mention a book I've started reading but haven't finished yet, since I just received it for Christmas. Bi the Way: The Bisexual Guide to Life, by UK bi+ rights advocate Lo Shearing, receives a mention because I've been looking forward to it since I heard Shearing was working on it, and not only because they quote me in it (it's admittedly a rather depressing quote; but the book as a whole looks extremely inspiring, combining honest assessment of a world full of biphobia and erasure, with a sense of celebration and hope).

 

All these entries are tips of reading and genre icebergs, and though I don't tally my reads, I read way more this year, and enjoyed far more books and stories, than I've listed here. My apologies to everyone whose work moved me but that my end-of-year brain won't let me recall right now. Please all feel free to comment with books you've read this year and recommend, too.

Things I Like Part 1: Comic Arts

I've been wondering how to do some good with my blog instead of only using it to toot my own horn (although I'll keep doing that too, because self-promotion is hugely important for small-press writers, since we don't have a lot of others to lean on that horn for us).

But, I also want to tell you about some of the best things I've recently encountered across the arts and entertainment worlds. Let's start with some of the best comic books, series and collections I've come across over the last year or two. I'm definitely no expert in this field, and really only came to graphic novels a few years ago, but following are some amazing things I think others might enjoy reading, too.

Because being bi keeps me particularly aware that solid LGBTQ2+ representation is still a rarity in nearly all art forms, all content recommended below is either LGBTQ2-themed, -inclusive, or, at the very minimum, -friendly.

If you have your own recommendations, please share them in a comment!

The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal (NSFW)
Available as an e-comic and graphic novel, primarily black and white with painted, full-colour splash pages
By E.K. Weaver

The staff at Argo Books in Montreal turned me onto this book, and I fell deeply in love, as, not surprisingly, do TJ and Amal.

A cross-US tale of travel, love, discovery, deceit and growth, it's like On The Road, but with a point (don't @ me; you know it's true).

The omnibus edition includes a number of extras, including some fantastic footnotes.

However you read this collection, the comic includes smart dialogue, great bi rep, class commentary, pop culture references up the wazoo, gorgeously rendered scenery, and sex scenes that manage to be sexy and beautiful while also reflecting both characters' deep insecurities.





Monstress 
Graphic novel series and collected editions, colour
By Marjorie Liu and Sana Tanaka

If you can stop ogling the individual artworks that make up this magnificently imagined series on ancient politics, feline poets, and interspecies wars, you will find yourself in a world where no one trusts anyone, and the story's hero certainly cannot trust herself. That's because Maika Halfwolf, a stunning, one-armed warrior, shares her body with the soul of an ancient, demonic monster with its own agenda and a hunger for human flesh.

Be patient through the first several issues' focus on building the series' elaborate world of Arcanics, Monstrums, cats and Cumaeans; it is very worth it to keep going.

This series is beyond brilliant in creating a world where everything is everything, and nothing is what it seems. Also contains excellent disability rep, and powerful women throughout.




Starfighter (NSFW)
Erotic M/M space epic e-comic, also available in print issues, black and white
By HamletMachine

Hot, exciting fun (CW: emotional abuse and domination at the start, however crucial for the plot and characterization). This engaging sci-fi story about space-based fighter pilots in the future battling intergalactic enemies and unknown beings, also delves into the deceptions among the many political layers above and around them.

The black and white art is stark yet nuanced, as, it turns out, are the characters, and improves significantly as the series evolves. An ongoing web series, Starfighter includes intriguing, if not entirely new, ideas about the possible connections between matter, energy, intellect and emotion, as our hero, Abel, learns he can use his more positive emotions in a new and powerful way, even as those in control sink lower and lower as they try to weaponize him.

Above all, this sci-fi adventure mystery is sexy and fun in a Matrix-but-with-plenty-of-gay-sex kind of way. Has some non-binary minor characters, and excellent building of backstories.


Novae: The Necromancer and the Astronomer's Apprentice
Historical M/M fantasy e-comic, colour
By KaiJu

I am a sucker for beauty, and this ongoing e-comic has it in spades, in its characters, its full-colour artwork, and its slow-burn romance.

The historical fantasy connects Raziol, a brilliant, young 17th-century Arab astronomer lauded by his kind mentor but struggling under classism and racism in Paris, with Sulvain, a brilliant necromancer of enormous, unknown age reticent, after loss, to open himself up to love again.

Updated Mondays and Thursdays, the series is just reaching its stride recently, as we learn there may be more to both Sulvain and the streets of Paris than to all the stars in the sky.

Main character bi representation and carefully conveyed emotional subtleties.



Step Aside, Pops
The third collection of Hark! A Vagrant comic strips
By Kate Beaton

Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant witty, esoteric comic strips have been collected into three books so far. This third continues to combine her deceptively simple drawing style with scathing social, scientific and cultural commentary.

Not everything in the collection will appeal to all readers, as Beaton narrows in to deliver burns to some very specific recipients, including composers, thinkers, scientists, politicians, explorers, superheroes and more.

But, if you are a person and are interested in, well, anything, you'll find sets of strips here to make you laugh, chortle, roll your eyes and/or holler "Damn right!. You tell him where to go!"



Scooby-Doo
By various writers and illustrators

My kid continues to love Scooby-Doo comics, including Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? and Scooby-Doo Team-Up, and I have to admit, even for adults, these are just so much fun.

I'm not linking to these, though, because you should really head out and support your local comic book retailer if you can!

If you can't, don't forget that most libraries already carry, or will appreciate your recommendations to order, a variety of graphic novels and comic books.








More Novel, Graphic Recommendations
If you want to know about other great graphic novels and series more broadly across the genre, or be warned away from some of the lesser or evil, visit my partner James K. Moran's blog, where he reviews comics, films and fiction, and talks about the writing life. You'll find he's quite smart, despite having married a fellow writer.