Queer Girl Book Club: Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

November 17, 2021 Kelli, Mary, and Emily

Emily: Welcome to another edition of Queer Girl Book Club, which is now past its inaugural stages and is in full swing. We’ve read some great books, we’ve read some okay books, and we’ve read some really bad ones. So where does our latest one fall on the scale? This time, we’re discussing Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca. It’s a novella written all through e-mails and instant messages between two women who enter into a BSDM relationship with each other that’s entirely virtual. Agnes meets Zoe when she’s trying to sell her apple peeler on a queer message board. Agnes seems desperate to find connection, and Zoe… well, her motivations are a little less clear and something I think we should discuss. We also have a guest with us this time! So welcome Mary! What made you want to join Queer Girl Book Club for this particular book?

Mary: When you mentioned that y’all were reading this book, I knew I had to force my way into the discussion because I’ve been wanting to read it for a long time. I keep seeing posts on BookTok about it, and a lot of book influencers have talked about how shocking and horrific it is. Nothing gets me hooked more than something people are disgusted by–I just have to know what’s up. Also, I love an epistolary novel; the constraint required makes for a more interesting story, sometimes. I’m not ashamed to say I read this one in one sitting!

Emily: Well, this is interesting because I know Kelli hates epistolary novels so maybe we should start there and let y’all duke it out. Did this form work? What sort of constraints does this form put on the story, if any?

I should also say… spoilers to follow!

Horror, Empathy, and Faith in Mike Flanagan's Midnight Mass

November 10, 2021 Kelli

If you are a regular listener to our podcast you probably know that BSG stans Mike Flanagan. We are #FlanaganHive. Just check out our episodes on The Haunting of Bly Manor and Doctor Sleep if you don’t believe me. Anyway, knowing this, you might have been wondering if we were going to talk about Midnight Mass. Herein lies your answer: I, Kelli, am going to be talking about Midnight Mass all by myself, because it’s November already and I can no longer wait for the other members of this operation to catch up with me. I watched this show the weekend it came out, and I have been thinking about it ever since.

(Very minor spoilers to follow)

Return of Todd's Fantasy Series Corner: Part 3

November 7, 2021 Todd Osborne

It has been a minute since we last talked fantasy, hasn’t it? Well, I have returned to talk all things fantasy, SF, and anything else I feel like talking about.

First: a quick rundown of series that I have already touched on: I finished Oathbringer, the 3rd book in Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive, and while I still enjoyed it, it did have the feeling of a middle act kind of book. The characters were a little more dour, a little less self-confident, but the book still had its hooks in me and I am excited to pick up Rhythms of War soon! Mary and I also recently got the first 3 Mistborn books, so I am looking forward to digging into some earlier Sanderson soon as well.

YA Book Club: Mercury Boys

October 30, 2021 Mary & Emily

Come travel back in time with YA Book Club as we discuss Mercury Boys by Chandra Prasad. The book follows Saskia, who just moved to a new state with her dad and is settling into a new school. She reflects that she hasn’t really had many genuine friends during her life, and she’s excited to become close with Lila, who seems very cool and level headed IMO. Lila works at a college library, where she has access to all sorts of archival daguerreotypes.

Dune Was Fine

October 27, 2021 Mary

I watched the new Dune adaptation, directed by Denis Villeneuve. It was fine. This isn’t as much of a review as it is me trying to unpack what I like about Dune, both as a novel and a film. I’ll say up front that if you like sci-fi at all, you might as well go see Dune, or at least watch it on HBO Max at home. However, it wasn’t quite what I wanted it to be.

The Wild Ride of The Way Down

October 20, 2021 Susan

The culty content keeps coming with HBO's The Way Down: God, Greed and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin, a new docuseries that investigates the Remnant Fellowship Church in Brentwood, Tennessee, and its strange leader. The "church" evolves from a weight loss-focused workshop to an evangelical Christian spinoff to an full-fledged cult. The Way Down traces the rise and fall of Gwen Shamblin, the cult's body-obsessed leader, as she transforms Remnant Fellowship into the dangerous high-control group that it still is today. Some spoilers for The Way Down to follow.

Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman...

October 13, 2021 Kelli & Mary

Mary: Hello and welcome to HALLOWEEN SEASON, the most marvelous time of the year. Kelli I saw Candyman, the 2021 film directed by Nia DaCosta, and here we are to talk about it.

I’ll go ahead and say, as we have said on the podcast many times, we are just white women trying to be good allies, but please take our conversation with a healthy dose of salt. Obviously we should always listen to BIPOC communities on issues concerning race FIRST. With that out of the way, let’s talk Candyman.

Do you hate bees more or less after this film?

(Spoilers for Candyman to follow)

Queer Girl Book Club: You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat

October 6, 2021 Kelli & Emily

Kelli: Hello and welcome back to Queer Girl Book Club! I’m your host, Kelli. Just kidding, this is a blog post.

This month we’re talking about You Exist Too Much, the debut novel by Zaina Arafat. The story follows a Palestinian-American young woman as she navigates her twenties. Our narrator is never named, which I only noticed about halfway through the book. I thought to myself, ‘what’s her name again?’ and then flipped through for a while before I realized she didn’t have one. I was surprised, I guess because I felt like I knew her so well already. So I guess a good way to start this discussion is to ask: how did you feel about the narrator?

(Spoilers to follow)

This Is A Negative Review Of The Film Annette

September 18, 2021 Kelli

Not pictured: Baby Fucking Annette (images via Amazon Studios) — Not pictured: Baby Fucking Annette (*images via Amazon Studios*)

You may have first heard about the film Annette during the surge of headlines coming out of the Cannes film festival, which were most commonly some variation of “Annette: The New Musical Where Adam Driver Sings While Performing Oral Sex on Marion Cotillard.” I understand that this is a huge selling point for many people, but the focus on this scene has left a lot of people in the dark re: the actual facts of this motion picture, like the part where the titular Annette is an infant played by the scariest puppet you will ever lay eyes on. This review is not a part of BSG’s annual series of horror films leading up to Halloween, but reader, it might as well be.

Annette is the latest from director Leos Carax, and has been receiving rave reviews from critics and cinephiles alike. I’m actually surprised that it isn’t more divisive, given how utterly bizarre it is, but the film stands at a respectable 75% on Rotten Tomatoes. As one of Annette’s brave detractors, I know that I will be taking some heat for my open disdain, but I will tell you this: one of my closest friends has already accused me of disliking the film because I am jealous of Baby Annette’s success as a child star—a success I never managed to achieve despite my best efforts and years of voice lessons—so please take this entire review with a grain of salt. As it stands, I am a little bit jealous of Baby Annette.

Punch Up your TBR with These Fists Break Bricks

September 13, 2021 Mary

These Fists Break Bricks, the new nonfiction title from Grady Hendrix and Chris Poggiali, does more than talk about the rise of kung fu in pop culture. Instead of portraying the martial arts genre as something foreign to American readers, Hendrix and Poggiali posit that kung fu–and by extension the myriad films that spawned from the nation’s fascination with it–has a complex history that weaves martial arts from countries like China, Japan, and Korea with the desperate yearning of the American dream.

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