Queer Girl Book Club: Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers

June 1, 2021 Kelli & Emily

Kelli: Welcome back to Queer Girl Book Club! This time we read Honey Girl, the debut novel from author Morgan Rogers.

Honey Girl follows Grace, a newly-minted doctor of astronomy who is unsure about her next steps in life after spending eleven years working towards accomplishing this goal. On a vacation to Las Vegas, she meets Yuki, a New Yorker, and they drunkenly get married that night. Grace decides that instead of heading straight for the career path she's been planning, she'll spend the summer in New York getting to know Yuki and avoiding reality.

Emily, I'm going to get this out of the way now: we both really wanted to like this book, and neither of us did.

Emily: Right. So you know, maybe just for the fun of it, before we talk about the myriad of reasons this book didn't work for us, should we maybe say a few things about what did work and why we were interested in reading it in the first place?

Kelli: Sure! Obviously, this is Queer Girl Book Club, and for me, the main draw here was the lesbian romance.

Emily: Yes, clearly part of the draw was lesbians.

Othersode #54: I Totally Had Sex: A Hatepisode / Ready Player 2

May 31, 2021 The Squad

Click through for summary, table of contents, and show notes!

YA Book Club: Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O'Neal

May 22, 2021 Mary & Emily

Hello and welcome to Bellows, Pennsylvania.

Mary: Welcome and helloooooo! This time on YA Book Club we’re talking about Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O’Neal. The novel follows Priya, a young med school student who has to take a break from school after contracting Lyme disease. While staying with her parents, Priya makes several friends online via Tumblr, and they form a support group for people with chronic illnesses. Her best friend out of the group, Brigid, is reluctant to talk about her chronic illness. As Priya and Brigid grow closer, they learn more about each other and explore what it means to be chronically ill in a world that doesn’t really accomodate for that. From here on out, there will be spoilers!

Now, Pose: Aesthetics and Masculinity in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

May 20, 2021 Mary

I recently jumped into Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, an anime I’ve heard about for a long time but had never given a chance. I knew two things about it going in.

First, it’s an action show in the tradition of Shonen Jump manga. Most episodes feature elaborate fights and lots of screaming and naming of one’s attacks. Secondly, I knew that the internet deemed many of the characters of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure queer icons with audacious fashion taste. I had to watch it.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure does a few things very well, but it has a ways to go in a couple of areas. I’m going to break it down in this handy dandy list of things you need to know about, what else, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.

BSG #54: The Twist is Misogyny / Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 / Interview w/ Ethel Rohan

May 17, 2021 The Squad

Click through for summary, table of contents, and show notes!

Fatshaming in Video Games is Boring

May 10, 2021 Mary

I felt really excited for Resident Evil 8, the follow up to Capcom’s 2017 Resident Evil 7. It’s the first time in a long time that a Resident Evil game has built on the story of its predecessor, and I was curious to see where the story could go. I was also extremely excited, like the rest of the world, to meet Lady Dimitrescu, the 9 foot tall vampire lady that every ad seemed to showcase. I even wrote about her for work. No regrets there.

Purrfect Date: Finally A Dating Sim for Cat Lovers

May 5, 2021 Emily

I am not what one would call a gamer. Or at least I don’t think so. I play video games from time to time, but they’re not the kinds of games that the gamer gatekeepers would call “real games.” More than anything, I enjoy a nice session of The Sims 4. Sometimes I hop on to Animal Crossing to dig up a few fossils, buy a new outfit, and do a little fishing. And yes, I love a good dating sim game. So when I, a cat lover, heard that there was a dating sim called Purrfect Date where you got to go on dates with cats? Yeah, I had to check it out.

I don’t know what you think when you hear “cat dating sim,” but I certainly had some ideas about how this was going to go. And well… I was wrong.