Steffanie
Loved this book. I'm fairly educated about Queer history, being queer myself, and I still learned a lot from this book. I hadn't known about Elagabalus, Albert Cashier, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Eleanor Roosevelt, Josef Kohout, Mychal Judge and more. While the 3 to 4 page chapters made it easy to move along in the book, I wish there had been just a bit more information. A great starting point for those who are new to queer history!
Let's start this off with: I have never read a book worse than this one. I thought that the reviews I read must have been too harsh and that they had read too much into certain sections of the book. Sadly, I'm wrong. We Should Hang Out Sometime: Embarrassingly, a True Story is about Josh Sundquist's trouble with dating. He interviews past crushes and quasi-girlfriends to figure out why their relationships never got anywhere. Sounds interesting but creepy right?
Here are a few issues with this book.
1. “Ani DiFranco's songs, as it turns out, are best described as guitar picking played as background music while Ani, an angry, dreadlocked feminist lesbian, spouts diatribes against men. The music created that perfect mood of politically charged man-hating that I always go for on a first date. Ladies, if you're looking to start a date off right, you can't go wrong with Ani.”
2. “If I really want to find you on Facebook, no number of privacy settings is going to stop me. So it was with Francesca Marcelo. It required a lot of searching and no finding, and then searching for her friends and friends of friends from high school, friending them, then scrolling through their friends for the Fs. Eventually I found her: Francesca Marcelo.”
3. In a day dream, Josh says: ‘“Son, do you know how fast you were going?” the cop would say. I would set my jaw and look him squarely in the eye.
“With all due respect, sir,” I would say. “Right now I think my girlfriend needs my warm embrace more than the Commonwealth of Virginia needs my money.” The cop would see from my heroic expression that the only way to stop me would be to shoot me in the face. Then his hardened heart would melt in the light of my undying love.
“Follow me,” he'd say. He would get in his car and escort me with lights flashing and sirens blazing. We'd blow stop signs and traffic lights. When I got to Evelyn's driveway, I'd skid sideways, the back of my car whipping into her garage door and knocking it off its hinges so I could get inside faster. I'd run inside through the now open garage and find her curled up in bed, crying. At the sight of me, she would jump into my arms.'
REALLYYYYYYY?!
It took me a long time to finish this book. I have been obsessed with the story of Queen Anne Boleyn since I was around 10 years old. I know her story forwards and backwards and I thought I would enjoy this book regardless of that. There are portions that are really interesting and fast paced but the rest of it drags. I enjoyed Beware, Princess Elizabeth a lot more but perhaps that's because I didn't know her story quite as well as I know her mothers. I am reading them out of order but Mary, Bloody Mary is next on the list for me!
I can't even put into words how amazing this book is.
It's real. It's timely. It's necessary.
This book is going to be the book of the year. I can feel it. You start the story off with a young girl who is more or less timid and doesn't want to speak out about what happened and then you end with a young girl who is empowered and unafraid.
Everyone has their “passion book.” My coworkers passion book is The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. The Hate U Give is mine. I borrowed a copy from my work, the library, and I fully intend on buying a hardcover copy for my collection.
If you read one novel this year, read this one. It's Angie Thomas's debut and it's incredibly thought provoking.
P.s. Expect to cry. Multiple times.
All in all, a very good book. Some aspects hit too close to home, such as having a mother in jail/prison. The characters feelings and the way she processed information was pretty spot on to how some children react in these situations. I would have given it 5 stars if only the book had been a longer. I would have enjoyed seeing certain situations play out a little longer.
