Tag Archives: Books

Book Review – All Boys Aren’t Blue

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QUICK TAKE: This book is great and I wish I read it in high school. Hearing one story after another about a fledgling gay, surviving in the closet during his teenage years, and coming out of the closet during his college years would’ve helped me feel less alone during those times.

George M. Johnson classifies this book as a memoir-manifesto and he uses that broad genre to work out a variety of life events – being queer and being Black – but also dealing with family, community, self-discovery, shame, trauma, personal growth, and advocacy. 

The focus on advocacy tied it all together for me. Johnson wanted to create something for kids to find, so they can learn and connect from his experiences and know that being queer and being Black are not things to hide away.

“Oddly enough, many of us connect with each other through trauma and pain: broken people finding other broken people in the hopes of fixing one another.”

What ended up happening instead was parents across the United States found the book and started banning All Boys Aren’t Blue from school libraries. This ended up being quite the story, skyrocketing the book’s popularity. That’s when I came across it – from seeing all the commotion on #booktwitter.

When I was a teenager in the early 2000s, I read strangers’ blogs who were dealing with the same things as me, the same things the target audience in this book deal with today. Light themes like – facing the terror that you are going to die because you’re gay – by disease, by someone else’s hands, or by your own hands. Hearing others’ stories about things you are dealing with helps you feel connected and supported. When you feel that you are dealing with something all on your own, being able to see how someone else navigated the same things is powerful. And now, 20 years later, having a book published with these stories is still found controversial, it’s shocking. 

The greatest tool you have in fighting the oppression of your Blackness and queerness and anything else within your identity is to be fully educated on it.

If you are a teenager who is seeking connection and wanting to hear an interesting story about Johnson’s journey, pick up this book. If you are beyond those years, do what you can to amplify the message so someone who needs to hear these stories can find it or contribute to a cause that can do that for you.

Support trans kids: crooked.com/tent

Book Review – Tellermoon

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For a genre that I watch a lot more of than I read (I think this was actually my first book like this to read), I was just as captivated in Tellermoon as if I were watching it on tv.

There were a lot of elements that seemed familiar. The combination of the complex characters and political story lines from Battlestar Galactica, mixed with a young-crew-in-training-having-to-take-control like Starship Troopers, and layered on top of it a manipulative, self-serving evil corporation manipulating everything in the background a la Dune – is where I found myself with Tellermoon. 

Lee added his own special element to the combination by making the characters feel like real people. In addition to dealing with all the ‘space stuff,’ the crew of the Tellermoon was constantly checking their social media feeds, navigating calculating parents, getting annoyed when the wifi wasn’t working, and wondering if that boy (or alien) likes them. 

For book club, there’s a ton to unpack. Political power grabs, conspiracy theorists, imposter syndrome, and tensions between Earthlings and Thorins gives you plenty of fodder for discussion.  

Tellermoon was a quick read that pulled me in, kept me interested and left me wanting more adventures (which I hear there are more to come). The characters were fun, the story was punchy, and it made me think about how I would react if my spaceship was under attack (spoiler: probably not as well as these folks did).  

I recommend. Go buy it here!

Book Review – Wanderers

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Wanderers by Chuck Wendig

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’m a bit late to the party with Wanderers. I came across it mid-2021 and it sat at the bottom of my to-read pile for six months. Whether it was the 780 pages that put me off, or the real-world weariness of reading something about a global pandemic, who’s to say, but I would recommend anyone who is on the fence about this book to dive in.

I found Wanderers incredibly fun to read – especially if you enjoy books in the Stephen King or Michael Crichton genres. Its story is fast-paced and the chapters are short, making it a quick read in spite of its girth. It’s the science, mixed with the fiction, that makes this brand of horror even scarier – you could believe this could happen.

But, if you’re concerned, this book won’t trigger any PTSD from the current coronavirus pandemic; even though, almost prophetically, that word does pop up in a scene at the CDC headquarters. Given this was written in 2019, it makes it even more chilling.

Initially, reading the back cover, I was a little turned off by the character descriptions. “A decadent rocker, religious radio host, and a teenage girl”…pass. Almost immediately though, I found all of the characters compelling, and even likable, in each of their own, flawed, ways. Two pivotal characters missing from the cover description are Benji, the disgraced former CDC director, and Black Swan, the sentient computer. Their addition, along with the sadistic junkyard owner (who definitely would have stormed the Capital in real life) and former cop with a metal plate in her head, improve the story rather than distract from it. I never found myself wanting to get through one’s storyline faster to get to another. They each offered something thought provoking – whether it being true to yourself, questioning your beliefs, healing from trauma, or doing what you think is right for the greater good at extreme cost.

At this point in our own pandemic, you’ll be able to relate to society’s collapse. You’ll recognize the polarizing responses people have during crisis and uncertainty. You’ll be able to picture the decadent rocker, hear the religious radio host, and feel for the teenage girl.

Wanderers packs a lot in and leaves you wanting more. Thankfully, the end of the book tosses in a few major twists and sets things up nicely for a sequel (cue Wayward, which comes out in August 2022

I’d recommend this book.




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Book Review- Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

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Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Cultish is a book about the language used by people and on people in cults. It was an easy read and opened my eyes to a lot of moments in life, that upon more careful observation could be deemed very suspicious.

The book is organized into six parts. The first gives an introduction into the concept of language and the how and the why certain words and turns of speech are used to lure people into feeling accepted by groups. Parts two and three expand on cultish organizations that center around making you feel like you can ascend to another level above humanity and how language is manipulated – especially by the likes of Scientology and other pseudo-religious organizations. There were a lot of things I had already come across in podcasts and documentaries, but it would probably be amiss to write a book on cults and omit some of the most glaring examples. I did take away some elements of Heavens Gate and Scientology that I had never heard.

The second half of the book was the most interesting to me. It focuses on multi-layer marketing and how that has evolved from Tupperware parties to stay-at-home moms wanting to sell leggings. It segues into how religion is being replaced by cultish fitness clubs and how cults can thrive in the realm of social media. I enjoyed this because I could relate to it the most. It basically says as much with statements like, “The audience to which ‘cult fitness’ primarily caters– urban dwelling millennials with income to spare – overlaps quite precisely with the contingency that has renounced traditional religion.” I’ve seen the #bossbabes in my social feeds and have seen how certain ‘influencers’ can hijack someone’s beliefs.

The examples provided throughout the entire book were interesting and easy to understand. The one thing I didn’t like (and is a personal pet peeve) occurred mostly in the beginning of the book. There was a lot of content briefly mentioned and then hinted that it would be followed up later in the book. More on that in chapter 5, but you’ll hear more about that when I talk about X, which we’ll get into later, etc etc. This popped up a lot in the front half almost to the point of being distracting.

There was a lot to take away from this book, especially in the second half. It got me thinking how many times I’ve brushed up against cult-like organizations – or even how non-cult organizations that utilize the same linguistic tricks- and managed to come out unscathed (Texas A&M University, Landmark Worldwide, Barrys Bootcamp, even the gay community to some extent). My takeaway from this book is that language is incredibly powerful and can be manipulated if you’re not paying attention.

I’d recommend this book.



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