#Carolina de Robertis

[haveyoureadthisqueerbook]

[lgbtqreads]

Fave Five: Queer Adult Fiction Set in South America

Cantoras by Carolina de Robertis (Uruguay) Brickmakers by Selva Almada (Argentina) The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel (Brazil) Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk (Argentina) Undiscovered by Gabriela Wiener (Peru) Bonus: While a fantasy novel, The Sun and the Void by Gabriela Romero Lacruz is set in a Venezuelan- and Colombian-inspired world.

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

The Gods of Tango by Carolina De Robertis

goodreads

February 1913: seventeen-year-old Leda, carrying only a small trunk and her father’s cherished violin, leaves her Italian village for a new home, and a new husband, in Argentina. Arriving in Buenos Aires, she discovers that he has been killed, but she remains: living in a tenement, without friends or family, on the brink of destitution. Still, she is seduced by the music that underscores life in the city: tango, born from lower-class immigrant voices, now the illicit, scandalous dance of brothels and cabarets. Leda eventually acts on a long-held desire to master the violin, knowing that she can never play in public as a woman. She cuts off her hair, binds her breasts, and becomes “Dante,” a young man who joins a troupe of tango musicians bent on conquering the salons of high society. Now, gradually, the lines between Leda and Dante begin to blur, and feelings that she has long kept suppressed reveal themselves, jeopardizing not only her musical career, but her life

Mod opinion: I haven't read this book before and personally I'm not interested, but this might be an interesting narrative about someone figuring out his gender if you enjoy historical fiction more than I do.

[smalltownfae]

Any recommendations for authors with a beautiful writing style that will make me feel emotional? I mean something like Robin Hobb (or even Juliet Marillier and Patricia A. McKillip). Some classic literature also have it because they used to be very dramatic with their feelings. That's what I want.

I appreciate some quotes as examples just so I can check if it's the kind of writing I am looking for.

Authors I have on the list to try already: Dorothy Dunnet, Mary Renault, Hilary Mantel, Sharon Kay Penman, Carolina de Robertis

Some examples of what I am looking for:

"The knowledge that he had left me with no intent ever to return had come over me in tiny droplets of realization spread over the years. And each droplet of comprehension brought its own small measure of hurt...He had wished me well in finding my own fate to follow, and I never doubted his sincerity. But it had taken me years to accept that his absence in my life was a deliberate finality, an act he had chosen, a thing completed even as some part of my soul still dangled, waiting for his return." (Fool's Assassin by Robin Hobb)

"I did not want to think about people. I wanted the trees, the scents and colors, the shifting shadows of the wood, which spoke a language I understood. I wished I could simply disappear in it, live like a bird or a fox through the winter, and leave the things I had glimpsed to resolve themselves without me." (Winter Rose by Patricia A. McKillip)

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can." (Moby Dick by Herman Melville)

[mccoppinscrapyard]

Cantoras by Caro De Robertis

"She looked out at the landscape, now cloaked in the last dregs of twilight. A beauty she could never get used to, never wanted to get used to, though she longed to know it in every light and mood."

[a-funky-harpist]

Books i've read this summer (2023) so far (gonna reblog with additions)

Gods of Tango by Carolina de Robertis

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/10

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟/10

Nobody writes back by jang eun-jin

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/10

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/10

Hen by Ilona Wiśniewska (a book only available in Polish)

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐½/10

[casualscribbler]

just finished Cantoras by Carolina de Robertis and holy shit

an absolutely fucking dazzling portrayal of queerness and women and the art of making your own family and the ability for them to exist even under the most intense political oppressions and more personal oppressions too.

spoiler below the break

malena’s death broke me, i mean truly chewed me up and spat me out. it really felt like it torn open my heart and has left all the nerves exposed and i think she’s going to be a character that stays with me for a long long time

[theloverspeaks]

the president and the frog (pub. 2021) carolina de robertis

[hiphuman2020]

The President and the Frog is neither a fable nor a parable. Carolina de Robertis’ tale is spun from a source of earth wisdom and humility that seems uniquely gifted to South American writers, García Márquez, Fuentes and Allende come to mind.

Known as “the Poorest President in the World,” he’s preparing for an interview, reviewing his experiences both as president and his time before in the dungeon prison he shared with a frog. When the Norwegian journalist arrives, he’s not sure he should mention the frog. No longer president, he’s happy to spend most of his time at his humble home on the edge of the capital enjoying his garden and…

[stinkybreath]

“There was no Polonio anywhere but Uruguay. Suddenly she ached for her small, drab country. Sullen country. Broken country. Land of the tired. Land of cold ocean, of hidden shores, of a flat muddy river stretching to the lip of the sky.”

Cantoras, by Carolina De Robertis

[veterveter]

I, too, was drunk when I reblogged the Berlermo post, so kindred spirits ✌️ we deserved a better spinoff

Hahahahaha I love that!! Kindred spirits 🥺❤️ Drunk Berlermo posting dream team.

And ugh, yes, there was so much potential for interesting, thoughtful stories being told (not to mention, ones that could've been more in tune with the persistent melancholia of the main show), and instead we get-- that.

And since you mentioned this, I simply have to share with you a story from that night. A bit of rabid madness, if you will.

So imagine this, right: I'm at the club with a friend, talking to some guy I don't know. This must've been around 3, 4 AM (for timeline reasons that's four, five hours after my drunk posting on tumblr). We talk books or whatever, and he asks me what I'm reading.

"The Dangers of Smoking in Bed," I tell him, "Argentinian horror stories. I'm going through an Argentina hyperfixation."

"Why Argentina?" he asks me.

I flick my wrist to show him my watch, or more specifically, to show him the Berlermo picture I keep as the watch face.

"The guy on the left? He's Argentinian," I explain, not actually explaining a thing.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a man so earnestly confused. Guess the takeaway is that I wasn't only drunk Berlermo posting on tumblr, but also at the club. :D

Here's a starter pack (feat. my darling @buttercuq, who gave me the watch)

[read-alert]

This does come with the caveat that I can't quite remember if the characters in How to Find a Princess, Funeral Songs for Dying Girls, and Chain-Gang All-Stars identity specifically as lesbians or not, but they are all sapphic. Full titles under the cut!

EDIT: Apparently Alice Walker is a big proponent of a famous antisemitic conspiracy theorist, David Icke, so be aware of that when considering The Color Purple

Happy Lesbian Visibility Week! 📚📖🏳️‍🌈

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole

Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

[lesbian-books]

Lesbian Historical Fiction

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Victorian England, 1860s. A con artist hires a London pickpocket to help him obtain the fortune of a naïve heiress.

Beyond the Screen Door by Julia Diana Robertson

Washington, USA, 1945. Two best friends grow up together and start to fall in love. One of them can see ghosts, but this is not a scary book.

Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis

Uruguay, 1977. During the military dictatorship, homosexual people were persecuted, imprisoned, and tortured. Five women (three lesbians and two bisexuals) manage to find each other and cultivate a friendship that will last for decades.

Club Storyville by Riley LaShea

Virginia, USA, 1944. A girl raised to be a “proper lady” falls in love with a nurse who comes to care for her sick grandmother.

Belladonna by Anbara Salam

Italy, 1950s. An insecure teenage girl develops a toxic obsession with her beautiful and popular best friend. As the girls graduate high school and attend an art school, their relationship becomes complicated by sexual lust and secrecy.

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

Virginia, USA, 1959. Sarah is one of the first black students to attend her previously all-white high school. She becomes acquainted with a white student named Linda, whose father is a major opponent of desegregation.

Shaken to the Core by Jae

California, USA, 1906. Giuliana, a working class Sicilian immigrant woman, goes to work as a maid for a rich American family. The daughter of the family, Kate, is expected to marry a rich man and have children, but Kate wants to be financially independent and be with a woman. This book is set in the time period of the real life 1906 San Francisco earthquake, one of the deadliest natural disasters in U.S. history, which killed over 3000 people and destroyed most of the city.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malina Lo

California, USA, 1950s. A Chinese-American girl has a lesbian awakening, makes friends with another lesbian at her school, and discovers the vibrant nightlife in lesbian bars.

Matrix by Lauren Groff

England, 1150s. A young French woman named Marie is forced to go to an English convent to become the new prioress. The nuns are living in hunger and squalor when Marie arrives, and when she takes charge she transforms the fate of the convent and the lives of the nuns into something better and more successful than they could have imagined.

Click “Keep reading” for content warnings. Minor spoilers ahead.

Content warnings for Fingersmith: abuse, including child abuse

Content warnings for Beyond the Screen Door: child abuse, domestic violence

Content warnings for Cantoras: abuse, child sexual abuse, corrective rape, marital rape, suicide

Content warnings for Lies We Tell Ourselves: racist abuse. Additional note: This book does not hold back from depicting the racism and homophobia of the time. It has also been criticised for its portrayal of an oppressed person falling in love with their oppressor, and rightfully so because that aspect could have been done better, but at the same time I don’t think that lesbian relationships in books have to always be written as flawlessly healthy and morally pure, just as hetero relationships often are not. If Linda had abandoned all her racist beliefs immediately and rededicated her goals to supporting black civil rights, then the book would have been criticised for being too unrealistic, imo.

[14carrotghoul]

24 for 24

Thank you @read-and-write- and @myheartalivewrites for tagging me! One of my resolutions is to read more books bc last year I finished a whopping one (1) book! My goal for several years now has been 26 books (one every two weeks) and I want to try a few different things to hopefully meet it because I have progressively been getting worse at meeting my goal!

So here are some books that have been rotting on my bedside bookshelf or in my sprawling TBR in no particular order

Freedom is a Constant Struggle - Angela Y. Davis (50% done already!)

Bad Mormon - Heather Gay (~25%)

Parable of the Sower - Octavia Butler

Mexican Gothic (reread in Spanish)(~10%) - Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Severance - Ling Ma

Cantoras - Carolina de Robertis

Crying in H Mart - Michelle Zauner

Hacienda - Isabel Cañas

Open Water - Caleb Azumah Nelson

In the Dream House - Carmen Maria Machado

Jesus and John Wayne - Kristin Kobes Du Mez OR White Too Long - Robert Jones

Silver, Sword, and Stone - Marie Arana OR Open Veins of Latin America - Eduardo Galeano

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat - Samin Nosrat

They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us - Harif Abdurraqib (This year's designated travel book!)

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name - Audre Lorde

Passing - Nella Larsen

Frankenstein (reread) - Mary Shelley

Pride and Prejudice OR Emma - Jane Austen

Darius the Great is Not Okay - Adib Khorram

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe - Fannie Flagg

Tipping the Velvet OR The Paying Guests OR Fingersmith - Sarah Waters (I got copies of the first 2 for a STEAL at a used bookstore, and one of them had a sticky note covered in cat hair - really felt like a passing of the wlw torch lol)

Fun Home - Alison Bechdel

Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi

Maus 1 & 2 - Art Spiegelman

No pressure tagging because this is pretty extensive and this is a list I like to make at the beginning of the year anyway (although usually a shortlist of 10 books) but I'm curious about y'all's prospective reads if you decide to share! Part of the fun of reading for me is hearing all about new books! @happiness-of-the-pursuit @cha-melodius @orchidscript @inexplicablymine @indomitable-love @affectionatelyrs @ssmtskw @dumbpeachjuice @daisymae-12 @cultofsappho @suseagull04 @firenati0n @kiwiana-writes

[fruitdaze]

2023 books wrapped!

i read 75 books this year, which is more than any other previous GR challenge and mostly a consequence of my need/desire to be distracted from my own thoughts at all times :') and overall it has been my best reading year in memory! i discovered so many new favorites and books that i know i'll return to again and again.

every book i rated five stars (* denotes reread from previous year):

YOUR EMERGENCY CONTACT HAS EXPERIENCED AN EMERGENCY by chen chen

SIX OF CROWS by leigh bardugo

LIU YAO: THE REVITALIZATION OF FUYAO SECT by priest

*IF NOT, WINTER: FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO by sappho, tl anne carson

CAN CI PIN: THE DEFECTIVE by priest

*REMNANTS OF FILTH: YUWU by meatbun (7S version)

BABEL by rf kuang

THE ISLAND OF MISSING TREES by elif shafak

PAPYRUS: THE INVENTION OF BOOKS IN THE ANCIENT WORLD by irene vallejo

THE ART OF PROPHECY by wesley chu

THE LOCKED TOMB SERIES (GIDEON THE NINTH, HARROW THE NINTH, and NONA THE NINTH) by tamsyn muir

CANTORAS by carolina de robertis

*A FATAL THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM by emma southon

A POWER UNBOUND by freya marske

EMPEROR OF ROME by mary beard

THE WINTERNIGHT TRILOGY (THE BEAR AND THE NIGHTINGALE, THE GIRL IN THE TOWER, and THE WINTER OF THE WITCH) by katherine arden

A ROME OF ONE'S OWN by emma southon

honorable mentions:

THE GOVERNOR IS ILL by yang su

THE HURTING KIND by ada limón

TIAN YA KE: FARAWAY WANDERERS by priest

DEATH VALLEY by melissa broder

THE ROMAN REPUBLIC OF LETTERS by katherina volk

[lgbtqreads]

Fave Five: LGBTQ Novels Inspired by Greek Mythology, Part III

For even more, check out Part I and Part II. The Song of Us by Kate Fussner (MG) Lies We Sing to the Sea by Sarah Underwood (YA) Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane HERC by Phoenicia Rogerson Crown of Starlight by Cait Corrain Bonus: Lion’s Legacy by L.C. Rosen is inspired by Greek history, and The Palace of Eros by Carolina de Robertis isn’t available for preorder yet, but keep it on your radar!