#Katherine Packert Burke

[lgbtqreads]

Happy (Upcoming) Trans Day of Visibility 2024!

March 31st is Trans Day of Visibility, and we’re celebrating as we do by highlighting a whole bunch of wonderful trans books! For even more recs, check out previous years’ posts.  Books to Read Now Middle Grade Magical Princess Harriet by Leiah Moser “To put it simply, Harris Baumgartner was late to school on the first day of the seventh grade because something he saw in the abandoned lot at the…

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

Still Life by Katherine Packert Burke

goodreads

A profound and piercing tribute to messy webs of queer friendship and to what is left behind in transition.

Everything in Edith’s life is approaching disaster. Her writing career is stagnant. Her love life is a mess. Her ex, Tessa, is marrying a man. Her teeth are rotting in her skull. And her best friend, Val, is dead.

Still Life volleys between the present and recent past. Edith was a bumbling college “boy,” pre-transition, in love with Tessa, enamored by Val, and drowning in Boston. She and Tessa called each other Joni and Joan, an homage to fledgling adulthood’s musical backdrop. Now, Edith is wracked with guilt over Val. A sometimes-lover, trans mentor, purveyor of estrogen pills and wisdom from a life on the fringe, Val was everything Tessa wasn’t and everything Edith needed. Was Valerie's fatal car crash Edith's fault? Would she have stayed put if Edith had loved her better?

Mod opinion: I haven't read this book yet, but it sounds really interesting.

[thetransfemininereview]

I just added not one, not two, but SIXTEEN new books to our New and Upcoming Releases page 🤯 Massive shoutout to @benjanun.bsky.social and Katherine Packert Burke for uploading big lists within 24 hours of each other!

[readingbooksinisrael]

Short Stories that Deal With Death

The Ones Who Look/Katherine Duckett-Ethical Empire built the gate to heaven, and their employees hold the keys. By offering custom-built afterlives through full-brain uploads, they answered the needs of a society pushed to the brink by climate change and cascading antibiotic failure. But for Zoe, who works daily to assess the sins of users and decide who’s worthy of salvation, heaven is not so simple. Despite the urging of the angels on her shoulder, she is determined to uncover heaven’s secrets, no matter the cost.

I enjoyed the premise, but not so much the execution. Part of that is my personal tastes and part of that is that it felt as if it was a much bigger story condensed down. 3/5

The Perfection of Theresa Watkins/Justin C. Key-Darius and Theresa Watkins confronted death once as fellow cancer survivors. Their lives are full and productive, their love a shield against Darius’s bouts of anxiety and Theresa’s occasional flare-ups. Yet when tragedy strikes, Darius will try everything to save his wife…even against his fears that she may have transformed into an entirely different person—literally.

The story did drag a little at times, but for the most part the build-up was very good. I did, however, feel that it monstrosized hallucinations. 3/5

The Ashes of Around Twenty-Three Strangers/Jeremy Packert Burke-The world doesn’t make sense. All rain has moved indoors, wrecking houses from the inside out while the skies remain cloudless. With ever greater devotion, people worship giant, inert, humanoid bodies as gods as civilization falls apart.Lucy, who has never been religious, has no way to properly mourn her brother after his untimely death. Now, a year later, she will travel south on a makeshift pilgrimage with the help of her best friend Carve, who was once himself a believer, trying to find peace and some better means of understanding the world.

The world was quickly gotten in to, but the writing style bored me. I didn’t feel that Lucy went through any character development. 2/5

[lgbtqreads]

Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Adult Fiction: July-December 2024

Peregrine Seas by R.C. Ballad (July 1st) Prince Peregrine couldn’t be happier to be kidnapped by pirates. Peregrine wasn’t cut out for the restrictive life of a nobleman – he’s hungry for adventure, prone to duelling, and his family refuse to believe he’s any kind of man at all. Despite his royal origins, he has more in common with the outcasts and rebels aboard the Cygnus that anyone onshore. He…