#author: becky albertalli

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

[ x ]

[haveyoureadthispoll]

With humor and insight, #1 New York Times bestseller Becky Albertalli explores the nuances of sexuality, identity, and friendship. Imogen Scott may be hopelessly heterosexual, but she’s got the World’s Greatest Ally title locked down. She's never missed a Pride Alliance meeting. She knows more about queer media discourse than her very queer little sister. She even has two queer best friends. There's Gretchen, a fellow high school senior, who helps keep Imogen's biases in check. And then there's Lili—newly out and newly thriving with a cool new squad of queer college friends. Imogen's thrilled for Lili. Any ally would be. And now that she's finally visiting Lili on campus, she's bringing her ally A game. Any support Lili needs, Imogen's all in. Even if that means bending the truth, just a little. Like when Lili drops a tiny queer bombshell: she's told all her college friends that Imogen and Lili used to date. And none of them know that Imogen is a raging hetero—not even Lili’s best friend, Tessa. Of course, the more time Imogen spends with chaotic, freckle-faced Tessa, the more she starts to wonder if her truth was ever all that straight to begin with. . .

[forsapphics]

Imogen & Tessa from “Imogen, Obviously” by Becky Albertalli

Art by Venessa Vida Kelley

[biandlesbianliterature]

In a social media graphic for the book, the author describes Imogen as having "queer discourse brainworms", which is a good way to put it. She tries to educate herself about queer issues, but just ends up thinking that there’s only one right way to be queer. She doesn’t feel the same way about girls as she does in her crushes on guys, so she concludes that means she doesn’t like girls at all. Even when faced with obvious evidence to the contrary, she convinces herself that she’s just trying to be bisexual for clout and that she’s a bad person for appropriating queerness.

Imogen longs to be part of the queer community, and while I’m sure there is some 100% straight and cis person this applies to in the world, it’s such a relatable queer experience. I was in middle school when I excitedly talked about looking forward to joining the Gay/Straight Alliance in high school, and how if I could choose, I’d be pansexual and panromantic. But, of course, I too was "hopelessly straight"…

The Enthusiastic Ally to Bisexual Pipeline: Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli was reviewed at the Lesbrary

[slaughter-books]

Day 31: JOMPBPC: Read In January

My wonderful January, 2024 reading wrap-up!

💛💚💙

[evenstarfalls]

Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda was de-HPed <3<3<3 love to see it

[parcai]

actually i need to calm down LOLOLOL but this has been building since like 2012 💀 think i could punch glass rn

[wahlpaper]

Imogen, Obviously Review

Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli

CW: Swearing, Mentions of Sex, Underage Drinking, Gaslighting, Queer Gatekeeping, Internalized Biphobia, Anxiety, Celebrity Pressured into Coming Out, Bullying, Queerphobia, Biphobia, Positive Reference to David Bowie

5/5

I obviously read this book because I read all of Becky Albertalli's books, she even has a tag on this site. I love knowing that I'm getting queer and/or Jewish content when I start to read any of her novels. However, Imogen, Obviously ended up being extra special to me. Imogen and I are very similar people with very similar experiences. I am warning you now that I am going to go into some of my own queer journey further down. There is some bullying, but I will keep the details light. It is impossible for me to talk about this book without going into what it means to me.

Imogen Scott is a senior in high school who has just been accepted to her best friend's college. Lili is one year older than Imogen and has been begging her to come visit all year. When Imogen finally does, she quickly gets absorbed into the group of cool college queer folks that Lili is a part of. That includes Tessa, a chaotic lesbian who reminds Imogen of her favorite character in her favorite movie. It turns out that these friends think that Imogen is bi, as Lili pretended that they used to date. Imogen agrees to go along with it, but she starts to consider all she knows about being bi and what that might have to do with her.

Imogen, Obviously is written very well! Every joke landed, the characters felt like the ages they were written as, there was plenty of diversity, it dove into real and important issues, the pacing was perfect, and mental health was handled realistically and with care. Mental health is very important to this novel, especially considering the anxiety Imogen seems to be struggling with. Other mental health topics discussed and shown in this book are ADHD, bullying, bigotry, gaslighting/gatekeeping, and self-esteem. The diversity in the novel goes beyond queer representation, including a black character, an Asian character, and a Jewish love interest. The book takes place over the course of about a week, but nothing feels rushed or like it couldn't fit. Albertalli is great at making all of the elements work together.

Albertalli has discussed her story on social media, so I will discuss her’s before my own story. If you know it before you read the book, you'll be able to pick up on the references to it. However, you will still get a lot from Imogen, Obviously even if you don't know. There have been a lot of creators of queer content that have been pressured into coming out, especially from within the community. Becky Albertalli is one of them. Others include Kit Connor (Heartstopper), Jameela Jamil (Legacy), and Rebel Wilson (Isn't It Romantic). Albertalli faced years of scrutiny, harassment, criticism, and invasive questions surrounding her sexuality. Although she has been a great ally and advocate to the queer community and has never written anything exploitative, people had a problem with her writing queer content while being seen as cis and heterosexual. Her books led her to questioning her identity, but she should have gotten to come out on her own terms, if she ever wanted to. Imogen, Obviously explores both the pressure to come out when creating queer content and not knowing that you are queer until later in life.

Now for my own story. Thanks to queer media and Glee specifically, I started to consider that I might be bi in middle school. I called myself bicurious at summer camp between sixth and seventh grade. In retrospect, I had a crush on both the girl and boy in a couple I knew there. Although, my first unknown-crush was likely on a girl in my second grade class. However, in middle school, a bully found out that I am bi when she took my friend's phone. I believe I said it was a joke when I realized, and then went so far back into the closet that I thought I was straight.

I was a strong ally to a bunch of queer best friends throughout high school, even to the one person that was a lot like Imogen's friend, Gretchen (you'll know what I mean if you read the book). I also had my one "girl-crush" on/obsession with Felicia Day. In senior year I learned about aesthetic attraction and started coming back to terms with not being straight. It wasn't until the summer when I was posting a lot of pictures of Hayley Atwell on tumblr and also found the term "biromantic" on there, that I finally knew I was bi. Albertalli touches on this a little near the end of the book, but we need more asexual representation in school and in media. The lack of knowledge and the presence of bullies kept me from realizing who I am until a little after Imogen figured herself out. Still, it took me several more years to fully process where I am on the ace spectrum. My story is obviously mine, but I feel a deep sense of familiarity with Imogen.

Thank you for reading my story and Becky Albertalli's. I hope that you'll read Imogen's as well. If you like queer nerds and college stories, Imogen, Obviously is a great book for you! A giant griddle, underground passageways, and dark academia await you in the pages of this book!

[grishaverse-chaos]

hey its me again - long time no see! tell me something positive that happened to you this week (no matter how tiny). i hope you have a fantastic weekend 💛

omg hi!!! it's great to see you again, how have you been?

this week I'm on holiday from school so it's been really chill and relaxing, and I've bought myself three new books, including one that I've been wanting to read for ages!!

[queer-books-bracket]

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

[ x ]

[haveyoureadthispoll]

Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the boy he’s been emailing, will be compromised. With some messy dynamics emerging in his once tight-knit group of friends, and his email correspondence with Blue growing more flirtatious every day, Simon’s junior year has suddenly gotten all kinds of complicated. Now, change-averse Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he’s pushed out—without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he’s never met.

[madlovenovelist]

#bookquotes

I love this description of heartbreak – it feels so close to grief. All those life experiences that stay with us for the rest of our lives.

[autumnrory]

i have consumed so many fairytale retellings but there are so few good ones

[nateconnolly]

“I have tried to show you what I am,” says Barb, the protagonist of one of the most controversial short stories ever written. “I have tried to do it without judgment. That I leave to you.”

Barb comes from I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter by Isabel Fall, a science fiction story about gender and imperialism. It was Fall’s first published story. There was no backlog of stories to analyze, and her author’s bio was sparse. Readers weren’t given any information about Fall’s gender identity, but that didn’t stop activists from speculating. “… this reads as if it was written by a straight white dude who doesn’t really get gender theory or transition,” complained Arinn Dembo, President of the science fiction writers’ collective SF Canada. The author Phoebe Barton even compared the story to a weapon against trans people: “Think of it as a gun,” she tweeted. “A gun has only one use: for hurting.” N.K. Jemison joined in, tweeting, “Artists should strive to do no (more of this) harm.” But Dembo and the hundreds of thousands of others were mistaken about Fall’s supposed cis identity. The publisher responded to the backlash by taking the story down and posting a statement about the author’s identity. Isabel Fall was a transgender woman, and self-identified activists for trans rights bullied her so mercilessly that she attempted suicide. Dembo later adjusted her criticism, saying “a lot of people might have been spared a lot of mental anguish” if Fall had made a statement about her gender identity. Meaning, Fall had a moral obligation to out herself as a trans woman. Both of Dembo’s comments reveal a preoccupation with the author that distracts from the text. The recent obsession with author identities is one of the great failures of contemporary liberal movements. In order to win liberation for any given group, liberal activists must focus less on who speaks and more on what is spoken. 

Roland Barthes’ 1967 essay The Death of the Author argued that an author’s intentions and life experiences do not make the “ultimate meaning” of their text. The author might as well “die” once the text is in the reader’s hands. The text is “a multi-dimensional space” that one cannot simply flatten with biographical details about the author. Barthes has largely been vindicated among literary critics and theorists, but his idea has not been well-received among liberal activists. It is easy to refuse to acknowledge multiple dimensions of a text. Moralistic groups like liberation movements might even be tempted to sort texts into a simple dichotomy—“good” or “bad,” without any gray areas—on the sole basis of the author’s identity. That is exactly what Dembo tried to do: she suggested that Attack Helicopter was bad simply because of the author’s (supposed) gender. 

I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter is not a transphobic story. Although an in-depth analysis would be beyond the scope of this essay, I can confidently say that Fall critiqued American imperialism, not transgender people. I think that would be clear to anyone who reads the story. But apparently, reading a story is no longer a necessary step in the process of interpreting it. Barton—who suggested her fellow trans woman was a “gun”-wielding transphobe—had not actually read the story. Jemison also admitted she had not read the story before tweeting that it was harmful. We now have a complete reversal of Barthes’ idea: this method of moralistic interpretation is nothing less than the death of the text.

Fall is far from the only queer storyteller to face backlash for allegedly not being queer. Becky Albertalli, Kit Connor (who was still a teenager), and Jameela Jamil all came out of the closet because they were harassed for telling queer stories as “straight” and “cis” people. It is a common talking point in activist circles that the government should not compile lists of queer people or forcibly out them. Why, then, do activists engage in the same behavior? It simply is not always safe to admit that you are gay, or trans, or autistic, or epileptic, or that you have had an abortion. The reason that we need liberation movements for these groups is the same reason that people might not want to publicly claim these identities.

You can read the rest on Substack

[slaughter-books]

Day 16: JOMPBPC: Cool Colours