#representation ya

[rocksanddeadflowers]

character: *shows the slightest disgust/disinterest in romantic or sexual anything*

me, grabbing them and shaking them violently around, chanting: ASPEC ASPEC ASPEC!!!!!!!!

[amkalus]

Looking for Potential Audience

Heya, I'm new to Writeblr world and willing to give it a try. Would anyone be interested in reading an adventure fantasy YA novel set mostly at sea? After being rejected 50+ times, I am considering potentially self-publishing it (and wondering if it'd be worth the trouble).

I have longed to have a heroine who represents this technically incurable health issue, given it affects one in every ten women. And I've longed for a story that encapsulates what it feels like to be hopelessly in love with the sea... so I wrote one.

The Sea Whisperer features:

FMC dealing with symptoms of PCOS [severe acne, suicidal depression, infertility etc.]

Enchanted lighthouse with a mysterious lighthouse keeper [there is sea magic involved]

Thousand-year-old prophecy and sea monsters

Old maps, leather-bound journals, and a pet sea hawk

Tall ships! lots of sails and ropes action

Friendships between women

Extremely subtle F/M romance

Sea Shanties

Island kingdoms and castles with opulent ballrooms [Anti-Colonialism Theme]

Here is the premise: The fishing village of Galacair has been the only home Earwyn’s ever known. Between the mysterious illness that plagues her and the villagers who consider her cursed, surviving gets harder with each dreary day. But there are whispers coming from the sea which ceaselessly beckon her, and an ominous vision of a calamity that haunts her dreams. Earwyn fears they could be a part of her illness too, and that madness has befallen her. The only one who seems to know something about it is Galacair’s lighthouse keeper, whose tower is as strange and remote as he is.

While I mainly wrote this story in dedication to all the PCOS women out there like me who are struggling to live with this and often failing, I also wanted it to be a personal tribute of mine to a lifetime spent by the sea, and to a family history filled with the adventurous spirit of mariners.

[valewritessss]

I hate it when people want the actual books to have some non-middle grade appropriate things in them.

Like, yes, I get wanting some dark Percy or whatever but realistically, Rick would never make Percy do some vile shit because it’s a middle grade book. And I’m talking about the really vile things people have written in fanfics that would make the book 10x darker.

I understand that most of us are past middle-grade ages but that age category is still the main target.

“Rick’s a coward for not doing this” or maybe he’s writing age appropriate stuff for the age range he specializes in. Don’t get me wrong some things would actually be cool if they happened but others, are actually too much.

This especially goes to people who want Rick to actually write ~things~ happening with percabeth and other popular ships. THEY ARE MINORS. RICK IS AN ADULT. THE BOOKS ARE FOR MIDDLE-GRADE.

Rick didn’t write “they had sex to have babies” when he was writing a book about how Greek gods came to be, what makes you think he would write something even more descriptive for his usual stories.

Yes, there are some mature topics in different stories, but they are topics that are addressed in a way that doesn’t surpass the middle-grade line.

Write fanfics about it all you want but complaining because Percy murdering his whole family in a fit of rage(I’ve seen this before okay) is not actually canon is crazy.

[alexyquest]

i tried that ya book trend, how’d i do?

[bigheartedbibliophile]

I've been feeling extremely anxious about the US elections, so I went to my comfort place: the bookstore.

I saw this and it looked amazing, so I bought it lol. I can't wait to read it!

🍂asexual rep

🍂mental health rep

🍂YA dark academia

🍂Forest horror

[fire-in-my-woods]

"CaitVi is toxic" and "I'm happy to see blatant representation" are two opinions that coexist within me

[jetwhenitsmidnight]

Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White

Release date: 3 September 2024

Genre: young adult contemporary horror/thriller

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Synopsis

A gut-wrenching story following a trans autistic teen who survives an attempted murder, only to be drawn into the generational struggle between the rural poor and those who exploit them.

On the night Miles Abernathy—sixteen-year-old socialist and proud West Virginian—comes out as trans to his parents, he sneaks off to a party, carrying evidence that may finally turn the tide of the blood feud plaguing Twist Creek: Photos that prove the county’s Sheriff Davies was responsible for the so-called “accident” that injured his dad, killed others, and crushed their grassroots efforts to unseat him.

The feud began a hundred years ago when Miles’s great-great-grandfather, Saint Abernathy, incited a miners’ rebellion that ended with a public execution at the hands of law enforcement. Now, Miles becomes the feud’s latest victim as the sheriff’s son and his friends sniff out the evidence, follow him through the woods, and beat him nearly to death.

In the hospital, the ghost of a soot-covered man hovers over Miles’s bedside while Sheriff Davies threatens Miles into silence. But when Miles accidently kills one of the boys who hurt him, he learns of other folks in Twist Creek who want out from under the sheriff’s heel. To free their families from this cycle of cruelty, they’re willing to put everything on the line—is Miles?

Content warnings

Transphobia, misgendering, deadnaming

Death, murder, violence, blood, gore, body horror, injury, fire injury

Gun violence

Hospitalisation

Car crash

Mentioned animal death/abuse

Implied sexual assault

Toxic friendship

Drug abuse/drug addiction

Ableism

Classism

(I did my best to get all the content warnings, but I might have missed some things so do be warned)

Review

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC!!!

I have heard nothing but good things about the author's other works, so I went into this book excited, but trying to temper my expectations in case I got let down.

Y'all. This book is pure FIRE.

This book is horrifying and visceral, but at the same time, it's moving and sincere. While this book tackles heavy topics like transphobia and classism, it's also very much about the importance of family and community.

Not to mention that the story/plot is absolutely gripping. I was tempted to finish this in one sitting, but I made myself pace it out so that I could enjoy it longer. Every chapter ended on a cliffhanger that made me want to keep reading. The author does a great job of interspersing the really dark moments with hopeful ones, so the book never gets too bogged down in despair.

One thing I have to mention is that I was very much NOT prepared for how dark this book got. I think I underestimated it because it's categorised as young adult, but this book gets really heavy.

If I had to critique something, it would be the formatting. The first page of each chapter is all black with white text, and all the other pages are the regular white with black text. The changes in page and text colour threw me out of the story a little, but TBH this is like a really minor nitpick, and also the only negative thing I have to say about this book.

[heyitsrink]

Fool's Fate but make it Death Metal

Inspired by yet another unhinged RotE discord convo from a while back.

[reminiscingtonight]

"Gooners in the room." Leah Williamson at New York's UN General Assembly 9.19.23

[scoliosisgoblin]

Summer doodles feat. Beth and Morty :)

[commander----shepard]

[leebrontide]

IT'S FREE BOOK TIME

Ok, folks, I said it was coming and now it's time.

If you've:

Read (or plan to read. I'm honestly not gonna be real militant with this) Secondhand Origin Stories (which is still free)

Got an account that you actually post to (could be here, could be Instagram, TicTok, whatever)

Got a hankering to find out what happens next for these disaster queers

Then you can sign up for a free eARC of Names in Their Blood! Read the book before it's out to the rest of the world!

You can get a nice chonky novel with an exciting missing person case, messy family dynamics, reunions, girls trying to figure out how to girlfriend, a breakdown of the nonbinary shapeshifter trope, heroes that want to be monsters and monsters who want to be heroes, a lil bit of midwestern gothic, and a disabled trans trauma therapist's take on cyberpunk and superheroes!

Shoot me a message to be added to the list. I will need your email to send the file to, and a link to where you post, if it's not at the name you're messaging me from.

Reblogs welcome, help people get free books!

[articskele]

“...Wrong? Why would anything go wrong?”

Without further ado, a stimboard for @ask-the-biggering-onceler!

x|x|x x|x|x x|x|x

[ladywaterfall]

I, for one, will never forget that time i wrote a mlp g2 fanfic in which moon shadow stole an ancient powerful necklace which granted the wearer the ability to see into the future from queen silver rain because moon was an orphan with no friends except dainty dove, who was a pegasus/earth pony hybrid and couldn't fly even after her moult (in this fanfic pegasi have fluffy wings until age 12, then they grow into their flight feathers), but then the leader of the orphanage twinkle star (who was also a pegasus/flutter pony hybrid) got hired by queen silver rain to murder dove, but dove escaped and is now hiding in the woods near the pegasus kingdom, but moon doesn't know that and is planning her revenge on the monarchy.

meanwhile, sundance hates her responsibilities as the princess of the earth ponies, along with her brother firefly and her sister crystal, who has always been overlooked by her parents sunsparkle and night star (who dies while trying to stop moon shadow from escaping with the necklace), until light heart commits arson in the castle during the midsummer day tryouts for a new jester (her popular sister trixiebelle was chosen instead of her) and she ans sundance escape through a secret passage which sunsparkle ordered secret tale and merry moments to build before they ran away to the lost library in the middle of the rainbow forest.

Afterwards sundance meets sweet berry (who is melanistic and has really strong magic) in a cottage in the woods and together they go back to the castle, assuming light heart was captured. they sneak into the castle and watch crystal deliver a prophecy about incoming doom, then sunsparkle tells sundance that sweet berry killed her sibling ivy with her magic. they look for light heart in the dungeons, but instead find moon shadow, who drugged all the guards and she knocks sundance unconscious right before light heart showed up. turns out she had been in hiding in a nearby town. they run away from the scene of the crime and decide to go to the lost library, but not before scaring all the royal guards with sweet berry's magic.

they meet merry moments and secret tale at the lost library, who casually tell light heart that she is a hybrid and that trixiebelle is not her real sister. sundance captures moon shadow and makes her give up the necklace that she took from crystal, and she joins their friend group. merry moments suggests that they should go to the flutter kingdom, because she doesn't recognise the necklace and the flutter kingdom is the most mysterious of all the kingdoms. moon shadow leaves to contact her ex girlfriend dainty dove.

sundance, light heart and sweet berry go to the flutter kingdom, where they meet an exiled border guard named morning glory. she says that the flutter kingdom is an opressive dystopia ever since the old rulers mysteriously disappeared and were replaced by the new queen. morning glory disguses light heart and sweet berry as sundance's government officials and they visit the palace while sweet berry has an existencial crisis about killing ivy by accident five years ago. morning glory breaks into the royal library and finds out that she is actually the lost princess of the flutter ponies, but she rejects this responsibility in favour of escaping with light heart to the unicorn kingdom.

light heart meets her sister dainty dove, moon shadow, crystal (who ran away after sunsparkle tried to use her prophecy powers to declare war on the other kingdoms, and copper glow, who is an outcast from society due to not having magic. together they spy on queen silver swirl, and discover that she is stealing the unicorns' magic in order to conquer the world (why is every ruler in this fanfic trying to conquer the world smh) and that crystal is secretly half unicorn, and that the necklace was worthless all along. all the kingdoms go over and have an epic fight, which the main characters stop of course. crystal also turns her mom into a ghost because yes.

i spent half an hour typing this out.

DROP THE LINK-

but fr there's SO MUCH going on here. I love that you did that.

The corruption of ponies in power. arson. mysterious conspiracies. lost princesses. accidental murder?? turning your mom into a ghost. TRULY iconic. absolutely love it.

[virtuallyleslie]

⭐TO SHAPE A DRAGON'S BREATH⭐

🍾 Congratulations Moniquill Blackgoose 🥂

Qualified for all 2024 awards for Fantasy, YA, and Debut Novel!

Now on the 4th printing and being featured on Best Book of the Year lists, such as:

Washington Post's 10 Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels of 2023

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/11/14/best-science-fiction-fantasy/

Chicago Public Library Must-Read Books of 2023: Fantasy, Horror & Sci-Fi https://chipublib.bibliocommons.com/list/share/199702383/2422351289

NPR's Book We Love

https://apps.npr.org/best-books/#year=2023&book=336

Pop Sugar's Best New Fantasy Books

https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/best-new-fantasy-books-2023-49056293

[transneutrallaw]

It's always hilarious watching people go ; "grrrr there's too much sanitised sexless queer representation, we need more bad horny and messy queers grrr"

And those people almost exclusively consume children's cartoons and Highschool romcoms, like if you don't turn off Nick Jr and watch an actual show for Adults before I smack you upside the head. Clowns!