Book Review: Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli

This is my FAVORITE Creekwood book. Like, Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda was great, but this one spoke directly to my soul.

Leah Burke is LITERALLY me. In high school I was the impoverished bi girl who had severe mental illness issues and preferred to BURN EVERYTHING TO THE GROUND rather than let anything slightly inconvenience me.

She, of course, has more supportive friends and family than I did, but her character resonated so much with me I literally cannot stop yelling about it.

All her fears, her wants, her needs…everything. She’s literally perfect. Or…well…fundamentally flawed, which is how I like my characters.

Her relationship with Abby literally had me SCREAMING for most of the book. They’re so cute and so precious. And I really wish they’d gotten together in book 1, but alas. It wouldn’t have been as sweet, in my opinion.

But seriously, Leah is my absolute favorite. And I feel like she really got shafted in the Love, Simon film because they made her openly like Simon. That does not fit her character at all, she only liked Simon when they were really young. Then she had a crush on his older sister.

I did spend a little bit of the book hoping she’d fall for Simon’s younger sister, but Leah/Abby is my OTP for life now.

This book is one of my absolute favorites!

Overall rating: ★★★★★★★★★★
(10/5 Stars. )

Rating breakdown:

Prose: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Plot: 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜
Characterization: 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕
Boredom meter: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

More About Leah on the Offbeat

Leah Burke—girl-band drummer, master of deadpan, and Simon Spier’s best friend from the award-winning Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda—takes center stage in this novel of first love and senior-year angst.

When it comes to drumming, Leah Burke is usually on beat—but real life isn’t always so rhythmic. An anomaly in her friend group, she’s the only child of a young, single mom, and her life is decidedly less privileged. She loves to draw but is too self-conscious to show it. And even though her mom knows she’s bisexual, she hasn’t mustered the courage to tell her friends—not even her openly gay BFF, Simon.

So Leah really doesn’t know what to do when her rock-solid friend group starts to fracture in unexpected ways. With prom and college on the horizon, tensions are running high. It’s hard for Leah to strike the right note while the people she loves are fighting—especially when she realizes she might love one of them more than she ever intended.

Get your copy here on Amazon.

Book Review: Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins

This book was so sweet and so cute. I absolutely love books that are in a series, but aren’t completely related to one another. I don’t know why, I’m just a total nerd for these types of books.

That said, I didn’t read the first book in the royals series. Mostly because it wasn’t LGBT and I’ve really been on an LGBT kick lately. BUT

This book. Was ADORABLE.

Millie and Flora are basically my endgame. When Millie was wasting her time with her friend Jude or whatever in the beginning of the book I literally wanted to punch her in the face. Like Go to Scotland and find your true love, Millie!

Flora in the beginning was high key annoying, but once she stopped being such a jerk to Millie I was like “Oh no she’s just prickly because she doesn’t trust people easily!” and honestly, same. I can totally relate.

This book was so sweet and cute and such a fun read. I did wish there was more of it. I don’t really like it when books end on the “We’re together!” part. And while this one didn’t technically do that, it sort of felt that way.

Millie and Flora have so many cute moments in the book, but I felt like their story needed more to really feel wrapped up at the end. Because there were a lot of people that opposed their relationship, including Flora’s own mom and that never really got resolved, so that sort of felt up in the air at the end.

Other than that, and a few minor complaints (Like how did Flora NOT know the animal of Scotland was the Unicorn when she is LITERALLY the princess of Scotland? Like I know that, Flora. And I’m an American. Yes, I know my family is Scottish & I’m first gen. Don’t @ me.) I thought this book was FANTASTIC.

I hope to read a lot more cute books by Rachel Hawkins!

Overall rating: ★ ★ ★ ★
(4/5 Stars. )

Rating breakdown:

Prose: 👍👍👍👍
Plot: 👩‍❤️‍👩👩‍❤️‍👩👩‍❤️‍👩👩‍❤️‍👩👩‍❤️‍👩
Characterization: 👭👭👭👭👭
Boredom meter: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

More About Her Royal Highness

Millie Quint is devastated when she discovers that her sort-of-best friend/sort-of-girlfriend has been kissing someone else. And because Millie cannot stand the thought of confronting her ex every day, she decides to apply for scholarships to boarding schools . . . the farther from Houston the better.

Millie can’t believe her luck when she’s accepted into one of the world’s most exclusive schools, located in the rolling highlands of Scotland. Everything about Scotland is different: the country is misty and green; the school is gorgeous, and the students think Americans are cute.

The only problem: Mille’s roommate Flora is a total princess.

She’s also an actual princess. Of Scotland.

At first, the girls can barely stand each other–Flora is both high-class and high-key–but before Millie knows it, she has another sort-of-best-friend/sort-of-girlfriend. Even though Princess Flora could be a new chapter in her love life, Millie knows the chances of happily ever afters are slim . . . after all, real life isn’t a fairy tale . . . or is it?

Get your copy here on Amazon.

Book Review: I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver

I really liked this book, but the writing style was actually really hard for me to get into. So it took me quite a long time to read it because of this.

The romance was really sweet, I thought Ben and Nathan meshed really well together. And Ben really needed some good in their life after what happened with their parents after they came out. Like that for SURE broke my heart.

I wish Ben had a better relationship with their sister. I did really enjoy their relationship with their best friend, Miriam. Who was also my favorite character in the entire book.

I felt like a lot of the other characters outside of Nathan, Miriam, and Ben were very flat. Which makes sense since they were only supporting characters, but considering side characters always end up being my favorites in a book, I was a little sad about this.

And I don’t know if it’s because I listened to the audio book instead of reading an ebook or print book, but I really genuinely had a hard time getting into the story. It was very, very good, but I did struggle a little bit.

I felt like the narrative was a little lacking. The story was good, it was a very good queer story. And I loved how Ben spoke about being bisexual for males and other non-binary people because it is so rare to see people actually understand bisexuality.

Overall rating: ★★★★
(4/5 Stars. )

Rating breakdown:

Prose: 🥳🥳🥳🥳
Plot: 💅💅💅💅
Characterization: 👯‍♂️👯‍♂️👯‍♂️
Boredom meter: 🔥🔥🔥

More About I Wish You All the Best

When Ben De Backer comes out to their parents as nonbinary, they’re thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister, Hannah, and her husband, Thomas, whom Ben has never even met. Struggling with an anxiety disorder compounded by their parents’ rejection, they come out only to Hannah, Thomas, and their therapist and try to keep a low profile in a new school.

But Ben’s attempts to survive the last half of senior year unnoticed are thwarted when Nathan Allan, a funny and charismatic student, decides to take Ben under his wing. As Ben and Nathan’s friendship grows, their feelings for each other begin to change, and what started as a disastrous turn of events looks like it might just be a chance to start a happier new life.

At turns heartbreaking and joyous, I Wish You All the Best is both a celebration of life, friendship, and love, and a shining example of hope in the face of adversity.

Get your copy here on Amazon.

I have 4 books!

It has come to my attention recently, after a few of my close friends yelled at me, that people don’t know I’ve written books.

So I’m here to set the record straight. My name is Desdemona Wren and I have written 4 books; 2 novels & 2 novellas and I’m going to tell you a little bit about them.

First up, The Marjorie Diaz series: Marjorie Diaz’s Unfortunate Introduction to Magical High Society and Marjorie Diaz’s Unfortunate Introduction to Ancestral Politics & Foul Play.

• 

  Get it on Amazon

• 

  Get it on Amazon

The Marjorie Diaz series follows Marjorie Diaz, a 22 year-old Mexican American college student who manages to piss off some magical high royals and gets herself marked for death.

And while that seems like a very bad thing (TM), the story keeps cutting deeper and Marjorie discovers everyone has a secret, including her best friend.

This title is LGBT with acespec rep, lesbian rep, bisexual/pansexual rep, and transgender characters. There is also POC rep with Mexican American, Black American, Zimbabwean, and British Indian characters.

Next up, Bloom: A Monster Love Novella and Call Me Eli (my anthology piece).

• 

  Get it on Amazon

• 

  Get it on Amazon

Both of these books feature transgender characters in same-sex relationships.

Bloom: A Monster Love Novella is about Holly Juniper who falls for a nymph who comes through a portal in her barn. She gets more than she bargained for, when Nia helps her discover what she was truly meant to do.

Call Me Eli is about a transman who falls in love with a rock star when he shows up and hijacks Eli’s cab ride back from his impromptu concert at CosFest, a huge con he goes to with his best friend every year. It’s a Cinderella story, but with a fresh take. They’re adorable together and I’ll be rewriting their story when I get the rights back in August.

I have another few books I want to release this year: Nighthawks: A Monster Love Novella, A City of Glass and Sand, Marjorie 3, A Reverse Harem story, and The Incredible Origins of Suzie Q, Demon Hunter Extraordinaire.

To keep up with my books, what I’m up to, and get sneak peaks of my writing: sign up for my monthly newsletter on my website!

Hi. I’m Desdemona Wren and I have written a few books. No big deal (who am I kidding? YES big deal! Read them! They’re hella gay!)

It has come to my attention recently, after a few of my close friends yelled at me, that people don’t know I’ve written books.

So I’m here to set the record straight. My name is Desdemona Wren and I have written 4 books; 2 novels & 2 novellas and I’m going to tell you a little bit about them.

First up, The Marjorie Diaz series: Marjorie Diaz’s Unfortunate Introduction to Magical High Society and Marjorie Diaz’s Unfortunate Introduction to Ancestral Politics & Foul Play.

• 

  Get it on Amazon

• 

  Get it on Amazon

The Marjorie Diaz series follows Marjorie Diaz, a 22 year-old Mexican American college student who manages to piss off some magical high royals and gets herself marked for death.

And while that seems like a very bad thing (TM), the story keeps cutting deeper and Marjorie discovers everyone has a secret, including her best friend.

This title is LGBT with acespec rep, lesbian rep, bisexual/pansexual rep, and transgender characters. There is also POC rep with Mexican American, Black American, Zimbabwean, and British Indian characters.

Next up, Bloom: A Monster Love Novella and Call Me Eli (my anthology piece).

• 

  Get it on Amazon

• 

  Get it on Amazon

Both of these books feature transgender characters in same-sex relationships.

Bloom: A Monster Love Novella is about Holly Juniper who falls for a nymph who comes through a portal in her barn. She gets more than she bargained for, when Nia helps her discover what she was truly meant to do.

Call Me Eli is about a transman who falls in love with a rock star when he shows up and hijacks Eli’s cab ride back from his impromptu concert at CosFest, a huge con he goes to with his best friend every year. It’s a Cinderella story, but with a fresh take. They’re adorable together and I’ll be rewriting their story when I get the rights back in August.

I have another few books I want to release this year: Nighthawks: A Monster Love Novella, A City of Glass and Sand, Marjorie 3, A Reverse Harem story, and The Incredible Origins of Suzie Q, Demon Hunter Extraordinaire.

To keep up with my books, what I’m up to, and get sneak peaks of my writing: sign up for my monthly newsletter on my website!

Book Reviews: Death of a Bachelor by M.A Hinkle

Oh my gosh! I loved this book. I loved every second of it.

I am obsessed with Cathal. Like he and I are pretty much the same person. And Felix! I loved him so much.

Literally, this book is like a breath of fresh air! There is so much LGBTQIA+ representation in here that I really felt seen. There is acespec representation, bisexual representation, gay representation, lesbian representation, and I think there were even some straight people?

The romance is a juicy, juicy slowburn that took just enough time to woo me as a reader and convince me that Damon and Cathal belonged together. I was rooting for them for the whole book because these two broken men need each other to survive.

Cathal especially since he can’t cook and spends all of his “alone time” eating instant ramen and not knowing what half of the stuff Damon cooks is. I love how clueless and adorable he was about cooking, but how smart he was about space.

At the end of the book, I’m pretty sure even Era shipped them from beyond the grave. She had a hand in getting them together, after all. I like to imagine her ghost chatting with Felix casually about it over a box of Lucky Charms. Her two broken boys finding comfort in one another after her loss.

Great, now I’m crying again.

Seriously, though. This book was incredible. It was a little slow in the beginning, but once it picks up it picks up FAST and I read the bulk of it in just a few days. I cannot wait to see more from M.A Hinkle!

Overall rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
(5/5 Stars. )

Rating breakdown:

Prose: 👍👍👍👍👍
Plot: 😄😄😄😄😄
Characterization: 🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰
Boredom meter: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

I cannot wait for the next book in the series that focuses on Felix and the twins. I know it is going to be as incredible, if not moreso than this one. I love M.A Hinkle and I’m willing to bet I’m going to be a life-long fan.

Review: Return to Sender by Roberta Blablanski

I am literally still happy sobbing as I type this. I am so glad I read this book!

This story is so beautiful and kind from the very beginning. I’m not a fan of M/M stories, which I know is really unfair because I’m an LGBTQIA+ author, but I find that most M/M stories are not written by people in the community and aren’t a good representation of gay culture as a whole, but that was definitely not the case with Return to Sender.

From the very beginning, this story had me hooked. The romance and family and just love in this book had me crying happy and sad and just emotional tears almost the whole time I was reading it.

I read this story in literally a single day. It’s a novella, so it wasn’t that hard, but that is a feat for me. I usually have to keep putting books down to do other things, but this book in particular just really spoke to me and was always on my mind.

I loved that all the smut scenes were fade to black because that was so on brand for Drew and Wes! They deserved all their privacy and their secret stolen moments after everything they’d been through.

The writing was amazing and expressive and full of emotion and I didn’t ever once think “this is a first-person POV novel” because I was never pulled out of the narrative long enough to ever question anything about the mechanics of the book. I cannot praise Return to Sender enough. It was truly an amazing read.

Roberta, this story was literally brilliant. I cannot think of a story more deserving of a 5-star review from me. I loved it so much and I cannot wait to see what you write next.

Overall rating: ★★★★★
(5/5 Stars)

Rating breakdown:
Prose: 👍👍👍👍👍
Plot: 😄😄😄😄😄
Characterization: 👨‍🔧👨‍🏫👧👨‍🔧👨‍🏫
Boredom meter: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

This book brought me so much joy and so much pain. Honestly, I recommend it to everyone who loves LGBT lit.

I’ve got some queer books with acespec and trans characters for y’all.

It has come to my attention recently, after a few of my close friends yelled at me, that people don’t know I’ve written books.

So I’m here to set the record straight. My name is Desdemona Wren and I have written 4 books; 2 novels & 2 novellas and I’m going to tell you a little bit about them.

First up, The Marjorie Diaz series: Marjorie Diaz’s Unfortunate Introduction to Magical High Society and Marjorie Diaz’s Unfortunate Introduction to Ancestral Politics & Foul Play.

• 

  Get it on Amazon

• 

  Get it on Amazon

The Marjorie Diaz series follows Marjorie Diaz, a 22 year-old Mexican American college student who manages to piss off some magical high royals and gets herself marked for death.

And while that seems like a very bad thing (TM), the story keeps cutting deeper and Marjorie discovers everyone has a secret, including her best friend.

This title is LGBT with acespec rep, lesbian rep, bisexual/pansexual rep, and transgender characters. There is also POC rep with Mexican American, Black American, Zimbabwean, and British Indian characters.

Next up, Bloom: A Monster Love Novella and Call Me Eli (my anthology piece).

• 

  Get it on Amazon

• 

  Get it on Amazon

Both of these books feature transgender characters in same-sex relationships.

Bloom: A Monster Love Novella is about Holly Juniper who falls for a nymph who comes through a portal in her barn. She gets more than she bargained for, when Nia helps her discover what she was truly meant to do.

Call Me Eli is about a transman who falls in love with a rock star when he shows up and hijacks Eli’s cab ride back from his impromptu concert at CosFest, a huge con he goes to with his best friend every year. It’s a Cinderella story, but with a fresh take. They’re adorable together and I’ll be rewriting their story when I get the rights back in August.

I have another few books I want to release this year: Nighthawks: A Monster Love Novella, A City of Glass and Sand, Marjorie 3, A Reverse Harem story, and The Incredible Origins of Suzie Q, Demon Hunter Extraordinaire.

To keep up with my books, what I’m up to, and get sneak peaks of my writing: sign up for my monthly newsletter on my website!

Happy queermas everyone! I’ve got some queer books you can read (Spoiler alert: I wrote them)

It has come to my attention recently, after a few of my close friends yelled at me, that people don’t know I’ve written books.

So I’m here to set the record straight. My name is Desdemona Wren and I have written 4 books; 2 novels & 2 novellas and I’m going to tell you a little bit about them.

First up, The Marjorie Diaz series: Marjorie Diaz’s Unfortunate Introduction to Magical High Society and Marjorie Diaz’s Unfortunate Introduction to Ancestral Politics & Foul Play.

• 

  Get it on Amazon

• 

  Get it on Amazon

The Marjorie Diaz series follows Marjorie Diaz, a 22 year-old Mexican American college student who manages to piss off some magical high royals and gets herself marked for death.

And while that seems like a very bad thing (TM), the story keeps cutting deeper and Marjorie discovers everyone has a secret, including her best friend.

This title is LGBT with acespec rep, lesbian rep, bisexual/pansexual rep, and transgender characters. There is also POC rep with Mexican American, Black American, Zimbabwean, and British Indian characters.

Next up, Bloom: A Monster Love Novella and Call Me Eli (my anthology piece).

• 

  Get it on Amazon

• 

  Get it on Amazon

Both of these books feature transgender characters in same-sex relationships.

Bloom: A Monster Love Novella is about Holly Juniper who falls for a nymph who comes through a portal in her barn. She gets more than she bargained for, when Nia helps her discover what she was truly meant to do.

Call Me Eli is about a transman who falls in love with a rock star when he shows up and hijacks Eli’s cab ride back from his impromptu concert at CosFest, a huge con he goes to with his best friend every year. It’s a Cinderella story, but with a fresh take. They’re adorable together and I’ll be rewriting their story when I get the rights back in August.

I have another few books I want to release this year: Nighthawks: A Monster Love Novella, A City of Glass and Sand, Marjorie 3, A Reverse Harem story, and The Incredible Origins of Suzie Q, Demon Hunter Extraordinaire.

To keep up with my books, what I’m up to, and get sneak peaks of my writing: sign up for my monthly newsletter on my website!

My books may contain action, romance, & gore. So uh. Read them?

It has come to my attention recently, after a few of my close friends yelled at me, that people don’t know I’ve written books.

So I’m here to set the record straight. My name is Desdemona Wren and I have written 4 books; 2 novels & 2 novellas and I’m going to tell you a little bit about them.

First up, The Marjorie Diaz series: Marjorie Diaz’s Unfortunate Introduction to Magical High Society and Marjorie Diaz’s Unfortunate Introduction to Ancestral Politics & Foul Play.

• 

  Get it on Amazon

• 

  Get it on Amazon

The Marjorie Diaz series follows Marjorie Diaz, a 22 year-old Mexican American college student who manages to piss off some magical high royals and gets herself marked for death.

And while that seems like a very bad thing (TM), the story keeps cutting deeper and Marjorie discovers everyone has a secret, including her best friend.

This title is LGBT with acespec rep, lesbian rep, bisexual/pansexual rep, and transgender characters. There is also POC rep with Mexican American, Black American, Zimbabwean, and British Indian characters.

Next up, Bloom: A Monster Love Novella and Call Me Eli (my anthology piece).

• 

  Get it on Amazon

• 

  Get it on Amazon

Both of these books feature transgender characters in same-sex relationships.

Bloom: A Monster Love Novella is about Holly Juniper who falls for a nymph who comes through a portal in her barn. She gets more than she bargained for, when Nia helps her discover what she was truly meant to do.

Call Me Eli is about a transman who falls in love with a rock star when he shows up and hijacks Eli’s cab ride back from his impromptu concert at CosFest, a huge con he goes to with his best friend every year. It’s a Cinderella story, but with a fresh take. They’re adorable together and I’ll be rewriting their story when I get the rights back in August.

I have another few books I want to release this year: Nighthawks: A Monster Love Novella, A City of Glass and Sand, Marjorie 3, A Reverse Harem story, and The Incredible Origins of Suzie Q, Demon Hunter Extraordinaire.

To keep up with my books, what I’m up to, and get sneak peaks of my writing: sign up for my monthly newsletter on my website!