Welcome to Litsy!

“You can‘t know what it is like for us now—you will always be one step behind.”

#BannedBookWeek

Challenged and burned for including LGBTQIA+ content and being “sexually explicit”.

I wanted to love this book, I really did. But there were far too many characters and it had a weird writing style where the narrator talked to the reader in a collective we, as though they were watching the story unfold. It was also a bit of a downer.

#JulyJourneys Day 6: #NatlKissDay - from Iphigene‘s quote and full review here: https://wp.me/pDlzr-7IL

"If you close your eyes, you can conjure a world."

"Ignorance is not bliss. Bliss is knowing the full meaning of what you have been given."

"Things are not magical because they've been conjured for us by some outside force. They are magical because we create them, and then deem them so." -Two Boys Kissing

#FirstReadfor2020

So. This is one that I‘m glad I read. It had some really good information. It was easy to get sucked into this world. Sad to me that this is the world so many people live in (with all that pain)

I couldn‘t imagine if I would be as brave as some of the people who have had to fight for their right to be who they are and be accepted.

So I‘m enjoying this one more than the other one of his that I read. This one (besides the whole kissing thing) seems more believable. The boys have the angst and confusion and the exploration of self.

#BannedBook
This is a powerful book. When I first read this I checked it out from the library. I immediately bought a copy so I could lend it.

I don‘t understand the mechanics of kissing for hours.

In honor of #bannedbookweek I am gonna give this one a listen.

The info:
Year(s): 2015, 2016
Reason: LGBT and sexually explicit content
Source: The 35 Most Frequently Banned Books of the Past 5 Years, Mental Floss

“For the past year, Neil has assumed that love was like a liquid pouring into a vessel, and that the longer you loved, the more full the vessel became, until it was entirely full. The truth is that over time, the vessel expand as well. You grow. Your life widens. And you can‘t expect your partner‘s love alone to fill you. There will always be space for other things.“ - Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan 💗

“It was an exquisite irony: Just when we stopped wanting to kill ourselves, we started to die.”

Finished in one sitting and I‘m crying in the coffee shop. Who gave David Levithan permission to do this to me. Ugh this book is so important and made me feel so many things. There are not enough stars.

Starting this one today! It‘s been sitting on my shelf since the summer when I got it at the Brooklyn Book Festival so I could have something for David Levithan to sign. I‘m planning on starting some pretty big books soon so I wanted something that‘ll be quick!

It‘s Freedom To Read Week in Canada. I did some research and headed to the Chapters to buy a couple of frequently banned or challenged books. I came home with this one and The Hate U Give. This book is SO good! So, so good! #freedomtoreadweek 🇨🇦 #february2019

Matcha tea and book reading.

Wow, this was a sucker punch to the heart. I picked it up thinking it would be more lighthearted YA. But this is an LGBTQ classic.

It‘s narrated by a chorus of men who have died from AIDS, lovingly watching over various gay teens as they live life.

It broke my heart but also made me feel like people we have lost are still looking over us and that when I‘m gone I‘ll do the same.

#lgbtq #queerbooks #joinin

“Music isn‘t much different now from what it was when we hit the dance floor. This means something. We found something #universal. We bottled that desire, then released it into the airwaves. The sounds hit your body, and you move. We are in those particles that send you. We are in that music.”
#QuotsyNov18

Had an amazing time at the Brooklyn Book Festival yesterday! I met David Levithan, got some books signed (including one of his), saw some really cool YA panels, met up with friends from Columbia, and overall made my little book nerd self very happy.

A little more than halfway through this one. It's so good. Not the typical writing style for a YA which is nice, too.

#PrinceOfJuly Day 6: #Kiss indeed as can be seen in the cover. As noted by Iphigene (one of the GatheringBooks ladies) in her review: What I learned in the process of taking in the words of David Levithan‘s novel and reflecting on what is happening in the world today is this…we fear the truth about people because it is a weight, a burden that demands us to respond. Our response, in the micro-personal level reveals who we are. Link to full review⬇️

Day 8 #riotgrams #SpinePoetry

The Jolly Roger Social Club

Two Boys Kissing.
Brown Girl Dreaming.
We should hang out sometime .

Also #febinbooks18 for #startswithT and #booksandhardcovers #dreams

I can't pick just one #favlgbtqauthor but I certainly appreciated this brief but moving novel. Levithan interweaves the omniscient observations of the deceased from the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic with current gay youths' stories of love and struggle. You should read this if you haven't yet. 🏳️‍🌈

#newyearreads

Wow, this powerful book took me by surprise! Amazing! I loved the chorus of long dead men who narrate the book and move the story. So poignant, so bittersweet. I‘ll be thinking of this one for a long time!

This was just okay. It is a handful of stories about gay teen boys interspersed with a Greek chorus of older dead gay men watching and commenting on their young lives. I see the importance of those voices, and there are some memorable moments, but it was so disjointed and heavy-handed. I feel like Levithan might have done better to write 2 separate short stories.

Listening to this audiobook was magical! David Levithan gave a strong performance of his inspiring novel and story!

The intrusive narration from a perspective of dead gay people really ruined the book. I liked the actual stories inside of the different boys, but was seriously annoyed by this collective "we" narrating and barging in to flower up the story with nonsense. The book should have been a short and sweet story but instead it had all this extra distracting narration about the collective gay community watching these events unfold.

Idk what's taken me so long to read this, but now I'm pissed about it. The narration from the past generation of gay men taken by AIDS was not my favorite thing at first, but I grew to love it. And thus, this picture is of the Turtle Creek Chorale in Dallas.

Y'all. This is SO REAL.

So, confession: I have never read this book. Verdict: I am the worst gay.
But I'm starting it now, and am liking the first 20 pages!

I read this book a few years ago. After we did another book by him at book club , I think. I loved it then and I loved it again. Such a good book for EVERYONE to read. Written as a young adult book it tells lots of stories of young gay people now and in the past. The "voice" you work out is a dead person from the time of AIDS. A great history . Highly recommend . @MrsMalaprop

There were some significant pieces that affected me and made me feel. But there were long stretches where I wasn't sure what was going on.

Starting out September with this one!

I think this book should be required reading. Not required #lgbt reading. Not required #ya reading. Required human reading.

Narrated by a choir of gay men who lost their lives to AIDS this book tells the stories of a variety of gay couples and their friends. At the center are two boys who are trying to break the world record for time kissing.

This is an important book full of longing, family, sadness and hope... but mostly it's about living.

Starting a new audio book at work today. I'm not usually a fan of authors reading their audio books, and this is no exception. Levithan doesn't ruin the book with his reading, but I feel the Greek chorus style narration would be so much better if the performer had a more dramatic voice. I'd love to hear this read by Cecil Baldwin...

My heart hurts. I absolutely loved how the book alternated between the plot driven stories and the abstract narrators. #BookRiotReadHarder #LGBTQ

Another #audiobook for the #readharderchallenge on my hike today. Several stories about gay teen boys. Wouldn't have read it had it not been for the challenge but was enjoyable nonetheless. #ya #lgbt #bannedbooks

If we could feel the things we fear ahead of time, we would be traumatized. So instead we venture out thinking we know how things will feel, but knowing nothing of how things will really feel.

Beautifully written, captured what it's like to be a young LGBT person in today's generation.

"Because until you die, that future self has as much of a life as you do.

We can see that future self. Even if you can't. We can see him. He is made up not just of your present soul, but of all our souls, all our possibilities, all our deaths. He is the opposite of our negation.

You are not worthless, we shout to Cooper. Your life is not disposable."

My #bookriot challenge day 14 book #riotgrams kissing book. Seriously such a fabulous book!

#riotgrams A couple of years ago, I purchased several David Levithan e-books for $.99 each. I should probably read them, huh? #KissingBooks

Oh my. This book.

*wipes tears*

This book is now one of my all time favorites. It's so beautifully written and smart. It's narrated by gay men who had AIDS in the 80s and died as they look down at the generation of gay teens growing up now. I lost a beloved neighbor to AIDS in the early 90s and some of the passages narrated from the chorus of fallen men DESTROYED me. I will now read anything David Levithan writes. I HIGHLY recommend!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

❤🌈❤❤🌈🌈 Just a bit keen on this amazing book, definitely something to be reread when feeling down.

What a great way to start the year! This book is profound, and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to read diversely.

Kickin off 2017 and #readerharder2017 with the LGBTQ author... I've been meaning to read this for a while!! 😁😁 🏳️‍🌈

and I'm in tears. this was me for so many years.

#queerlit #queerbooks #weneeddiversebooks #diversebookbloggers

The book is written fŕom the perspective of the people who died during the aids crisis, with them relating to the things characters when they sit by watching as ghost of the dead, unable to do anything. The book is pretty serious and depressing and is about queer people now and then and how things have changed over the years. There‘s eight main characters and four separate plotlines which makes the book stick out from the things you usually read.

my mum decorated the stone for me - it really meant a lot to me. we've had our differences in the past and she hasn't really understood my focus on diversity so this is pretty wonderful x

#diversebookbloggers #diversebooks #queerlit