Review: Peter Darling by Austin Chant

4.5 stars

Peter Darling is a beautiful queer fairy tale that is both whimsical and poignantly real. It revolves around Peter Pan returning to Neverland as an adult, taking refuge from the real world where he is forced to live in the body of a young woman named Wendy Darling. Things have changed in Neverland and Captain Hook and the Lost Boys are no longer at war, but Peter resumes his old feud with Hook all the same, only to discover that his old nemesis now evokes a whole other set of feelings.

At the beginning of the book, we see Peter much as one would imagine: he's the boy that never grew up, playing his war games without thought for the cost of his vendetta. As much as I came to love Peter - and the book - I struggled a little bit with this initial third of the story because of the senseless and casual violence Peter inflicts. However, I think this has more to do with me and my sensitivity to violence than the book itself. Hook also reveals to Peter - and thus the reader - something about the nature of Neverland that made the violence much easier for me to bear, allowing me to get lost in the story in a way that I had previously been prevented from doing. Similarly, regardless of how I reacted to it personally, this initial immaturity is essential to Peter's character, and his progression to realising the consequences of his actions - while still maintaining his boyish enthusiasm - was masterful.

The energetic and impulsive Peter is balanced perfectly by Hook's ennui-stricken and world-weary facade, and the relationship between the two was everything you ever wanted from the enemies-to-lovers trope. Both characters are morally ambiguous, and the Neverland here is not the sanitised version of the Disney film, but - as I mentioned earlier - one with real dangers, real violence, and slightly sinister undertones like those in old fairy tales.

Nevertheless, Chant's Neverland is the best kind of fantasy world, the kind that frees us from the oppressive realities of our world, instead of replicating them. There, Peter isn't faced with gender dysphoria, or disapproval, judgement and condescension from his family. Neither must James remember the sorrows of his life in the 'real world' of post-WWI Britain.

This has been a short review - by my standards - but it's very hard to capture the magic of Peter Darling in words. It's rekindled my childhood love of the story, when I would open the copy of the book my great-uncle had given me just to look at the pictures, or when I watched my VHS copy of the animated movie so many times that it eventually unspooled in the video player, breaking them both. But it's added another deeper dimension to the story, and, as far as I'm concerned, Disney and J. M. Barrie can both go home, because Peter Darling is now canon Peter Pan. 

Review: Follow Me into Darkness Anthology

Multiple ratings

In Germany at this time of year, as elsewhere across the globe, people celebrate Carnival, which here is called Karneval, Fasching or Fastnacht. The day I arrived was Weiberfastnacht, and it was the first day of the big festival in Cologne. Catching the train to the town where I am now living was a funny and wonderful experience, because many people were dressed up and getting into the celebratory mood, even though it was still early in the morning. Then, yesterday, I watched my social media as my friends back home in Sydney attended our Mardi Gras parade. All of this left me feeling a bit forlorn, because I had missed out on both set of celebrations. 

But then I remembered Follow Me into Darkness, an anthology of queer romances centred around Carnival that I'd been meaning to read, and which I devoured last night and this morning. It was a really mixed bag, as anthologies often are. Here are my thoughts: 

Hurricane by Santino Hassell - 3.5 stars

Two very different men find each other and explore New Orleans in one night during Carnival. The two heroes complemented each other well, but it's told entirely from one hero's (Zay's) perspective and I would have appreciated more insight into the other character, Keegan. 

If We Be Friends by J C Lillis - 4 stars

This was the stand-out in the anthology for me. Two teenaged cast-mates on a Hamlet-inspired TV show turn over a new leaf. Poignant, touching, and so much love for the unabashed and witty use of Shakespeare. 

Masked by J. R. Gray - 1.5 stars

God, I don't even know what to say about this one. I was riding high after If We Be Friends, and this brought me back to earth with a thud. Two childhood friends whose lives have gone in very different directions meet again when one comes to the aid of the other, who is being beaten up in a homophobic attack. Attacked hero wants to get it on with other hero, despite his injuries, and then there are a lot of artificial roadblocks put the way to prevent this, including a quest to find condoms and accidental cock-blocking by the beaten-up hero's lesbian beard wife (??!). I want to say that it's very cliched, but I'm also not comfortable making that assessment. 

It's supposedly set in Brazil, but who knows where because a city is never mentioned. I guess non-Western countries are just exotically cultured monoliths, so why bother? Also, I'm not sure if I missed something, but at the beginning a date of February 2000 is given and there's no apparent time-jump, yet the heroes have Kindles and iPhones??? /end snarky rant

The Queen's Reflection by Kris Ripper - 3 stars

The Queen's Reflection takes place in a fantasy world, which I would normally be fine with but the last story had minimal Carnival vibes, and it feels weird to have an anthology where two consecutive stories have only minimal connection to the prompt in real-world terms. Anyway, fantasy world is pretty standard, in terms of being medieval-inspired, until weird futuristic things like keystrips (essentially credit cards?) pop up. Stuff like this is just dropped in and not properly explained or connected to the existing world-building that has occurred. 

The female-assigned-at-birth main character, queen of the kingdom, has gender dysphoria, and fictional-world Carnival presents her with an opportunity to shed her skin and move around in disguise. Despite the fact that I started off with what I didn't like about this story, it was emotional, and the menage and self-discovery aspects work well.

Touched by Roan Parrish - 3.5 stars
Towards the end I thought Touched was for sure going to be 4 stars, and then it ripped my heart out with a very, very qualified HFN. The narrator, Phillippe, is a bar owner in prohibitionist New Orleans. When he touches people, he glimpses their futures, but during 1929's Carnival, his visions intensifies, and signal that something big is on the horizon. At the same time, he meets African-American trumpet player Claude, who he wants like no man or woman he's had before.

Writing was a touch florid in places - really, I hate the overuse of adjectives in people's visions/dreams, it just kills me - but this had so much history and story packed in to such a little novella, and I did enjoy it immensely. Even with the soul-destroying ending.

Other thoughts
I know that in the U.S., Carnival is strongly associated with New Orleans, so I guess it makes sense that two of the five stories in this anthology would be set there. However, Carnival/Mardi Gras is something that occurs across the historical Christian - particularly Catholic - world, with many different associations. For example, in Australia, it has become completely divorced from his Lenten roots, and is solely celebrated as a LGBTQIA+ festival, while in many other places the two exist side-by-side, and in some (like Germany), it has virtually no connection to the LGBTQIA+ community. I would have liked to see both the relationship between Carnival, Christianity and queerness and Carnival as a worldwide phenomenon explored in more depth, or tackled more overtly. I also feel like questions of who Carnival is for could have been more drawn out, although Hassell's story did deal excellently with this theme in a horribly realistic fight between the heroes and some homophobic tourists.

Ultimately, I feel like the fictional world and Brazil-with-minimal-reference-to-setting-and-interaction-with-Carnival stories didn't pull their weight in terms of actually exploring Carnival. But, in the introduction, the authors talk about shedding metaphorical masks for physical ones, and how this can be freeing for LGBTQIA+ people. So perhaps the metaphoric representation of Carnival is more important than the physical representation, and as a cishet person and someone constantly stuck in academic analysis mode, I haven't been able to appreciate that as I should (The Queen's Reflection did pull it's weight in this regard. No comment on Brazil.)

NB: 

• Potential readers should be aware that some stories feature homophobic violence. 
• I've stuck with the 'Carnival' spelling for consistency and because it's the most internationally recognised (at least, Encyclopaedia Britiannica and Wikipedia both use this spelling), but the subtitle of the anthology actually uses 'Carnivale'. 
• I may as well take this chance to say that I don't know how active the blog will be in the next month or so - I have uni commitments over 8 hours a day, 6-7 days a week! 

Review: Coffee Boy by Austin Chant

4 stars

For all its short length, Coffee Boy is an novella jam-packed with both romance and deep, emotive exploration of things that affect the characters.

The narrator, Kieran, is a young trans man who takes an internship in a politician's office (and Coffee Boy is ownvoices story when it comes to trans representation). The office's campaign strategist, Seth, is prickly and reserved, but his crush on their straight boss Marcus is plain as day to Kieran. With Marcus oblivious to both Seth's crush and the fact that he hasn't exactly provided Kieran with the trans-friendly workplace he promised, Seth and Kieran gradually form a workplace rapport that - on Kieran's part - slowly morphs into a crush of his own. 

I really liked the tentative way a relationship developed between Kieran and Seth. After Kieran gets only his initial dislike of the standoffish Seth, there's a one-step-forward-two-steps-back dynamic. Kieran pushes Seth's boundaries and Seth tries to find a balance between ensuring that Kieran is treated appropriately, and constantly centring Kieran's trans-ness in a way that reminds Kieran of his visibility and difference. 

The two of them are also feeling out each other in terms of being the only two non-cishet people in the workplace, and much of their early interaction includes this: by openly acknowledging Seth's crush on Marcus, Kieran has inadvertently caused Seth to come out to him as bisexual. Their different experiences and age gap mean that Kieran self-identifies as queer; but Seth still associates it with the slur. Kieran is also very aware that he is the one who is visibly non-cishet, who lives with the emotional toll of being constantly misgendered, of people wanting to be patted on the back for accepting him, and of having to pass as female at his job flipping burgers.

Some Goodreads reviewers have made mentions about the 'balance' between the romance and the discussions of gender identity and sexuality, either saying that they found it to be well-balanced or not. Personally, I'm not sure that you can talk about a balance, as though the two things can be separated out and weighed individually on opposite ends of a scale. The fact that Kieran is a trans man attracted to other men and Seth is a bisexual man impacts on who they are, the way they live their lives and interact with each other and the people around them. There is no way to gauge the romance except within that context. 

When Kieran and Seth fall into a relationship at the end, I loved the way that their tentativeness dropped away. They are open with each other; Kieran states that he wants to try dating Seth, and Seth makes it clear that their relationship will not affect Kieran's employment opportunities. The sex occurs organically, without any sense that there is something to be negotiated or figured out. 

Coffee Boy didn't go much past Kieran and Seth establishing their relationship. Objectively, I feel like that makes sense, since the book was really centred around them sounding each other out, both as queer colleagues and in a romantic sense. But that doesn't mean that, subjectively, I wouldn't have liked to see them further down the track, or have the novella be longer. But that's pretty standard for me and novellas, for all that I try not to judge them as though they were novels. 

As a novella, Coffee Boy had exceptional depth. I've talked about the relationship dynamic and the exploration of gender and sexuality, particularly in the workplace, but the other stand-out aspect for me was Kieran's dry, dark sense of humour, which is used to show his expectations about how people will treat him: 

Seth actually turns and scribbles something down on a pad of paper in front of him. Kieran can’t imagine what he’s writing. “Remind everyone in the office that new intern is a dude”? Or, probably more likely, “Fire whiny trans guy at earliest opportunity.” (8%)

Later in the story, Kieran also deploys his humour to keep Seth from taking himself too seriously, in a way that demonstrates how well-matched the two are. 

Overall, I really loved Coffee Boy, and the only thing that stopped me from giving it 4.5 stars is the fact that it's written in third-person present tense, which gives me a lot of trouble, as I wrote in the last review for a book I read in this style. This is obviously an intensely personal thing, so if it's not something that bothers you, mentally bump the rating up that half star. 

Review: Him by Elle Kennedy and Sarina Bowen

3.5 stars

This review of Him by Elle Kennedy and Sarina Bowen is going to be short and sweet. I recently read Sarina Bowen's Understatement of the Year, which is also a M/M hockey romance, and in a lot of ways Him is very similar. It makes sense; they share (half) an author and in both novels the heroes are college hockey players who were childhood friends before their diverging paths pulled them apart. I enjoyed Understatement of the Year more, but I can't put my finger on why because I read it too long ago.

Anyway, Him is about Jamie Canning and Ryan Wesley, who spent their summers together at hockey camp as children. They were inseparable, until they were eighteen and Ryan pushed things too far, or so he thinks. But when they come face-to-face years later, playing college hockey for opposing teams, it's clear that Jamie not only doesn't hate Ryan, he's not even sure why his best childhood friend ditched him all those years ago.

Ryan and Jamie's yearning for each other - both as friends and lovers - was well done. However, there was less tenderness between them than the heroes of Understatement of the Year, and this somehow felt like a bit of a missing link between their friendship and romantic relationship. I also enjoyed the second half much more than the first. There's a sense that time is running out, and both Ryan and Jamie are telling themselves that it was never anything serious anyway. 

Both heroes were also both caught up in their own thoughts and interpretations. Since Ryan is out, while Jamie has always considered himself straight, Ryan's internal monologue was very much along the lines of "OMG, I'm taking advantage of him", while Jamie is grappling with the realisation that he is bisexual. Mostly, it worked, but, at times, it came across a bit stream of consciousness-y (I admittedly have a very low tolerance for stream of consciousness, thanks to studying James Joyce in high school). But overall, a solid friends-to-lovers novel.