Calendar Girls: June 2019

Hey all, Dani here.

Here we are at the first Monday of the month again. Let’s talk about books with the lovely people who make up the Calendar Girls.

Calendar Girls is a monthly blog event that was started by Flavia and Melanie, but is now being hosted by Katie and Adrienne. They are all wonderful ladies, and you should check out their lovely blogs. Oh, and if you go to either Katie or Adrienne‘s Calendar Girls post each month, they will have links to all the other wonderful book bloggers participating in this event.

First, more about the Calendar Girls. It is designed to ignite bookish discussions among readers, and was inspired by the 1961 Neil Sedaka song, Calendar Girl.

Just like the song, each month has a different theme. Each blogger picks their favorite book from the theme, and on the first Monday of the month reveals their pick in a Calendar Girls post. Make sure to post back to the hostess’s post, and both Katie and Adrienne will make a master list for the month. The master lists allow everyone to see the other Calendar Girls’ picks and to pop on over to their blogs. Thus, we all get to chat about books and even make some new friends!

Oh, and you don’t have to identify as female to join the Calendar Girls. We welcome readers of all types. So if this sounds like fun for you, join us in all of the fun bookish conversations.

Next it is time to let you know the June theme, and then talk about all of those honorable mentions before finally moving to this month’s winner.

All right…the June theme is…

Pride

Favorite Book with LGBTQ+ Representation

Oh, boy. This could be a difficult theme, because there are so many possibilities for this one. So honestly, I could send you all in the direction of my LGBTQ+ Recommendations post. Granted, I think quite a few of those books are in this post today.

What ended up happening is that I spent some time thinking about this post, and which books would make it at least to my honorable mentions section. But as what usually ends up going on is that a lot of stuff comes up and I end up procrastinating on getting this post ready until the last minute.

Last night I went to look at my shelves and pulled out all of the titles I remembered having LGBTQIAP+ representation in it, and decided that those would be my honorable mentions, and I would pick my winner from that stack.

Now I’ve realized that I did forget to toss in A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. So that is definitely another honorable mention. Actually, I almost picked this one to be my winner. This is seriously one of my favorite books with LGBTQ+ characters in it. There is so much wonderful diversity in this book/series and I highly highly recommend it to everyone who hasn’t read it yet.

I have loved all of the books above, and can definitely recommend all of them for different reasons. They have characters through the whole diverse spectrum, and I think it is great that we are seeing more of the world represented in our books.

But when it comes to deciding which one is my winner, that is a bit more difficult. So when it is all said and done, I have to go with one of my more recent reads, and that is Seven Blades in Black by Sam Sykes.

I don’t believe I really talked about the romance that much in my review, but it was definitely an intriguing part of the story. I believed the history that Sal and Liette had together. Their relationship was complex and had highs and lows, but none of their issues revolved around the fact that they were both women. Also, it just seemed to be a normal thing in this fantasy world. People just had relationships with whomever they wished. It didn’t matter if it was a guy and a gal, two guys, two gals, whatever.

I just like it when all kinds of relationships just feel like an everyday normal thing in books, because honestly, I feel that they are everyday normal things. Though of course, as a somewhat hopeless romantic, I do also look for the magic in the everyday. Anyway, yes, technically most of the focus in this story is about Sal’s story and her hunt for revenge. But I feel like at the base of it all, there is also this person who Sal truly cares for, and she just happens to be female.

Though, if I remember right, Sal has also had relationships with men. But again, it all felt so accepted and normal, and that makes a book stand out to me.

All right, that’s all from me today. Be sure to go and check out all of the other Calendar Girls posts, and I’ll be back soon with more bookish content.