Welcome to Litsy!

I dip my brush into the surrounding light and begin to paint, erasing the cold blackness bit by bit, replacing it with warm, bright light. I get all the way to the far edge, until there‘s only a sliver of black remaining—
And I reach up with my brush and paint it white.
#SymptomsOfBeingHuman #JeffGarvin #lastline #closingline #book #books #bookgeek #YoungAdult #LGBT #Contemporary #Fiction #Queer #RealisticFiction #MentalHealth #Transgender #Teen

1) Thursday was a holiday and I slept soooo much. Secco clearly was confused 😁
2) Watching @VaniBarelyReads playing Pokémon and playing it again myself
3) Felix Ever After gave me queer joy 🌈🏳️‍⚧️
4) Could cross off the first square of my Summer Bingo ☀️
5) Customers at our shop and working there 📚
#5JoysFriday @DebinHawaii

Wow, this book! It just blew me away. Felix felt so real, even when I wasn't reading the book he was there with me. More than once I had to close the book, because my emotions run wild. Kacen states that this a very personal book, and it shows. On each page. It also shows how much pressure there is on young people. We olf folk tend to smile at what teenagers have to go through, forgetting how it feels to have the whole world on your shoulders.

This is the story of Bug, who, when looking in the mirror, thinks, “It looks like someone‘s idea of what I look like, without me behind it.”
This is a ghost story, a grief story, a growing up story. This is a story about finding yourself.
This is a beautiful middle grade novel.
I loved it.

I mostly listened to the audio version which was well done.

I don't read a lot of poetry, and I won't pretend that I understood everything in this collection. But I really appreciated the way these poems were written and the glimpses you get of the author's struggles with being indigenous & trans, internally & interpersonally, and growing up in foster care. It also made me want to listen to Florence + the Machine, which I'm not mad about
#LGBTQ2024 poetry @Kenyazero #Nonfiction2024 @Riveted_Reader_Melissa

Craziness, as in people out of control. A Mormon elder is murdered at his church and all his secrets come out. Linda, the Bishop‘s wife and Curt, the Bishop, find his body. In the process of the duties to the church they become involved in finding the murderer. Lots of action and creepiness, but also a few moments of humor.

As the title states, this is about transgender history, specifically in the USA. It‘s informative & can be a bit dry at times, reading more like a textbook. I guess I should have taken the title at face value, but I was expecting something w/ a little more emotional depth or personal stories. However, it‘s a piece of history not often (if ever) discussed & so I appreciated it for what it was. In that scope, it was great.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I'm certainly in the vast minority of people who did not enjoy this book - I even opted to #hailthebail with little under a hundred pages to go as I found myself skimming whole paragraphs. I found the constant ping-pong of trump cards between the characters tiresome, all of whom I found obnoxious and unlikeable to the point of being exasperated by them. (1/?)

The German translation uses a name more familiar with younger kids. In this case I support the change so children in German speaking countries have a better connection to the story. A story that is so simple, but some people really struggle with that: take children serious and support them. It could be so, so easy. This book shows us that children know who they are and are perfectly comfortable when the surroundings help them finding their way.