Category: reviews

by Chelsey Zumpano

Since pride month is going to be over tomorrow; I figured I’d give you some of my favorite LGBTQ books.

1 Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard by Rick Riordan

I had to put this one first on the list because although it’s not an LGBTQ centered book; it does have Alex Fierro. She/he is my all time favorite character ever! She’s gender fluid and transgender; she mostly uses she/her pronouns, (until stated otherwise). When Alex first meets Magnus and the others; she just comes out and it’s not a big deal.

“I’ll admit that I was staring. Suddenly my whole perspective had flipped inside out, like when you look at an inkblot picture and see just the black part. Then your brain inverts the image and you realize the white part makes an entirely different picture, even though nothing has changed. That was Alex Fierro, except in pink and green. A second ago, he had been very obviously a boy to me. Now she was very obviously a girl.”

— Magnus Chase, The hammer of Thor by Rick Riordan

The thing I love about Alex is that even though she’s a shape shifter his gender doesn’t change like that. Alex’s gender identity isn’t the only part of her character, she likes hiking, books, and he’s the love intrest for Magnus. The thing I love about Magnus’ crush on Alex is the fact he likes her when she’s a girl and when he’s a boy. Magnus never says what his sexuality is and he simply likes Alex. It isn’t until Alex kisses him at the end that he thinks, “Alex is a boy right now and I’m okay with that…,” or something along those lines.

This is one of those book series I can find myself living in and coming back to again and again.

2 Carry On

It’s one of those books where boy likes boy who thinks he’s ploting to kill him. Yeah, enemies to lovers aren’t my favorite type of story to read because the realationship isn’t the healthiest out there. But Baz and Simon’s relationship isn’t that bad. A lot of people say “Carry On” is the gay Harry Potter because it’s got magic and war and a big prophecy. I like the magic system and will probley make a blog or video more about it. For right now the thing I really love about this book is that even though Baz is supposed to hate his roommate and his family has tried to have him kill Simon; he still has a crush on him from when they first meet at 11. Even though Simon believes that Baz is out to get him he still helps him find his mother’s killer. At the beginning of the book Baz gets kidnaped and the only thing that helps him through it was thinking of Simon; like that’s how far gone in love with this boy he is. Simon’s love for Baz comes into prospective slower. But the one thing I love about this book is that at the end Simon’s therapist says that it’s okay if he doesn’t figure out his sexuality and that he doesn’t have to.

3 Annie On My Mind

I love the fact that the two girls are best friends who slowly fall in love. It does talk about coming out and others reactions to their relationship, but it’s mainly about them falling in love. I just find this book beautiful and messy.

“There’s a Greek legend—no, it’s in something Plato wrote—about how true lovers are really two halves of the same person. It says that people wander around searching for their other half, and when they find him or her, they are finally whole and perfect. The thing that gets me is that the story says that originally all people were really pairs of people, joined back to back, and that some of the pairs were man and man, some woman and woman, and others man and woman. What happened was that all of these double people went to war with the gods, and the gods, to punish them, split them all in two. That’s why some lovers are heterosexual and some are homosexual, female and female, or male and male.” 
― Nancy Garden, Annie on My Mind

4 Symptoms of Being Human

This is about a teen who is gender fluid, (I’m not sure of what pronouns Riley uses, for now I’m going to use they/them), and they are dealing with trying to except themself. I do want to add a trigger wornning for sexual assault. It’s probably one of the first books I read where a character has anxiety and Riley just is very relatible, (even though I’m comfortable in the body I was born with), they just speak to me as a character.

5 The Trials of Apollo

I love Apollo because he really grows as a character. I have major feelings about this book series and specifically “The Burning Maze”, it just mest me up! (I’ll probably do a whole video on all the books at once. Apollo is Bisexual and makes no secret about it. Then there’s his son Will and his boyfriend Nico, (they are so adorible and it’s great to see Nico happy). Then there’s Emmy and Joe, (probably spelt their name’s wrong), but they are Lesbians and they have a kid together.

Here are some videos of mine about some LGBTQ characters.

1 Percy Jackson and the Olympians/heroes of Olympus review

2 WHY I ADMIRE ALEX FIERRO!

3 https://youtu.be/JZI2ql1PBWY

4 Book review of the ship of the dead By Rick Riordan

5 Love Simon versus Simon versus the Homo sapiens agenda

6 Book review of I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson