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We've Always Been Queer

The podcast is Books That Burn because the original idea was "books that burn you", discussing fictional depictions of trauma. It's also an intentional reminder of the pile of burning books, you know the photo I mean, the one from WWII. It's a pile of books about queerness, gender, and sexuality. Just in case you don't know, the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science) was headed by Magnus Hirschfeld.  It was a resource for gay, intersex, and transgender people, both of knowledge and medical help. It also helped the community with addiction treatment and contraception. It wasn't perfect and some of the ideas they had seem out of date now, the ones we know about anyway. But they were trying to make queer people's lives better, and they were a community resource at a time when people really needed it. Which is all the time, we always need these accesses. And the Nazis burned the whole library. It took days, they had to drag the books ou
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Crescent Moons by K. E. Robinson (Crescent Moon Chronicles, #1)

*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book. 

Crescent Moons is a fun and schlocky detective story with a superhero twist and a lot of great wordplay. It has a generally light vibe after a shockingly tragic start.

The banter just feels good to read for much of the book. The minor characters have distinct rapports with the MC and the conversations convey a lot about everyone in a pretty short amount of time. There's some infodumping but not a ton, it's spread out and usually prompted by something relevant happening so it fits in pretty naturally with the dialogue and action. I like the premise and most of how it turned out, watching to see the MC try and disentangle himself from the slowly more and more convoluted mess was very enjoyable.

There's a brief sex scene about halfway through that feels pretty awkward but also fits the MC. It's described more like what sex is, physically, rather than how it feels emotionally, but the narration around the scene itself establishes a playful and intimate dynamic between the characters. It's very consistent with the MCs characterization in the rest of the book, and I got to know one of the minor characters a lot better through the events surrounding the scene.

The narrative style captures the schlocky detective vibe really well, and for most of the book it feels really fun. My big caveat is that there's a pretty steady stream of low-key sexism that seemed like it was going to be examined or deconstructed, but that never quite happened. It's possible that the main character is going to learn some tough lessons in the next book, but I don't know if there's quite enough in this first one to really foreshadow that, if it's coming at all. 

TLDR: It feels like a noir detective novel with a modern (and very welcome) flair. It fits solidly in that genre, but I wish this update had completely ditched the sexism while it was adding the superheroes.

CW for sexual content, transphobia (minor), ableism (minor), infidelity, pregnancy/birth (graphic), racism, sexism, gun violence, death.

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A person's silhouette against a dark blue sky and a full orange moon


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