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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 It wasn't perfect and some of the ideas they had seem out of date now, the ones we know about anyway.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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Mutant Pride by S.J. Whitby (Cute Mutants Vol. 1)

My name is Dylan Taylor, human incarnation of the burning dumpster gif, and this is my life.

I always wanted to be an X-Man. Except people and me never got along, and apparently you need social skills to run a successful team. Cue Emma Hall’s party. One hot make out session with the host herself, and I can talk to objects like my pillow (who’s far too invested in my love life) and my baseball bat (who was a pacifist before I got hold of him). Now there’s a whole group of us with strange abilities, including super hot ice queen Dani Kim who doesn’t approve of how reckless I can be. The bigger problem is a mysterious mutant causing unnatural disasters, and we’re the ones who have to stop him. Except trying to make a difference makes things blow up in my face and the team’s on the verge of falling apart. Can I bring them back together in time to stop the villain from taking revenge? Have I mentioned I’m not a people person? Magneto help us.

TITLE: Mutant Pride
AUTHOR: S.J. Whitby
PUBLISHER: Independently Published
YEAR: 2020
LENGTH: 416 pages
AGE: Young Adult
GENRE: Superheroes
RECOMMENDED: Highly

Queer Rep Summary: Lesbian/Sapphic Secondary Character(s), Bi/Pan Main Character(s), Genderqueer/Nonbinary Secondary Character(s), Trans Secondary Character(s), Ace/Aro Main Character(s).

This book is "what if a teenage X-Men fan plus a random group of her classmates actually got superpowers", with all the delight and awkwardness that this description implies. The MC is nervous, not good at the whole "friend" thing and really believes that she's responsible to DO something with her newfound powers. The overall effect is earnest and extremely relatable if you've ever been really into some THING that just became weirdly relevant after years of obsession, or if you've ever dreamed about all your random knowledge being useful as more than a curiosity. 

I like how the powers kind of fit their personalities while still not being anything I could predict. It feels like the kind of sideways logic that's emblematic of a superhero origin story without being overdone or trite. It grapples with moral grey areas in a way that's generally fun to read while being appropriately grim when necessary. The characters make a pretty great ensemble, and I like how they work to make their strange powers be effective when at first glance they don't seem very useful (neither singly nor together).

The only thing I didn't like was that the characters in general and the MC in particular had a tendency to use the kind of (usually self-effacing) ableist language that's so ubiquitous that most of us don't realize it's ableist until someone points it out (lame, dumb, etc.). It's a minor quibble in an otherwise fantastic book since the language isn't directed at anyone in an actively ableist way, but it was so frequent that it was distracting for me. I hope the characters learn better soon, but it was frustrating to read something full of ableist language when it could have used other words to convey the MC's low self-esteem. 

CW for sexual content, ableism, bullying, misgendering, homophobia, queerphobia, transphobia, sexual assault (not depicted), self-harm, violence, blood, major character death.

End of year-a-thon: 2020 Release

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A person in a mask, hoodie, and ripped jeans stands with her right hand on her hip and her left hand holding a baseball bat over her shoulder. Various objects float around her. The whole scene is blue and purple pastels.


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