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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 It wasn't perfect and some of the ideas they had seem out of date now, the ones we know about anyway.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

Comfort Me with Apples by Catherynne M. Valente

Sophia was made for him. Her perfect husband. She can feel it in her bones. He is perfect. Their home together in Arcadia Gardens is perfect. Everything is perfect.

It's just that he's away so much. So often. He works so hard. She misses him. And he misses her. He says he does, so it must be true. He is the perfect husband and everything is perfect.

But sometimes Sophia wonders about things. Strange things. Dark things. The look on her husband's face when he comes back from a long business trip. The questions he will not answer. The locked basement she is never allowed to enter. And whenever she asks the neighbors, they can't quite meet her gaze....

But everything is perfect. Isn't it?

TITLE: Comfort Me with Apples
AUTHOR: Catherynne M. Valente
PUBLISHER: Tordotcom
YEAR: 2021
LENGTH: 112 pages
AGE: Adult
GENRE: Horror
RECOMMENDED: Highly

Queer Rep Summary: No canon queer rep.

COMFORT ME WITH APPLES is a story of trouble in paradise, when Sophia finds something out of place and begins to question everything she knows about her life.

The worldbuilding is amazing, deftly layered through lists of community rules and the details of Sophia’s explorations. Sophia is a bit saccharine as a character, I prefer more of an edge to protagonists, but her sweetness is important to the plot and is used very well. 

I love the ending, it ties things up neatly in a way that suits the story as a whole.

CW for fatphobia (brief), gaslighting, death.

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A close-up of a woman's face with vines in front of it. The purple flowers from the vine surround her eyes like eyeshadow too low on her face.


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