A Fictional Happy-Ever-After Doesn’t Always Satisfy

Feature image by Oksana Horiun via Getty Images/iStock

A book in faded colors of the rainbow is open, and the words RAINBOW READING are on top of it. — illustration by A. Andrews

Aaaaaand we’re back! It’s been a grueling, intense, and heavy week and as of right now when I’m drafting this note, it’s only Monday. How is everyone doing? In these moments of political fury and anguish, I find myself really ambivalent about pleasure reading. Escapism feels like a luxury I haven’t earned, but equally, I know better than to argue with theeeee bell hooks about how self care and pleasure in the face of oppression are radical acts. All that to say, I’m sitting next to a stack of some truly delicious gay novels, including some of the sports romances recommended by Sally, and I can’t tell if I have the heart to start reading them yet or not. A fictional happy-ever-after doesn’t always satisfy when it’s a real-life happy-ever-after that I desperately, deeply want. (I will settle for happy-sometimes-occasionally-after if I must.)

Anyway, it’s funny to think that I thought this installment of Rainbow Reading would be all jokes about Elon Musk buying twitter and the internet going all heart-eyes for Heartstopper on Netflix. This time around, I’m experimenting with the ratio of cool social media tidbits, so let me know what y’all think. Whew! What a weird couple weeks!

A Quick Rainbow Reading Guest Note From Managing Editor Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya:

This weekend —Saturday May 7 at 8 p.m. Eastern to be exact —our pals at Loyalty Bookstore are holding a virtual BIG GAY FUNDRAISER to support trans and queer youth in Florida and Texas. All funds collected from ticket sales (it’s pay-what-you-will starting at $1!) and 10% of profits from book sales for the event will be split between Zebra Coalition, Equality Texas, and Lambda Legal. I will be reading at the event, and so will my girlfriend Kristen Arnett (and it’s our first time being featured on the same lineup! GAY). We’re joined by lots of fine folks whose work you might be familiar with, like T Kira Māhealani Madden, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Alyssa Cole, Sarah Gailey, and MORE! Plus, it’s hosted by Rainbow Reading fav, @lupita.reads! It’s gonna be a very good, very gay time. Register here! Okay, I’m passing the mic back to Yashwina! xoxo

Let’s make like a banana and split. On this week’s Rainbow Reading, we’ve got:

Shelf Care: Reviews, Essays, and other Things of Note

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^^^ Archival footage of me, Yashwina Canter, assembling this week’s column ^^^

So many hotly anticipated queer books are out this week, including Casey McQuiston’s latest, I Kissed Shara Wheeler!
Michelle Hart’s We Do What We Do In The Dark is also out now, and you all know how eager I’ve been for this one!
If you’d like to be annoyed by something that isn’t The News, here is a hotly-debated advice column letter from a writer upset that their friend wasn’t sufficiently enthusiastic about the personal essays they shared
Also out this week is The Love That Dares, an anthology of LGBTQ+ letters from throughout history.

I literally cannot read queer letters from history without crying and I have been on the verge of tears for the last 30 pages in the best way possible. Sappho said “someone will remember us, I say, even in another time.” Baby it’s another time and we DO remember!! pic.twitter.com/mcPC77fsyp
— x – LR 🌸 (@notlayingroses) May 3, 2022

What are y’all’s thoughts about rejection letters?
“This singular history of a prison, and the queer women and trans people held there, is a window into the policing of queerness and radical politics in the twentieth century.” Historian Hugh Ryan’s book about The Women’s House of Detention is out next week, and after so thoroughly enjoying his book When Brooklyn Was Queer, I’m really stoked for more of his work!
Once again I am asking cis journalists to stop being weird about their subjects’ pronouns:

https://twitter.com/tuckwoodstock/status/1520964350659350528?s=20&t=tV5IyxVQogAG3VkErIW9iA

This essay from author Ilana Masad’s substack about caregiving, comfort, and elderly cats got me in my feelings
Virology got a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly this week!
IT STARTED OUT WITH A FISH, HOW DID IT END UP LIKE THIS, IT WAS ONLY A FISH, IT WAS ONLY A FISH – okay, okay, I’ll stop now, but Sabrina Imbler’s final column for NYT is delightful
I love Debutiful’s events, and this one in support of TGI Justice looks amazing — ft Ilana Masad, SJ Sindu, and Emma Copley Eisenberg!

I will be interviewing 100 LGBTQ elders over the next two years for a project I am calling “OLD & QUEER.” I believe it’s vital to collect stories from our elders while they’re still alive, and I’m excited to share the first one here:

Pat and Paulette, both 70, in Harlem, NYC 🧵 pic.twitter.com/0I0NCVywQq
— Lil Uzi Hurt 🥺 (@lostblackboy) April 25, 2022

The cover of Casey McQuiston's I Kissed Shara Wheeler. A green background with a blonde girl holding a pink envelope with lipstick kisses on it.

Things feel so defeating right now, but McQuiston says that love is indomitable, and when I’m lost in their worlds, I really believe it.

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— Heather Thee Hogan in her review of I Kissed Shara Wheeler

Autocorrect: Books content from the last couple weeks at Autostraddle!

Damn, it’s been a GOOD few weeks for Autostraddle Books coverage!!

ohhh my god you’re weaving memoir with literary criticism to create a new hybrid form? should we tell everyone? should we throw a party? should we invite maggie nelson
— katie kadue (@kukukadoo) April 28, 2022

it would be deeply irresponsible of me not to share this amazing tweet with you since it’s been through all my group chats in the last few weeks.

That’s all she wrote, folks! If you’re a queer writer, particularly an early-career queer writer: I’d love to hear about the cool things you’re up to so that I can share links to your published essays, book reviews, short stories, poems, and longform features on LGBTQ+ topics! Please email me links for consideration at yashwina@autostraddle.com with the subject line “Rainbow Reading Submission” — I’m an avid browser-tab-collector, and I especially want to hear from you if you’ve just landed your first publication or first major byline.