LGBTQ+ Archives - Page 3 of 3

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers opens with 28-year-old Dr. Grace Porter celebrating her PhD in astronomy with a girls’ trip to Las Vegas, which ends with Grace drunkenly marrying Yuki, a woman she meets that night. The dreamy, lyrical prose describing her wife and the way Grace feels when she’s with her instantly makes clear this isn’t an embarrassing mistake to be undone as quickly as possible. This is a new beginning for Grace, a swerve from her otherwise carefully planned life. It sets her on a path to figuring out if she actually wants the idealized visions of success she’s felt compelled to pursue all her life.

Book cover for Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers

She is afraid of being a brown, gold, bee-honey lesbian in an academic industry all too willing to overlook the parts of her that don’t make sense to them.
Morgan Rogers, Honey Girl

Yuki, who hosts a late-night radio show for “lonely creatures” when she’s not busy waitressing, leans into everything Grace has been conditioned to believe works against her pursuit of success. These two characters work remarkably well as foils to one another. Yuki helps reveal to Grace what she’ll lose if she continues sacrificing personal relationships and mental health in order to grasp at professional opportunities that aren’t promised. She teaches Grace it’s okay to toss the entire script and redefine what’s best for her. And Grace grounds Yuki, who’s constantly getting lost in fleeting adventures from her listeners as she searches wearily for a home in her very own story. It is such a delight to witness these fully realized characters learn how to weave their lives together and grow into better people as a result.

The monster motif—particularly persistent in Yuki’s radio shows about actual supernatural creatures—is most striking when Rogers employs it as a metaphor in Grace’s struggle to find belonging. It is only in refusing to be the monster in her own story—the element that won’t fit or conform—that empowers Grace to start prioritizing herself by attending therapy to be better present in her own life. This part of the novel is messy and emotional and often difficult to read, but learning to be kind to yourself—to be your best self—is hard work.

She will not let them spin her into a scary story, a thing whispered about and cast aside.
Morgan Rogers, Honey Girl

Grace’s parents—her father, especially—cement the idea that you’re never too old for a coming-of-age. Colonel, her ex-military father, might initially remind readers of toxic parental figures who’re immovable forces against progress and growth. But he eventually reveals his own struggles and anxieties, making his point-of-view more understandable. Grace’s relationship with Colonel is complicated and nuanced; they’re rarely on the same page as she begins to explore what will make her happy, but Rogers never makes him Grace’s enemy. Grace’s upbringing is different from her father’s, which causes much of the strife in their relationship, but ultimately, they both want Grace’s happiness. It’s worth noting, however, that were it not for the importance Rogers places on communication between all her characters, Grace and Colonel might never have moved past their misunderstandings. Of course, communication only works when both sides are willing to engage.

At its core, Honey Girl is largely a novel about queer friendships and found family. Grace and Yuki each boast a quirky cast of warm, caring companions who offer support, witty banter, and sage advice as they strive to build a life together. The characters who orbit Grace and Yuki also have their own romances and dramas, making their social lives especially immersive and comforting for readers.

I knew the field was going to be difficult to navigate, but I thought if I pushed long enough and hard enough, it would just bend to my will…But what if I was right to step away? What if I make my own career, instead of going after the most prestigious job? What if the best job is the one that makes me happy and satisfied?
Morgan Rogers, Honey Girl

As a woman of color who’s also earned a PhD, I love this novel for how it so precisely gives voice to the anxiety and existential dread that comes with attempting to balance what is expected of me personally and culturally alongside the urgency of what I yearn to achieve professionally within an institutional model that relies on outdated narratives and histories to define value in a system that doubts and excludes me at its ivory tower core.

Rogers does the important work of shining a light on this tension by broaching difficult topics that don’t always have easy answers. And she gifts us with Grace, who chooses to invest in herself when she comes to terms with the reality that is an academic system that will only suffer for its inability to make room for her at present.

Honey Girl refuses to endorse systems that demand contorting yourself into something unrecognizable and uncomfortable to fit within boxes you don’t even want. It champions self-care as the path towards self-empowerment; it highlights the value of finding your tribe and being a good friend. Finally, it reminds us that happiness and success are subjective concepts defined only as broadly as we allow.

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman is one of the quirkiest, most delightful novels I’ve had the pleasure of reading. It’s equal parts humorous and tragic, bewildering and familiar—never just one thing by design. This locked-room mystery opens with a failed bank robbery at a cashless bank (hence the failure), followed by an accidental hostage situation at an apartment viewing from which the hostage-taker/would-be bank robber vanishes, leaving father-son police duo Jim and Jack so perplexed and out of their depth that they Google how to figure out this crime that didn’t actually take place, using testimony from eight hostages with wildly different, unhelpful takes.

Book cover for Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

It’s always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is.
Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

The hostages include Zara, a cynical bank manager emotionally paralyzed by grief and depression; retired couple Anna-Lena and Roger, who flip apartments to avoid addressing problems in their marriage; pregnant lesbian couple Julia and Ro, who struggle with the weight of their anxieties about parenthood; achingly sweet and grandmotherly Estelle, nursing a deep and familiar hurt; the hilariously focused real estate agent who, in spite of the hostage situation, is most concerned no one appears to show appropriate interest in the apartment or her cleverly named real estate agency, House Tricks; and, finally, poor Lennart, who somehow ended up in his underwear, trapped in a giant rabbit’s head, and a little regretful he’s wound up in this situation but along for the ride, regardless.

Anxious People is told through interweaving narratives that reveal how seemingly unrelated characters from varying walks of life are connected—a truth that echoes throughout the major themes in this novel. Backman employs a disarming charm and wit to broach heavy topics such as suicide, survivor’s guilt, and depression with a fresh and welcome frankness that feels safe and invites discussion. Zara, one of the most abrasive personalities in the bunch who literally carries around her anxiety with her, ended up being one of my favorite characters because Backman is able to demonstrate through her that we should all be so kind as to forgive ourselves for past transgressions.

We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we’re more than the mistakes we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.
Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

Given the novel is set in a small Swedish town near Stockholm, the concept of “Stockholm Syndrome” seems almost unavoidable, especially because it is derived from the psychological bond formed between a captor and his hostages during a botched bank robbery that took place in Stockholm, Sweden in 1973. Cleverly, Backman hardly mentions it by name, which prevents readers from noticing as they fall prey to a version of it while they commiserate with often unlikable yet sincere characters just trying their best to make it from one day to the next. Any one of us could’ve been trapped in that apartment. In fact, any one of us could’ve been that bank robber.

Backman strives to cover the full, messy spectrum of emotions that accompany uncomfortable experiences like anxiety, guilt, and grief, which allows him to winnow out poignant messages about forgiveness, hope, and love. The most striking result of his storytelling style is it reflects truths about ourselves we recognize only once we identify them in Backman’s characters. That is the point, of course.

That’s the power of literature, you know, it can act like little love letters between two people who can only explain their feelings by pointing at other people’s.
Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

Anxious People reminds us we are never alone in shouldering our burdens, even though it might feel that way sometimes. Through humor and heartbreak, Backman weaves a thought-provoking story that ultimately impresses on us the urgency of exercising kindness, compassion, and patience towards others and, most importantly, towards ourselves.

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