never let me go

Read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Hailsham seems like a pleasant English boarding school, far from the influences of the city. Its students are well tended and supported, trained in art and literature, and become just the sort of people the world wants them to be. But, curiously, they are taught nothing of the outside world and are allowed little contact with it.

Within the grounds of Hailsham, Kathy grows from schoolgirl to young woman, but it’s only when she and her friends Ruth and Tommy leave the safe grounds of the school (as they always knew they would) that they realize the full truth of what Hailsham is.

Never Let Me Go is a classic of the dystopia genre. It’s quiet, soft, heart-wrenching. There’s not a lot going on in there, to the point that the novel, no matter how horrible its premise, feels quite cozy at times. Knowing the main twist may have made it less memorable for me, or maybe it’s…

The Rachel Incident

Read The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue

Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.

When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, The Rachel Incident is a triumph.

Everyone seems to agree that The Rachel Incident is a funny novel. I don’t get it. I couldn’t stop reading The Rachel Incident. It was gripping and relatable and I felt the confusion and despair and hope of our young trio – because, as much as the narrator wants to tell us otherwise, Carey is…

where the dead sleep

Read Where the Dead Sleep by Joshua Moehling

When an early morning call brings Deputy Ben Packard to the scene of a home invasion, he finds Bill Sandersen shot in his bed. Bill was a well-liked local who chased easy money his whole life, leaving bad debts and broken hearts in his wake. Everyone Packard talks to has a story about Bill, but no one has a clear motive for wanting him dead. The business partner. The ex-wife. The current wife. The high-stakes poker buddies. Any of them–or none of them–could be guilty.
As the investigation begins, tragedy strikes the Sheriff’s department, forcing Packard to make a difficult choice about his future: step down as acting Sheriff and pursue the quiet life he came to Sandy Lake in search of, or subject himself to the scrutiny of an election for the full-time role of Sheriff, a job he’s not sure he wants.

I got Where the dead sleep because it was part of the Lambda Literary shortlist, without realizing that it’s book 2 of a series of which I read the first book. I realized that when I saw my own review of Book 1 on The Storygraph from a while ago (when I still said ACAB):…

le fameux sondage

Liked Lettre ouverte de contributeurices LGBTQIA+ de Wikipédia (Friction Magazine)

Car si l’encyclopédie est un projet qui a bien évidemment ses limites, qui viennent de ses choix radicaux d’être sous licence libre et de fonctionner selon la « neutralité de point de vue », mais aussi des imperfections des personnes qui s’y investissent, elle est précieuse. Wikipédia reste l’un des rares espaces en ligne qui soit non-marchand, non soumis aux censures néfastes qui s’exercent sur X/Twitter, Instagram ou Tiktok, et préservé de la médiocrité de l’IA générative. Wikipédia, c’est aussi un espace multilingue par nature, permettant de sortir de l’unique référence à la seule perspective venue des États-Unis qui est si prégnante dans les milieux queers. Nous voulons la préserver.

Tout en restant lucides quant à l’état de nombreux articles de l’encyclopédie, nous nous réjouissons du travail qui y est accompli, par nous ou par d’autres, que ce travail soit sur des sujets essentiels comme l‘identité de genre des personnes autistes ou la transition de genre, ou sur des histoires oubliées comme la biographie de Mademoiselle Raucourt, lesbienne du XVIIIème siècle.

Il est difficile d’exprimer l’amour que je porte à Wikipédia – et donc à sa communauté. Évidemment qu’on va continuer. Évidemment que c’est important. Évidemment que j’aime ce projet immense et que je veux y apporter tout ce que je peux. Évidemment que je veux accompagner les nouvelles personnes qui s’y intéressent. Évidemment. (Et évidemment,…

le passage

Read Le Passage by Justin Cronin

Il y a un siècle, le monde a sombré dans le chaos. Une épidémie, dont l’origine ne fut jamais identifiée, a transformé l’homme en mutant et réduit la civilisation à néant. Les derniers représentants de l’humanité vivent en colonie, luttant jour après jour pour survivre. Surgie de nulle part, une jeune fille vient à leur rencontre. Elle semble avoir 14 ans.
Elle en a cent de plus.
Elle est venue sauver le monde.

Le Passage est un énorme pavé qui pourrait être une bonne trilogie (sauf que ce n’est que le premier tome d’une autre trilogie…), et il est très bien. Ce roman était vaguement mentionné dans Station Eleven, et semblait très intéressant. Je l’ai donc récupéré et l’ai dévoré. C’est une dystopie fantastique, à la Stephen King…