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"History huh? Bet we could make some."

The story about Alex Claremont-Diaz, son to Ellen Claremont, president of the United States of America with his archenemies, Prince Henry of Wales who Alex absolutely cannot stand. After an international scandal threatens to destroy Britain and US relation, the plan for damage control is to stage a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince, only as Henry and Alex grow closer it threatens to upend his mother's reelection campaign as well as the two countries' future. Will the sacrifice be worth it?

A story about love, choices, bravery and to dare follow ones dreams.

★★★

Okay first and foremost, this was essentially a fan fiction, and what I mean by that is that I have read a lot of fan fiction in my time, hell I wrote a dissertation about fan fiction, so I know what I am talking about after endless hours of research and referencing sources about hurt and comfort and yearning and gay love. Yep.

Okay.

I needed something light and funny and sweet and ridiculous, and after I said that my 2021 reading list is going to consist of more happier books and less tragedies, then, well I can at least start the year off on that promise and then look back on this one book when I derail off that completely.

This book definitely has all my favourite tropes, enemies to friends to lovers, angst with feelings and impossible love. It's an addictive cocktail for sure and it's easy to read and get drawn into, witty and it made me roll my eyes so many times because of all the social media in-jokes and memes it contains. There were lots of references to my man Hamilton of course, addictive looking at Justin Trudeau speaking french, all the Star Wars talks, nerdery and name dropping of celebraties at parties. It was ridiculously millennial, I felt like it took a look at a snappy alter ego of mine that consist in a parallel universe, because this book contains all my social media lingo and jokes and it was entertaining for sure to see it reflected back in such a hilarious manner.

Henry is also essentially me, he's apparently a pisces, hello social anxious nerd, an english lit student and in love with Star Wars, it sums me up pretty well.

This book definitely wasn't life changing, but they don't have to be. Queer romance books that get to be ridiculously romantic and positive and happy are rare, I'm so happy we get to have something like this, it's too unusual to this day.

I just need to mention this book has smut, like not totally explicit smut, but definitely mature smut and a lot of F bombs get dropped in this. It surprised me and I am a little shocked it was allowed to be published.

But I must say this about it, the optimism of this, the politics and the diversity and representation of this book, written just after the 2016 election when the orange disgrace of a human being got elected to office, as a way of showing everyone different that it's okay, that the world is not perfect, but it's possible to have a world in which the first son of America can be half Mexican and bisexual, where he has a bi best friend called Nora who is whip smart but also hilarious, a staff member be a transgender woman married to a pansexual woman, where there is the first elected gay senator also of Mexican decent, where princes can be gay and families accepting of you is beautiful and amazing and never impossible, even in this world, that spoke to me for sure.

It's totally pretentious too and sometimes a little shallow but it has some depth beneath all that, once it gets really going and I was obviously rooting for the lovers to overcome the struggles and be happy together.

It took me three days to read it so it was consuming because it was so easy to read as well as just really funny and emotional and sweet. A good book to start the year off for sure.

"If we could just be on earth at the same time as everyone we loved, if we could just be born together and die together, it would be so simple. But it's not."

Set in Chicago in 1985 and in Paris in 2015 the novel follows Yale Tishman and Fiona Marcus, both whose lives have been plagued by the AIDS pandemic. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the 80s and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.

★★★★★

At the end of July I bought 3 books, even though I am on a self imposed book buying ban at the moment, sometimes a girl just needs some new books to make her happy. This was the last one of them that I read, and well....

Yeah, this book really did break my heart. I am still struggling a little to get coherent words out that make at least a little bit of sense. But I have to start somewhere, so here goes nothing. I mean I DO love this book but a fair warning to all who picks it up (yes do that), it doesn't shy away from the horrors that were the AIDS pandemic and with each loss this book suffers it gets harder and harder to read.

Yale Tishman, I just.... love him so so so so so so much. A good kind sweet man that really didn't deserve the things he went through. But honestly, as sad as it is, the book says it best. The disease doesn't care about who you are and what you have done. It just takes what it wants.

So yes this book then really is about senseless unfair loss and the efforts of those left behind to survive it. It's about the power of love but glaringly also about the limitations of it. I really felt for all the characters in this, even when they were complicated assholes at times, none deserved what was handed to them.

But as always this book isn't just sad and depressing. It's beautiful, happy and heartwarming too. That's definitely why I love it so.

Now I might still be banned from buying books and I have made a promise that I will read the books that have been left neglected in my bookcase, but who knows, some brand new ones might still join in my ever growing collection.

"Because you were right when you said that people can't always give us what we want from them; that you can't ask them to love you the way you want. No one can be blamed for that."

In the summer of 1980, Poland, an anxious and disillusioned Ludwik meets Janusz at agricultural camp. The summer comes to mark an intense romance between the two men with days spent reading and swimming. But with summer coming to an end both men are forced to return back to the harsh realities of the capital and life under the Party. Both men must make choices on how they will survive, choices that risk tearing them apart.

★★★★

On paper this feels like a story we have heard before. Boy meets boy, they fall in love and it ends tragically. This is that, but somehow it feels like it isn't. The political conflict raging on the streets in Poland takes the backdrop, violent and scary, weaved in with the intense intimacy between Ludwik and Janusz. It makes up an interesting and convincing concoction of violence and tenderness, one you know cannot end well.

This novel really gripped me, so much that I read it in 3 days, so good it's hard to put down. It's also fairly short and I appreciate books that manages to be about a lot of things while still being less than 300 pages. It's an impressive feat. The book really transports you back in time, with each page demanding you feel it, feel what Ludwik feels, feel it all so you can understand it all. I really did feel like I myself was in Poland, at the agricultural camp, the sweat clinging to my body, the heat suffocating. The part of the story that is set during summer feels so heightened and vibrant. But then there is also the underlying theme of Ludwik's shame, so strong, that it was at times made to feel like my own.

I call these kinds of books introverted book, those written in first person narration, so full of emotions and rich descriptions of things. Which means that you almost miss Janusz thoughts on it all. You want to get to know him more because while you love Ludwik and feel for him, Janusz is the more interesting one. He is layered and complicated and full of contradictions that don't make sense. I never doubted he loved Ludwik, possibly more than life itself, but I would have loved to read his reasonings, why he did what he did and what he thought about it all. What he thought about Ludwik's choice in the end.

The only small criticism I have of this is that the prose doesn't always flow naturally. Some of the metaphors are maybe a little clumsy, it took me out of the story at times. Some work really well though, and the images those conjure are so vivid and alive.

This novel is the debut novel of Tomasz Jedrowski, it's gripping and emotional. Happiness and heartbreak hangs in the balance between each page, often hard to know in which direction the scale will suddenly tip. The ending, as sad and heartbreaking as it is, it made me feel hopeful too, and that was a beautiful parting gift.

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