Cemetery Boys

Aiden Thomas
Completed 10/31/2025, Reviewed 10/31/2025
4 stars

This was a very sweet story.  It features a trans teen boy from a Latinx community where the women can heal people, and the men can release earthbound spirits to the afterlife.  As a trans boy, the main character wants to prove that he can perform the tasks of the brujos, but his father, one of the community’s leaders, won’t let him.  Immersed in mystical Latinx magical culture, this story of identity and belonging was one of the most heartwarming stories I’ve ever read.  However, I had trouble getting pulled into the story until the last one hundred pages, even as the relationship with the main character and the spirit of a gay teen boy develops. I’m not sure why, because I loved the protagonist, his best friend, the love interest, and the development of the other characters.  There’s also a murder mystery amidst all this, but I still found it hard to get into.  Despite my inability to connect with the story, I think this book may well end up a contemporary classic of YA transgender and Latinx experience.

Yadriel wants to prove himself a brujo, a male witch.  He and his best friend Maritza, a bruja with a strong, non-traditional approach, secretly perform the ritual that affirms him as a brujo.  His first task is to summon the soul of a missing and presumed dead cousin Miguel.  Instead, he summons a gay teen named Julian.  Horrified at their mistake, he tries to cut the tether to what’s keeping Julian on Earth, but it doesn’t work.  Julian convinces the pair to not release him until he can make sure his friends are okay.  Over the next few days, Yadriel and Julian slowly become close.  As they help him with his bucket list, they find out that other kids besides Miguel and Julian went missing and no one has leads.  But Julian’s spirit must be released before he becomes violent and mindless.   Yadriel knows what he must do but now doesn’t want Julian to leave.

Yadriel is a great main character.  He’s a typical teen trying so hard to be loved by his family and appreciated by his peers.  But of course, as a trans kid, he has self-doubts and a negative self-image.  His supportive mom died a few years back and his father doesn’t understand.  He has an uncle, Tio Catriz who understands not fitting in because he did not inherit the magic of the family.  He provides Yadriel with the support his father and older brother do not give.  Yadriel tries his damnedest to prove he’s a brujo.  When he summons Julian instead of Miguel, his self-doubt returns.  However, Julian provides him with subtle support, affirming him as a boy.  Maritza is also great as the sassy friend who doesn’t take nonsense from anyone.  Despite being a bruja, she won’t use animal blood for rituals and covers for Yadriel as he helps Julian in the few days they give him before trying to sever his tether.  She also sees the obvious that Yadriel and Julian are falling for each other, despite Yadz’s denials.

Julian is a tough character to like initially.  He’s the bad boy of the neighborhood, mostly because of a quick temper and general misunderstanding by most people, including his brother Rio.  Julian and Rio had a big fight before Julian disappeared, and Rio believes Julian ran away from home.  On the other hand, he was not in a gang and didn’t do drugs, but hung out with a small group of other teens on the margins of the community.  They were his chosen family.  As the story progressed, I found myself loving Julian almost as much as Yadriel.  I thought the rest of the characters were well developed.  Thomas does a great job of making them multi-dimensional, infused with the Latinx culture of East LA.   

Despite all these positives, something kept me from becoming completely enmeshed in the story.  It just seemed lacking through the first two-thirds.  Maybe it was the teen dialogue, or perhaps the lack of urgency with finding the missing kids.  That’s why I give this book four stars instead of five.  I think that a teen reader would find this book terrific.  It captures the trans and gay experiences accurately and presents lovable characters.  It deals with other issues, including homelessness and immigrant deportation.  The last hundred pages kept me reading late into the night.  I just wish the first part did as well.

Iron Widow

Xiran Jay Zhao
Completed 10/25/2025, Reviewed 10/27/2025
4 stars

I tried to read the sequel first when I was reading the 2025 Lodestar nominees (for YA novel) in the Hugos.  I found it incredibly hard to follow with an unlikeable main character.  I was running out of time before the voting deadline.  I ended up DNF’ing it, totally frustrated.  I thought I’d give it another chance by reading the first book and then attempting the sequel afterwards.  Well, to my surprise, Iron Widow was terrific.  It’s been described as a cross between Pacific Rim (which I never saw) and The Handmaid’s Tale (which I read in the 80’s).  So in reading this, I had no preconceived notions.  Now I know why the main character can be grating, what the technology is, and how the world came to be in this situation.  It's based on a Chinese society, complete with a Great Wall and oppressed and abused women.  It's kind of a downer but it makes you root for the main character.  This book was nominated for quite a few YA novel awards in 2021 and 2022.  

Chrysalises are giant robots piloted by older boys and copiloted by older girls.  They use their minds and yin and yang energies to control the Chrysalises in the war against the mech aliens that are constantly attacking beyond the Great Wall.  Wu Zetian’s older sister was such a copilot who was killed in battle.  Many girls die as the boys will often completely use their copilots’ psychic energies, leaving a human husk.  Zetian is very bitter and wants revenge on the superstar pilot responsible for her death.  She gets selected for the Chrysalis force, testing very high on the psychic scale.  She’s paired with the superstar pilot and kills him in their psychic link, winning the battle herself.  As punishment, she’s paired with Li Shimin, who has scored higher than anyone else but is also a known family murderer and has sucked the life out of all his female copilots.  Instead of a monster, she finds an alcoholic who hates being a pilot, killing girls, and his life.  Together with Shimin and her best friend from home, the sexually ambiguous, well-bred Gao Yizhi, the trio set out to find the truth about why these girls must die, why they can’t pilot the Chrysalises themselves, and the nature of the aliens, truths which would undermine the whole misogynistic social order.

This is a very dark book with a very dark protagonist.  Zetian was abused by her father and forced to have her feet broken and bound in the traditional way.  Every step she takes is terribly painful.  With this horrible background, she was already predisposed to anger and bitterness.  This only escalates when her only joy in life, her sister, is killed, turning her into a revenge machine.  It’s tough liking her at the beginning of the book, but as her childhood is revealed, we understand what formed her into this bitter and rageful young woman.  Yizhi, her best friend, loves her, though Zetian knew she could never reciprocate since she was on a suicide mission.  But when she joins the force, Yizhi does as well as a strategist.  He becomes rather obsessed with Shimin’s story and finds a way for the three of them to share quarters so he can keep them safe.  Yizhi is a kind soul, someone to offset Zetian’s intensity.  

Shimin is a very interesting character.  We find out he too is a kind soul.  He used alcohol to keep himself numb after killing his soul mate in a battle.  One point I didn’t mention above is that a Chrysalis’ pilot and copilot are also sexual partners so that they form an even deeper bond for their psychic yin/yang connection.  When he meets Zetian and finds out that his soul mate didn’t have to die, he joins her crusade to overthrow the status quo.  However, he is jealous of her closeness with Yizhi, creating a complicated love triangle.

The relationship of the three is at first distracting but becomes an integral part of the story.  It gives them the strength to fight the aliens and against the injustices toward woman.  Of course, they meet roadblocks the whole way, not only from the military officials, but from parents and even their peer pilots and copilots.  The young women copilots who you think would be supportive of Zetian are defensive and uncooperative.  Yizhi’s father backs the Shimin/Zetian pair financially to influence the military into protecting them.  But even he has his own agenda in supporting them and it doesn’t line up with the trio’s mission.  It’s all very messy but very realistic.

I think the book can be hard to follow.  There are many characters and the book moves at a very fast pace.  But if you stick with it, I think you’ll be rewarded with intriguing world building and philosophy, not to mention a delicious twist at the end.  I give this book four stars out of five and am ready to take on the second book, Heavenly Tyrant.

Into This River I Drown

TJ Klune
Completed 10/20/2025, Reviewed 10/21/2025
5 stars

This book drudged up a lot of daddy issues for me.  It features a young man whose father dies in a suspicious car accident and retreats into rage and self-pity for five years.  My relationship with my father wasn’t like the main character’s, but it was a trigger for many feelings I had many years ago.  The intensity translated into a powerful and emotional experience, much more so than I would have expected.  The first hundred pages or so were a little rough, but then the gay romance kicks into high gear and the book becomes an action-packed mystery.  This book won Klune his 2013 Lammy for Gay Romance, but it was so much more than just a rural gay romantasy.  It was an emotional powerhouse and murder mystery with a guardian angel thrown in.  It was awesome.

Benji is a twenty-one-year-old living in the small town of Roseland in south central Oregon.  He runs the convenience store and gas station that was left to him by his late father, Big Eddie.  Their relationship was incredibly close.  Benji came out to Big Eddie when he was fifteen and his father loved and supported him in it.  Since Big Eddie’s suspicious accident, Benji has been bitter and angry, keeping everyone at a distance, including his mother and three aunts.  One day, while picking at his emotional scabs at the river where his father’s car went off the road, an angel falls from the sky.  Calliel is the guardian angel of Roseland but became corporeal because of Benji’s prayers for help.  Cal loves Benji unconditionally and fiercely guards him.  Eventually, Benji falls for Cal, though Benji can’t admit it.  In the meantime, it becomes clear that there is a conspiracy to obfuscate the circumstances of Big Eddie’s death.  Benji starts putting the pieces together, threatening his life and that of his family as well as his relationship with Cal.  In addition, there are consequences when an angel takes on human form that may punch another hole in Benji’s soul.

One of the things that always gets me about Kune’s books is that his characters are so believable.  Benji is relatable in his bitterness at his father’s death, especially after feeling total love and acceptance by him.  It strains his relationship with everyone, including his mother.  His only friend is an old man who comes into the store everyday to shoot the breeze.  When Cal appears and explains his love and purpose, it brings Benji into a state of complete cognitive dissonance.  Benji is angry Cal didn’t save his dad, he wants revenge on his father’s killers, and swears he’ll be alone the rest of his life.  However, he begins to fall for Cal and can’t quite handle it, never admitting he loves the angel.  However, Cal becomes the hit of the town.  Everyone falls for Cal’s sweet nature, not knowing he’s an angel, and roots for Benji and Cal to become boyfriends.  Cal is a little unbelievable but he is an angel after all.  So I had no problem suspending disbelief of his actions.  

One of the star characters is Benji’s Aunt Nina, a woman with a variation of Down Syndrome.  She’s somewhat simple but at the same time, sees more than the average human.  She doesn’t know Cal is an angel exactly but has a deep insight into and love for him.  She and the old man from the store are the only characters that can knock some sense into Benji.  Nonetheless, Benji fights against all the love and advice Nina and the old man, and everyone else in town has for him.  

The suspect characters are pretty well drawn.  They’re a little standard issue but do come across as realistic.  Since the story is told in first person present, we’re always in Benji’s head.  We only see the sheriff and his cronies through Benji.  We also know that Cal growls around the sheriff, which is a good indicator of what Benji already suspects.  

The book is a little long with a lot of time being spent on Benji’s internal struggle.  There were times I thought, “Enough already.”  But to be honest, when presented with that level of cognitive dissonance, it does take a lot of time to let go of preconceived and self-destructive notions.  We are there first hand to watch the slow, normal transformation.  This is a theme in many of Klune’s novels, especially the earlier ones, like The Bones Beneath My Skin and Wolfsong.  The main characters have to suspend disbelief and then overcome their own prejudices and behaviors.  The other big theme in his books is allowing oneself to be loved.  Most of us think we’re not worthy of being loved.  It takes a lot of work to overcome this and allow people to enter our lives and care for us.  

I give this book five stars out of five.  Despite a rocky beginning where Benji was not very likable, it quickly morphed into an emotional rollercoaster.  I read it each night until my eyes hurt and didn’t want to leave the characters in the end.  I thought it funny that this won for Gay Romance Novel.  It’s so much more than a simple romantasy.  It’s a powerhouse of dealing with self-acceptance, parental issues, and letting love into one’s life.  I think this could easily have been nominated for Gay Novel or LGBTQ+ Spec Fiction.  It certainly makes me want to continue reading Klune’s back catalogue.  

The Haunting Between Us

Paul Michael Winters
Completed 10/14/2025, Reviewed 10/15/2025
5 stars

Wow!  This book scared the pants off me!  I read it mostly at night and every time something creepy happened, I got intense goosebumps.  It was also a terrific first love gay teen novel.  I’m a sucker for romances, and this was great.  I was completely caught up in both the romance and the haunted house shenanigans.  It also tackled some important issues like racism, body image, bullying, and parental acceptance.  Growing up a gay kid in the 60’s and 70’s is way different than now, but the issues are still the same.  There’s just a lot more support now, if you know where to look and are lucky enough to have the right friends.  Winters’ first book, Together in a Broken World, was good.  “Haunting” is a stunning sophomore effort.  I’m so glad I met him at WorldCon in Seattle where he convinced me to buy his books.

Cameron is a gay sixteen-year-old kid in the small town of Port Townsend, Washington.  He’s out to his family, but his father is in denial.  He lives across the street from an abandoned, dilapidated Victorian known as the Crimson House for its terrifying, storied past.  Cameron himself had a terrifying experience in it when he was twelve.  His best friend is Abby, an intense amateur ghosthunter with whom his father hopes Cameron will fall in love.  Out of the blue, another teen the same age moves into the Crimson House with his dad.  Hugo and his dad have been moving from place to place flipping houses, never settling down long enough to develop friends, let alone find a boyfriend.  The boys meet under less than ideal circumstances.  Eventually, they become friends, and Cameron introduces him to his circle of friends.  They start falling for each other.  Through all this, strange things happen in the house, and Cameron, Hugo, and their friends try to investigate.  They are quickly out of their league, but have to do something to save Hugo, his dad, and Cameron from the terrifying reality of the strange old woman who haunts the house.

Cameron, Hugo, and their friends are all terrific characters.  They are angsty and self-conscious, as most teens are.  Cameron was bullied his whole life for being fat and gay.  He’s lost weight but is still a little fluffy around the middle, and he hates it.  He’s now out to everyone, but there’s one particular bully who still tortures him.  Abby is a good friend, trying to help him build up his self-esteem, but with little effect.  Cameron’s dad is annoying, paying more attention to his sports loving older son, Jack.  He’s always dropping passive aggressive hints at Cameron about girls which Cameron hates but doesn’t confront.  Fortunately, Jack and the mom are very accepting.  Cameron is a good kid.  I was instantly drawn to him in the first couple of chapters.  

Hugo is Latinx and without connection.  His mom died in a car crash three years earlier and his dad is his only friend.  He’s been dealing with racist comments his whole life, as well as new kid taunts.  He’s more closeted than Cameron, never having come out to anyone but his mom and his college student older sister.  He gets into a fight with Cameron’s bully his first day at school and shuns the rest of kids in self-preservation.  Fortunately, Cameron breaks through Hugo’s shell, but it takes some effort.  

Abby and the others are good, quirky kids.  Chloe and Maya are a couple, and Chloe has insight into supernatural happenings.  Matty is an out, flirty kid with a supposedly straight, non-binary best friend who is also a jock.  When Hugo finally loosens up, they make a terrific team, tackling the mysteries and dangers of Crimson House.  

This book is called a “Heartstoppers” meets “The Haunting of Hill House” gay YA horror romance.  Now, I’ve never read either of those books, so I don’t know how much might be borrowed from them.  I just know that whatever the inspiration, Winters created a fantastic story.  In his Acknowledgments, he notes that some of Cameron’s experiences were his own.  I think it definitely shows in the ease in which I slipped into the characters.  In particular, the difficulty Cameron had letting Hugo put his hand under his shirt.  I struggled with this same issue when I was first coming out and trying to date.  

As I noted at the beginning, the spooky parts really creeped me out.  I thought it was all done masterfully, with the right amount of setup and suspense.  I had my guesses about the back story of the house, one of which turned out to be correct, but I was still surprised when it was revealed.  

This book is no literary masterpiece, but it is terrific, fast paced storytelling.  It kept me thoroughly engaged and spooked.  I would say it’s great fluff, but it’s deeper than that.  It has great world building, with an intricate haunted house, complex ghostly happenings, and a terrifying backstory.  I give this book five stars out of five.  This is definitely an emotional rating, based on my fear factor, my love of romance, and the fact I was up until 3 a.m. every night trying to read as much as I could.

Direct Descendant

Tanya Huff
Completed 10/11/2025, Reviewed 10/13/2025
4 stars

A cozy horror.  Eldritch, to be specific.  Not sure if that’s quite possible, but Tanya Huff did it in this novel.  My experience with Huff’s works average about three and a half stars.  A few above average, a few others terrific.  I lean a little towards terrific with this book, mostly because I’ve come to enjoy eldritch horror and always have a fondness for romance, especially in the LGBTQ+ rainbow.  My net feeling is that this book is basically fluff, but very enjoyable fluff.  I cheered for the protagonists and was a little surprised by the revelation of the evil-doer.  The writing didn’t feel up to par with Huff’s other works, but I still was glad to have read it and felt satisfied with the ending.

The narration follows two main characters in alternating chapters; both told in first person.  Cassidy lives in the small town of Lake Argen, Ontario, several hours north of Toronto.  She and several others are Guardians, the eyes, ears, and mouth of the dark forces with which the town has an agreement: service the dark forces in exchange for its prosperity and isolation.  One day, Cassidy witnesses a visitor seemingly sacrificing himself to the dark forces.  And hell literally begins breaking loose.  Then Melanie appears in town, sent by the visitor’s grandmother, to put closure on her missing grandson.  Cassidy and Melanie are attracted to each other and have a date or two.  Cassidy and the town try to hide the dark trouble from Melanie while the town cheers for the two women’s burgeoning relationship.  However, the lies of omission soon come to a head as the demons and monsters become evident to Melanie, and the darkness threatens to destroy the town.

The things I liked the most about this book were the Canadian details.  There are many references to Tim Hortons, people are generally friendly, and the summer days are very long.  I also liked the LGBTQ+ support by the general population.  I’m also a sucker for a good romance and I really enjoyed this silly love at first site relationship.  There’s even an awesome U-Haul reference to the old stereotype about how quickly lesbians form long term relationships.  Besides the romance, it was a good way to explain the backstory of the town which, until the big reveal, only comes in small doses.  

My biggest complaint was that I had a hard time following Cassidy’s narration.  There was something disjointed and non-intuitive about it.  While Melanie’s narration made sense, Cassidy’s was all over the place.  I think it had to do with the rate at which we were fed the nature of the dark forces and their interaction with the town, and particularly Cassidy’s role.  Character-wise, Aunt Jean was particularly annoying.  I felt like she mucked up the flow of the dialogue with her hardcore stance on keeping outsiders ignorant of the dark forces.  

Back to positives, though, I really liked that there were some eldritch creatures which coexisted in the town or its environs.  The mysterious Alice was some tentacled creature in the lake to whom the dead were sacrificed.  Oh yeah, and they said “s-word” instead of “sacrifice.”  There’s the strange young demon messenger that’s more like a cuddly sloth than a demon.  I was sad for the boy who was transforming into a blueberry eating, tentacled, big foot-like creature.  Add some militaristic crows and a couple of hell hounds to round out the Cthulu cast.

Overall, I felt very positive about the book.  I usually don’t give fractional ratings, but this one is clearly a toss up between three and four stars.  So I’m rounding up to four stars because of the cozy fluffy nature which was so entertaining.  This won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but it was definitely mine.

Rogue Community College

David R Slayton
Completed 10/5/2025, Reviewed 10/8/2025
4 stars

This is the beginning of a new trilogy in the Adam Binder universe.  The first book of that trilogy was White Trash Warlock.  I loved that whole series and was delighted to find that a new series had begun.  This book is very different though.  It takes place in an interdimensional school run by the Elves.  Yes, a common trope since Harry Potter, but I almost always enjoy the variations that authors come up with.  This one educates and trains people who do not fit in more traditional schooling environments.  Enter Issac Frost, an assassin working for the “Undertaker” to kill the school itself.  With themes of loyalty, inclusion, found family, and morality, this book features an asexual M/M romance that is heartbreaking.  

The book opens with Issac coming upon a house where goblins have captured Vran, an Elf who made an appearance in the previous series.  To Vran’s dismay, Issac kills a few of the goblins, but a few get away.  Argent, the Elf queen from the Binder series, appears and Isaac explains he has escaped being a young, orphaned assassin for the Undertaker.  Argent takes him and Vran back to the school.  Little do they know that Isaac’s mission is to destroy the heart of the school.  Over time, Isaac assimilates into the environment.  He also slowly falls in love with Vran.  Isaac begins to question the reason he was assigned to destroy the school now that he has befriended his classmates and fallen in love.

The transformation arc of Isaac from ruthless young adult to empathetic, love-struck student who wants to save the school is very well done.  Slayton is a master at character arcs, as was evident in the Binder series.  At the beginning of the story, Isaac just wants to get this job done so he can go back to the Undertaker to help overthrow him.  Isaac is part of a small group of rebellious young adults who want to end the acquisition and abuse of orphaned boys who then are turned into paid assassins for their mysterious, dark master.  But finding the heart of the school is not easy as it magically changes its rooms and hallways until the school trusts the new student.  Isaac begins to appreciate the classes and assignments as well as his classmates.  Then Isaac falls for Vran, which exacerbates the cognitive dissonance over his original mission.

Another interesting thing about Isaac is that he is a Phage, a being that consumes a few drops of another being’s blood to ingest knowledge of them as well as some of their powers.  He’s not a vampire, as he does not need it to live.  It is more of a superpower.  During one battle, he ingests some blood from his classmate Ford who is half human, half troll and gains his super strength.  To complicate matters, Isaac may be the last Phage, not having known his parents or interacted with any other Phages.  In several really cool scenes, he visits a demon at the school who does a sort of regression therapy with him to try to get him to remember his parents and early childhood.

The classmates have very distinct personalities, which helped differentiate them and their voices.  One nice thing was that their class was small and other students were hidden in other parts of the school.  It made it much easier to keep track of everyone.  Ford is interesting as the sweet, optimistic jock.  Hex is the perfect student who doesn’t trust Isaac.  Vran, the sea Elf, is sweet, caring, and brooding.  He has an interesting relationship with the Elven King and Queen that is not fully explained until it becomes apparent towards the end.  He is also asexual, which Isaac accepts as part of their relationship.

The world building was terrific.  The school was Liberty House from the Binder series.  It was its own character with its changing halls and rooms as well as its “heart.”  It would take you where you needed to go if it trusted you.  It opened to the other dimensions, like standard Earth, the faerie world, the Underworld, and the sea kingdom.  The prose was just right as well, not too flowery or plodding.  It made for a fast-paced read.  I give this book four stars out of five.  It’s different in tone from Adam Binder, but just as enthralling.  I’m looking forward to the next volume.

In Tongues

Thomas Grattan
Completed 10/1/2025, Reviewed 10/3/2025
4 stars

This is my first non-genre read in a while.  I got it on sale because it was a RuPaul book club selection.  Then I found out it was nominated for a 2025 Lammy for Gay Novel.  My expectations rose.  Well, I finally read it and yes, it’s a very good book.  However, the protagonist is not very likeable.  He’s a young, self-centered gay man from a very unsupportive family and a recent breakup who leaves Minnesota to start anew in New York City.  It’s an interesting perspective; I have not read much fiction where the main character is annoying, whether gay or straight.  So I had to work at being open-minded, getting through this finely written novel with a strong character arc navigating through sex, love, classism, and ageism.

Gordon is twenty-four in 2001, freshly landed from the upper Midwest.  With a job at a lousy grocery store, he shares an apartment with a cool lesbian bartender.  When he leaves the job, her girlfriend gets him work walking the dogs of Manhattan’s upper crust.  One job is for an A-list, art gallery owning gay couple, Phillip and Nicola.  Gordon gets closer to the couple as they ask him to help host a dinner party, dog and apartment sit, and be a personal assistant.  Soon, the lines blur between employee, friend, and lover, getting Gordon into trouble with most of the people around him.  He travels to Europe with Phillip right before 9/11, then later to Mexico City to follow an artist with whom he has a brief but passionate affair.  In the meantime, he alienates his closest friend, the bartender, and hunts the parks and piers for quick hookups and false connection.  

The best thing about Gordon is that he does learn about life, relationships, and himself through the course of the book.  But it’s not an easy road for him.  He uses sarcasm and dry humor as a defense mechanism which is obviously off-putting.  He sleeps with just about anyone at the drop of a hat, lacking any discernment or control.  The A-list couple are an odd pair.  Phillip is quite a bit older than Nicola and its clear things are rocky between them.  They both show kindness toward Gordon, particularly Phillip.  When Nicola and Gordon have a quick tryst, things become tense between them.  However, Gordon maintains a warm fascination toward Phillip despite taking advantage of his kindness.

It was hard to read about Gordon’s youthful indiscretions, manipulations, and spitefulness as a senior remembering my own raucous youth.  I also have quite the aversion toward A-gay culture, full of nasty shade, snobbery, and disdain.  Phillip and Nicola’s parties reminded me of two I attended.  Around 1984, I went to one in jeans and a T-shirt, like most young guys my age, only to find all the fifty or so clone boys wearing almost the exact same chinos, button-down collar shirts, and topsiders.  At another party, around 1992, I wore a nice flannel and jeans, but all the gays that showed up were again in chinos, button-down collar shirts, and topsiders.  To be fair, a few had designer polo shirts LOL.  At both, I was mostly ignored.  Having had those experiences, I found old buttons pushed in many scenes.  

However, Gordon does mature from his youthful arrogance, slowly, but eventually, as one would hope in a coming-of-age novel.  And the end is heartfelt.  I give this book four stars out of five.  The characters are written so well with great arcs.  Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had such strong reactions to their choices and consequences.  This book reminded me about how much I liked slice of life novels.  I don’t know if I’d pick this as a winner for the Lammy, but it certainly deserved to be nominated.

The Bones Beneath my Skin

TJ Klune
Completed 9/27/2025, Reviewed 10/1/2025
4 stars

If you love TJ KIune, you’ll love this book.  I loved it, though I recognized it dragged in a few places and had some repetitive sections.  It hits all my buttons, particularly found family and unlikely gay romance.  This book is more of a sci fi thriller than a romance, but the relationship dynamics are awesome.  This book was an unusual turn for Klune, originally self-published, but rereleased by Tor in 2022 after he shot to stardom with The House in the Cerulean Sea.  

Nate Cartwright was fired from the Washington Post for having an illicit moment with a junior representative.  In addition, his parents recently died in a murder-suicide.  Estranged from them and his brother, he only inherited a mountain cabin in Roseville, Oregon, and an old pickup truck.  He decides to escape to the cabin, lick his wounds, and figure out what to do next.  However, when he gets there, he finds a young girl and her “bodyguard.”  They refuse to leave and after a brief, hole-filled accounting of their situation, Nate reluctantly lets them stay.  The bodyguard is Alex, who seems to be an ex-military type.  The girl is ten-year-old Artemis Darth Vader.  She appears to have some unexplainable gifts.  When the house is surrounded by black helicopters and mysterious federal agents, the trio goes on the run, resulting in a cat and mouse chase where Nate is eventually let in on the secrets Alex and Art possess.  

As in most of his books, the protagonist Nate is simply lovable in his brokenness.  You feel for his initial plight, and you understand his decision to protect Art and Alex even though he doesn’t understand it himself.  Nate is tired and empty, but also empathetic and caring.  For some reason he feels drawn to the snarky, wise-cracking little girl, though he can’t figure Alex out.  Alex keeps his feelings and background tightly controlled, only letting Nate learn as much as he deems necessary.  Of course, Nate slowly falls for Alex despite his frustration in his not being completely forthcoming.  

Artemis, or Art, is certainly a mystery through the first two thirds of the book.  At first, she says odd things, like she never met a waitress before or eaten bacon.  Then, on their first encounter with the feds, she uses superpowers to help them escape.  She is clearly not an ordinary child.  Klune keeps her character snarky in just the right amount throughout the book.  She is also very insightful, dropping hints that she knows that Alex and Nate are attracted to each other, despite their protestations.  Through her odd but adult statements, she helps Nate move through his thinking that this is a parental abduction or some scary pedophile thing to an unbelievable government coverup.  

The part that was most problematic for me was the constant bickering between Nate and Alex.  It’s interesting at first, then kind of fun, then just tedious.  When Alex finally starts opening up about himself and Art, the book picks up again.  Despite this, the suspense was still top-notch.  It kept me turning the pages well until late each night.  The science fiction aspect was pretty cool, though we don’t discover all the details until about two-thirds of the way through.  So I’m not revealing it since it would be a spoiler.  There’s also a creepy comet cult led by another ex-military guy from Artemis’ past.  That part made my skin crawl.  It’s clearly a reference to the Heaven’s Gate cult, and if I remember correctly, Klune even has a Nike reference in there somewhere.  

I give this book four stars out of five.  Despite getting all warm and fuzzy as Nate, Art, and Alex’s relationships grew, the repetitive nature of the conflict between Nate and Alex was tiresome.  Art kept it fresh.  I also appreciated the slow explanation of Art and Alex’s origins leading up to this point.  It kept it from feeling like massive info dumps.  The book has that TJ Klune warmth that makes me feel cozy reading his books, whether it’s his mainstream novels, or his more sexually explicit earlier romantasy works like Wolfsong of the Green Creek series.  I can’t wait to read more of his back catalogue, both genre and non-genre.