Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

This thread is to mark your completion of the June challenge for the prompt: a book by a non-binary or trans. You can join the group read of The Map of Salt and Starsor read a book of your choice.

Please include the following:

Title:
Author:
Would you recommend this book?
Is this the first book you've read by a trans/non-binary author or have you read others? Do you think the author's gender identity played into the story?

Title: The Black Tides of Heaven
Author: J.Y. Yang

Would you recommend this book? Depends on what you're looking for in a story. I liked the Chinese-inspired setting and the exploration of gender, but I thought the plot/characters were lacking (too many timeskips in a short novella).
Do you think the author's gender identity played into the story? Definitely. The system in this world is that everyone is considered of neutral gender at birth, and they can decide for themselves whether they want to be male or female (at any age: some people may be sure at 5 years old, others may be undecided for a lot longer). If they remain undecided past puberty, they receive state-funded treatments to keep their bodies neutral until they make a decision.

Is this the first book you've read by a trans/non-binary author or have you read others? I've read River of Teeth and Taste of Marrow by Sarah Gailey, who is non-binary. Don't know of any others (though I also don't generally look up stuff about authors' personal lives).

Title: Upright Women Wanted
Author: Sarah Gailey

Would you recommend this book?
Unfortunately no I would not. Female spies in the old west was a great starting point but by half way I was ready to dnf it. I ended up being bored and distracted by the hot desert descriptions and the plot fell flat for me. (The western challenge is going to be difficult for me.)

Is this the first book you've read by a trans/non-binary author or have you read others?
No idea. I read a lot of F & SF as opposed to biographies. I pick books on the story not the author generally. That being said I like having a few prompts that promote different perspectives to challenge me.

Do you think the author's gender identity played into the story?
Yep there was a character who used they as their pronoun.

Title:The Map of Salt and Stars
Author: Zeyn Joukhadar
Would you recommend this book? Yes, it was very good
Is this the first book you've read by a trans/non-binary author or have you read others? Not that I now of
Do you think the author's gender identity played into the story ? I don't think so. I wouldn't have known the author was trans or nonbinary if this book hadn't come up as a suggestion on the site.

Title: Confessions of the Fox
Author: Jordy Rosenberg

Would you recommend this book? No. I thought the book was terrible.
Is this the first book you've read by a trans/non-binary author or have you read others? Do you think the author's gender identity played into the story? I don't really look into authors unless it's for a prompt, so I'm not sure. Yes, I think the author's identity did play a role. This is historical fiction about a real person, and the author speculates this person was trans.

Title: The Map of Salt and Stars
Author: Zeyn Joukhadar

Would you recommend this book?Depends. I understand people are thrilled, I wasn't. It was a bit too cliche for me.

Is this the first book you've read by a trans/non-binary author or have you read others? Do you think the author's gender identity played into the story? Yes, this was the first book. The author's gender didn't play a role in this book.

Title: The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir
Author: Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

Would you recommend this book? I gave it 3 stars, which means it was ok... I wouldn’t re-read it or anything...
Is this the first book you've read by a trans/non-binary author or have you read others? I am really not sure.
Do you think the author's gender identity played into the story? Not at all... I wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for picking this book from a list of books accommodating this prompt.

I am still planning on starting The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar in the next few days. I will be using it for the prompt “a book with a map” and will head over to the discussion once started ;)

Title:The Black Tides of Heaven
Author:J.Y. Yang
Would you recommend this book? Yes I'm interested in exploring this series further.
Is this the first book you've read by a trans/non-binary author or have you read others? I believe so not 100% sure. Do you think the author's gender identity played into the story? Certainly it plays one roles quite heavily.

I read the group read. Map of Salt and Stars, I would not recommend this book too anyone. Honestly I spent most of the time asking myself why are your still reading this. I did enjoy the current time line and would start to get sucked in and then nope here comes the other one.

Title: Gender Queer
Author: Maia Kobabe


Would you recommend this book? YES! Such an amazing memoir. Maia invites us into eir head, to see and feel and hear eir processing and finding eir gender and sexual orientation.

Is this the first book you've read by a trans/non-binary author or have you read others? Oh goodness, no. I've been reading memoirs, mysteries and romances by trans and NB authors, long before I discovered Goodreads. Love Jennifer Finney Boylan, Michelle Perez, Laura Jane Grace, Gwen Benaway, Bear Bergman, Rachel Pollack, Apsara Reddy, Vivek Shraya,... and blessedly the list grows every day.

Do you think the author's gender identity played into the story?
Yes. It was a memoir, so I fully expected it would.

Title: The City in the Middle of the Night
Author: Charlie Jane Anders

Would you recommend this book?
Unfortunately, probably not. It wasn't to my taste in the end (although I fully appreciate it may be to others' tastes) - I felt like a lot of the 'weird' sci-fi elements were just there for the sake of it, there wasn't a lot of depth to the world-building, and it didn't feel like it really went anywhere.

Is this the first book you've read by a trans/non-binary author or have you read others? Do you think the author's gender identity played into the story?
To my knowledge, this is the first book I've read by a trans/non-binary author (although I may of course have read others without realising. I think the author's gender identity did play into the story, although not in an explicit way - no explicitly trans characters, but questions of identity more generally were there.

Title: The City in the Middle of the Night
Author: Charlie Jane Anders

Would you recommend this book?
A bit like Gemma, probably not. I actually liked the world-building, and I thought the Gelet were interesting, but most of the human characters really annoyed me. Plus, it didn't finish. It just stopped, leaving too many questions unanswered.

Is this the first book you've read by a trans/non-binary author or have you read others? Do you think the author's gender identity played into the story?

Quite a lot of the Hugo-nominated authors in the last two or three years - since the "Rabid Puppies" incidents - have been trans, non-binary or queer, so I read quite a few at this time of the year, and there's often an element of gender fluidity. I certainly felt there were elements of that to this story (Sophie's unrequited love for Bianca, which led her to do some really bone-headed things), but it wasn't the be-all and end-all of the book.

Title: The Map of Salt and Stars
Author: Zeyn Joukhadar
Would you recommend this book? Yes. Even though it was a bit slow for the first third of the book, the story was good enough to keep me captivated.

Is this the first book you've read by a trans/non-binary author or have you read others? As far as I know. I don't read up on the authors before reading a book. In fact, my copy of the book is under his former first name which is what clued my in him being a trans author.

Do you think the author's gender identity played into the story? I don't believe so.

Title:The Deep
Author:Rivers Solomon

Would you recommend this book? Probably not. I went in with really high expectations and unfortunately found it a bit boring. It could have been so much more.

Is this the first book you've read by a trans/non-binary author or have you read others? Do you think the author's gender identity played into the story I've never really looked up an author's gender identity before, but as far as I know this is the first book I've read by a trans author. They included some LGBTQ characters and the Wajinru are gender fluid by design so I would say it did.

Title: The Deep
Author: Rivers Solomon

Would you recommend this book? It's definitely not for everyone, but I personally really enjoyed it. I loved the emphasis on history and finding one's place and individualism within a community.

Is this the first book you've read by a trans/non-binary author or have you read others? No. I actually read The Map of Salt and Stars last May (and LOVED it). I've also read a couple of things from Alok Vaid-Menon.

Do you think the author's gender identity played into the story? Yes.

Title: Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen
Author: Jazz Jennings
Would you recommend this book? Yes
Is this the first book you've read by a trans/non-binary author or have you read others? I've read other books by trans/non-binary authors previously.
Do you think the author's gender identity played into the story? Since this was a non-fiction book about the author's gender identity, it definitely did play into the story.

Title: If I Was Your Girl
Author: Meredith Russo
Would you recommend this book? Yes!

Is this the first book you've read by a trans/non-binary author or have you read others? As far as I know, it is. I have read other books with characters that are trans/NB but I don't think the author was trans/NB.

Do you think the author's gender identity played into the story? Yes, the author's note at the end of the book was great. I appreciated her insight's into this novel and why she choose this story to tell.

Title: The Map of Salt and Stars
Author: Zeyn Joukhadar
Would you recommend this book? Yes!

Is this the first book you've read by a trans/non-binary author or have you read others? I think this is the first book I've read written by a trans/non-binary author. To be honest I have not kept track of the authors' genders of the books I have read. So there's a possibility I have read books by trans/non-binary authors but I cannot be sure.

Do you think the author's gender identity played into the story? No, I don't think so.