Here is my second attempt at a personal post. I had one typed out a couple of weeks ago using the Notes app on my phone and accidentally erased the whole thing. Words, quite literally, keep escaping me. I’d like to say I’m done with Notes as this is not the first time I’ve lost writing while using the app, but what’s life without a little risk?
I want to recap my year in lesbian fiction and lay out my plans going forward for The Lesbian 52. Although I’ve met my 2019 goal of reading and reviewing 52 books featuring lesbian characters, I do plan on continuing the blog. The pace in which I update may be a little slower though. I plan on putting out 1-2 reviews a month. There are other projects that I want to focus on this year and there are books which fall outside my lesbian 52 parameters that I want to read.
Despite publishing a book in the spring of 2018 (which is no longer in print) that featured a lesbian main character, I wasn’t really aware of the “lesbian fiction” genre prior to this blog. I knew of a few LGBT exclusive publishing houses from my own research a few months earlier, but hadn’t read any of their books, and there were only a few in the mainstream market I had read back in high school. So I went into this experience a near virgin.
I knew that romance was the most popular sub-genre in lesbian fiction, as was relayed to me by someone in the industry, but I wasn’t aware just how saturated the genre was. It became difficult to find lesbian fiction books that weren’t romances and even books that were labeled as history/thriller/mystery actually were romances with these other genres acting as smaller sub-genres to assist the romantic plot. I noticed that books which didn’t fall into romance, but were still included in the lesbian fiction genre, would get negative reviews for not including a romance, as if it was a given expectation. This was disappointing. A lesbian is still a lesbian despite her complete lack of a romantic interest. I would like to see this reflected more in the genre.
As someone who is not typically a fan of romance, I was surprised by how some of these books challenged me. Like the depth I found in Rachel Spangler’s Spanish Surrender and Baxter Brown’s Cameron’s Rules, or how Jae’s Just for Show pretty much turned me into a better girlfriend. I especially enjoyed when a romance novel dared to break a few rules – like in Clare Ashton’s After Mrs. Hamilton.
Over the summer, about halfway through my blogging experience, a fellow lesbian I know who saw my social media posts regarding The Lesbian 52, began asking me how it was going. It soon became clear that she was under the assumption that I was writing an erotica blog. There is nothing wrong with erotica, in fact I cover a few here, but I was really disappointed (and a little mortified) that she thought this. After a little digging I realized she wasn’t the only one. It seems that the word lesbian, for many, is an indication of a sexual act as opposed to merely a sexual orientation. Meaning, people saw “lesbian” and thought “porn.” This is a stigma I’d love to fight and something I will keep in mind while doing my own promoting and marketing for the blog in the future.
I have finished reading my first book for the blog this year and the review will be out shortly. Going forward I’d love to read more books that are different, that break away from the normal molds, and take risks. If anyone has any recommendations, I’m always grateful to hear them. Happy reading, friends, and thank you for following me on this journey.