Third week Wrap Up

This week I read 3 books. June is Pride Month so I'm trying to read books by or about LGBT+ people. The Trauma Cleaner last week featured a trans woman. This week I read a book written by a bi man, a lesbian coming of age story, and a gay love story.

The first was an audiobook I listened to while on a long drive: Not my Father's Son by Alan Cumming. He details his account of growing up with an abusive father. His story is about coping with the trauma and then finding out his father might not actually be his biological father. Alan goes on a British t.v. show to learn more about his family history. It was really fascinating and I loved that he narrated it himself. It was a short but enjoyable audiobook. I gave the book 3 stars.

The second book I read was Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson. This was not a cohesive narrative, but rather a collection of random memories about coming out as lesbian in a religious family. I wished it focused more on that but she also included random parables and fairy tale stories which seemed to only loosely fit into her message. Additionally, the pacing was off. She would focus on some inane detail for far too long, only to end it with a fascinating sentence that she should've spent more time on. I feel that this story could've been written so much better but unfortunately it really fell flat for me. I gave it 2 stars.

The last book I finished this week was Tin Man by Sarah Winman. Ever since I've seen British Booktubers rave about this book, I've wanted to get my hands on it. I'll be honest. It wasn't what I expected. The first 100 pages are incredibly slow. I had heard it was an amazing love story between two men, but in the beginning, it is about a man grieving the loss of his wife. We see the story from two perspectives, and I really enjoyed the second perspective. His voice was beautiful, more artistic, and flowed better.  This might be the author showing the difference between the two people or it might just showcase that her writing improved as she wrote the story. The ending is incredibly tragic and lovely. I did end up really enjoying this book, but it took a while to get into. I gave it 3.5 stars.