We're taking a page from NPR'S Pop Culture Happy Hour this week and listing off some things that have been making us happy lately. Our responses aren't limited to romance, or even to books, but they're what's getting us through 2018.
Andrea
I've been starting my days withthe Django Jane music video. I play it loud, on repeat, while I get ready for the day. The video is a powerful chant from Janelle Monae with a strong focus on empowering black women. It's the hype song I need, it's got the outfits I dream of, and if you've got your Youtube autoplay switched on, Janelle's song 'Make Me Feel' plays right after Django Jane and !!!! it's super a fun song with a music video that's hella bisexual, right down to the lighting. (Bisexual lighting is a real and beautiful thing. Go ahead,google it. You are welcome.) (cw: There's some swearing in both of these songs: Django Jane has swearing in the first couple of lines, and the N-word is used in a line just before the bridge. Make Me Feel has swearing in the chorus)
The Queer Eye reboot! The line in the trailer that made me cry and has made me tear up every time I tell someone about it is this:“The original show was fighting for tolerance. Our fight is for acceptance.” It's also a really fun show to see the way people gain confidence and notice they are loved. It's a reminder to care for ourselves, to keep moving forward. And the Queer Eye twitter account is also super fun because they post updates on the people featured in the shows! You get heavily invested in these people's lives and it feels like confetti and sunshine and rainbows to see that they got married to the person they proposed to during the show, or that they still have the haircut that made them feel brand new. I've cried in every episode so far, but like.. joy-cried. Love-cried. Like "wow being a person is actually so incredible, we need to love each other louder" gratitude-cried.
The Syfy TV show The Magicians! Is basically like if Harry Potter happened with pop-culture references, and sex, alcohol, queer people, depression.. you know, real life things! The show's creators really play with the genre, many of the episodes are like standalone mini-films within the storyline. It's one of the best depictions of friendships in your mid-20s, and there's an incredible portrayal of mental illness. The show features unashamed fan culture, and really awesome magic. Three seasons of The Magicians are seasons waiting for you to binge watch them right now, and each season has its own Big Quest for you to focus on --which is a very handy distraction to have right now.
This poem, The Low Road by Marge Piercy,which Alex London tweeted.It's.. everything. It encapsulates the brokenness, the fear, the heartache, the hopelessness of a time like this --but it doesn't leave us there. It meets us where the pain is and brings us to community, to resistance, to action, to where we take back the power and fight for change. "Thirteen makes a circle, a hundred fill a hall / A thousand have solidarity / and your own newsletter; It goes one at a time. It starts when you care to act... / it starts when you say We / and know who you mean, and each / day you mean one more." It's exactly what I need to be reading when the day washes over me and I feel lost in the bad news.
I've been watching the World Cup, and Americans: y'all are hosting one soon so let me tell ya the rules: you pick a team, based on hotness of players, or the fact that their names are fun to say, or because their kit is your favourite colour, or because you've always wanted to visit the country, or.. ya know, because soccer skills. And all you need to know is that you want the ball to go into the goal. Literally that's all you need to know. It's super fun to get invested in the rollercoaster ride of something totally outside the political landscape. It's a huge relief to have something happen between so many different countries, and it's a totally Trump-free zone. This is my gift to you! Take 90 minutes of your life and.. I don't know how time-zones work but find a way to watch. Pick a team, maybe find a bar that's playing the games --it's a magical thing, cheering along with total strangers when a goal is scored. And! If the soccer thing works for you: Pull Me Underis a very British summer-romance with a newly-outed star footballer in a fake-relationship. It's SO sweet, really fun and super sexy.
I've read some wonderful books that made me feel like the world could actually be okay if people like this kept making their art and sending it out into the world with good intentions:
Of Echoes Bornis sublime. It's a collection of stories just magical enough to feel as though you're suspended above reality for a bit, in a world where everyone's queer and the characters are navigating their superpowers while finding true love and human connection. Nathan Burgoine's intention with this book, as written in the Acknowledgements, was to add to the noise of queer stories with happy endings. There's a range of different ages, and differently-abled bodies, and different stages of love featured in this collection. It's the perfect book to keep by your bedside for some lovely heartsongs before you go to sleep. There's a couple of sad ones near the very end, though, but somehow the pull of magic is what stays with you, even in those moments. And mannnn the ending is WOAH. Glorious!
Unfit to Print is the kind of woke romance I need in my life. I like my swooning with a side of social justice and damn, KJ Charles does not disappoint. And though a difficult subject to cover in a romance, I did not feel it weighed down the story at all. 10/10 would recommend.
Food 4 Thotis the podcast that got me into podcasts. It's filled with"sex positivity and unabashed queerness" --conversations on intersectionality and inclusivity, politics, literature, sex adventures and literary discussions. (cw: There's swearing, and the sex talk can be pretty explicit. Nsfw, for sure.) A really cool thing Food 4 Thot just did is launchthis range of tees with phrases like 'decolonize your bookshelf', 'books not guns' and 'the revolution will be cute as hell'. The proceeds go to the Transgender Law Center. I would also 1000% recommend (Food 4 Thot host) Tommy Pico'spoetry book 'Nature Poem' which tackles feelings around his American Indian heritage, experiences of dating, and his move from the reservation into the city. It's packed with pop culture references and texting shorthand, and it will make youlaugh.A line I love is "When a star dies, it becomes any number of things like a black hole, or a documentary."
I also really love the BookRiot Hey YApodcast. It's super delightful and always puts a smile on my face. Kelly and Eric are charming, lovely, adorable hosts and they talk about books they love, bookish happenings in the world, upcoming YA novels, and there's always a collection of really cool recommendations from each of them. They give the best descriptions, and I appreciate their focus on inclusive stories, and making sure as many different points of view are represented in the offering they present to us. Hey YA is a cool podcast to listen to at work, it's like having a conversation with friends, just make sure you've got a notebook handy to scribble down the names of books they recommend!
Ana
I’m on summer vacation right now which turns into a mix of doing nothing but reading and frantic errand running between trips and guilt about house projects I should try to get done. However with the excessive heat sitting around in the AC has seemed more like a survival tactic and removed any guilt out of just sitting in the dark and watching TV, especially since I’m watching with my youngest and we can think of it as family bonding time!
My youngest is a huge fan of Jane the Virgin and was shocked to discovered that despite so many of my romance folks on twitter raving about I hadn’t watched it yet.
I’m about half-way through the first season and I love everything about it. The Villanueva women are just perfect. Jane is just such a good person, smart, funny and ultra-responsible. She has tried to do everything right and her life has gone a completely new direction that has her reevaluating everything. Her mother Xiomara is also fantastic. Lusty, vibrant and loves her daughter fiercely. Abuela Villanueva portrayal is complicated in just the right way. She is devout and conservative, bossy and snarky and far from perfect. The way they interact just warms my heart.
As a romance reader and former soap-opera and telenovela watcher, each episode is riot, with nods to tropes and romance conventions. I can’t wait to cuddle up with my teen and watch.
Amy
I started reading the Forbidden Hearts series by Alisha Rai. I know everyone else has been raving about it but because of work I never get a chance to read romance for me. But I'm loving the series. It's amazing to see queer and diverse characters all within the same universe, and I find the family drama to be dramatic enough to be entertaining but not too dramatic to send me into an emotion spiral. Sometimes the most comforting thing is to be seen and this series makes me feel seen.
I've also been watching Brooklyn 99 and lots of Let's Play videos by a YouTuber/Twitch streamer named Sips. Both are hilarious.
Margrethe
Crochet and select Agatha Christie novels.
Editor's Note: Margrethe has been running our new Instagram account and there are tons of photos of her adorable dog with books, plus photos from the rest of the LiP team!
Dylan
Nailed It! is amazing and also me when trying to recreate complicated Pinterest desserts. I can bake but my decorating skills are a whole nope!
We need all the cute, hopeful, and fluffy we can get. I'm hoarding HEA's these days.
Suzanne
I have to second Janelle Monae's new album, Nailed It!, and fluffy HEAs. That album is a visual and auditory orgasm. Yes, I said it.
Thor: Ragnarokis on Netflix now, so I finally got to watch it and I loooved it. Who needs Infinity War when you can have super heroes making jokes and Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie) falling off a spaceship drunk?
I've been re-watching shows because my soul needs comfort. My go-to this last two years has been Lost Girl, a series that originally ran in Canada and is now on Netflix! The main characters are a succubus named Bo and her human bestie, Kenzie. Bo's in a series-long love triangle with a male werewolf/detective and a female human doctor. I love a good love triangle. The plot stops making sense for pretty much all of seasons 3 and 4, but I don't care. That's how much I loved this show. Don't have Netflix? You can buy full seasons on YouTube or pretty much anywhere.
I've been reading a lot of political non-fiction, a lot of which doesn't make me happy, but does make me feel like perhaps I'm not losing my mind. I can recommend Madeline Albright's Fascism: A Warning, and the new one from Pod Save America's Dan Pfieffer, Yes, We (Still) Can.
I'm also binging a lot of audiobooks, everything from Beverly Jenkins' entire Destiny series to stacks of YA fantasy. For me, this means giant jigsaw puzzles while I listen.
I'm also eating a lot of popsicles and pink Starbursts, experimenting with lip gloss, and enjoying my gardens.
Of Echoes Born is sublime. It's a collection of stories just magical enough to feel as though you're suspended above reality for a bit, in a world where everyone's queer and the characters are navigating their superpowers while finding true love and human connection. Nathan Burgoine's intention with this book, as written in the Acknowledgements, was to add to the noise of queer stories with happy endings. There's a range of different ages, and differently-abled bodies, and different stages of love featured in this collection. It's the perfect book to keep by your bedside for some lovely heartsongs before you go to sleep. There's a couple of sad ones near the very end, though, but somehow the pull of magic is what stays with you, even in those moments. And mannnn the ending is WOAH. Glorious!
I started reading the Forbidden Hearts series by Alisha Rai. I know everyone else has been raving about it but because of work I never get a chance to read romance for me. But I'm loving the series. It's amazing to see queer and diverse characters all within the same universe, and I find the family drama to be dramatic enough to be entertaining but not too dramatic to send me into an emotion spiral. Sometimes the most comforting thing is to be seen and this series makes me feel seen.
I've been re-watching shows because my soul needs comfort. My go-to this last two years has been Lost Girl, a series that originally ran in Canada and is now on Netflix! The main characters are a succubus named Bo and her human bestie, Kenzie. Bo's in a series-long love triangle with a male werewolf/detective and a female human doctor. I love a good love triangle. The plot stops making sense for pretty much all of seasons 3 and 4, but I don't care. That's how much I loved this show. Don't have Netflix? You can buy full seasons on YouTube or pretty much anywhere.
I've been reading a lot of political non-fiction, a lot of which doesn't make me happy, but does make me feel like perhaps I'm not losing my mind. I can recommend Madeline Albright's Fascism: A Warning, and the new one from Pod Save America's Dan Pfieffer, Yes, We (Still) Can.