Hmm, so I've seen a bunch of 'don't just rec trans/nb authors when SWMNBN does something gross, rec them all the time!' and the points made about what being an ally actually means are valid, but also! Consider! That if you read and rec queer authors/books on the regular, not only

will you enjoy some really awesome books, but your recs will sound, uh. Actually appealing? :D Because, hmm, two things:

1. Seeing lists of fun, queer fiction trotted out as a ~resource~ every time a celebrity says something gross makes reading them seem like a chore. It's like

seeing books on a high school syllabus, knowing you can't just read them for fun, you're expected to *learn* from them, that you're not supposed to just purely enjoy them.

2. The actual recs I've seen for individual books on most of these lists are really crappy as recs. If

you're lucky, there's maybe an informational tagline (Daphne du Maurier meets Howl's Moving Castle :D!), plus a quick description of what rep is in it, and...that's it. Where recs I see outside of 'diversity lists' gush about the plot or the characters or the writing.

3 (sorry).

You all keep reccing the same damn books and authors all the fucking time. One diversity list gets made up and passed around, and, welp, there's the list to pull out the next time someone says something shitty! Maybe add a new YA bestseller to the list. I have seen rec lists

/rec threads featuring the same ten or so titles multiple times since the new gross thing came out yesterday, and like, I am super pleased that people are reading those books! They sound neat. But there are more of them out there? Which you'd know if you, uh. Read them regularly.

Anyway, this thread got way too long, sorry, but please, I beg, stop treating queer novels (or in this case specifically, books by trans/nb authors) like Serious Lessons you need to get a dose of to Well-Round yourself. Just freaking pick some that sound fun to you and enjoy them