BURY YOUR GAYS BY CHUCK TINGLE
Spoiler-Free Review 3/15/2024.
I found the main character super endearing, as well as his two closest people. One of them, there's such a special treat for my fellow a- and gray-sexual people. The way the main character describes his boyfriend is so casually in love too; super authentic and lovely.
The horror delivers! I looove scenes where scary things happen in public with people milling about; how people are so fast to grab their cell phones for a viral video. It's a satisfying confirmation that this won't be a psychological horror (which is okay but it's more exciting to me when the fabric of reality is intact and *these things are really happening*) mixed with the dark truth about how ghoulish and exploitative we can get. That said, Chuck Tingle wasn't unkind in his narration of these scenes. He could've been more biting but instead it was just a rather nonjudgmental acknowledgement of how things are.
The main character, a writer of queer horror, explores the roots of a few of his fictional villains, which means a journey back to the early 00s and his high school years. Boy was it weird to feel so suddenly attached to a character because I'd grown up in the same exact time period. Not in Montana but I was in the midwest, and a pop culture junkie same as I am now (maybe more back then) and jfc the early 00s were not great - being gay was still stigmatized af. The hyper-awareness of queer people and sentiments especially among young men my age in the '00s resulted in a lot of gay chicken games that just bottled up tension and stifled communication until it was either a searing kiss or a punch in the face. Richard Siken knows. Also David Greven, lol (highly recommend Greven's book Ghost Faces: Hollywood and Post-Millennial Masculinity by the way. He analyzes early-aughts comedy and horror films and calls out so many things that had me shuddering for the TV show Supernatural, which I watched and loved for 15 years despite its many awful flaws).
Without giving too much away plot-wise, this book had elements of Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park and Prey mixed with a great post-modern art and greed commentary similar to what I got out of the movies Velvet Buzzsaw or The Menu. It was more sincere than any of those stories though, and definitely worth a read. It's so much fun. <333
HAPPY CLOUDS NEEDLE FELTING
During my library's MakerFest on Saturday, March 9, there was one particular table in/around the Fiber Arts group that helped people design fabric-looking cupcakes. It was so whimsical and charming, I was sold. Further researched it and discovered needle-felting and needle-felted food.
I am currently working up to food (minicupcakes! grapes!). This happy cloud piece is my third needle-felting project, and the one I'm happy enough with that I'm sharing. Here are the videos I watched to get started:
- Needle Felting Basics for Beginners by pufftique
- I tried needle felting for the first time! by Rachel Maksy
- 7 Common NEEDLE FELTING MISTAKES you might be making by Julie's Felted Friends