guessing books’ summaries from the cover|ft. LGBTQ+ new releases

Hey everyone! Happy (nearly over) Pride Month!

First of all, I just wanted to say sorry for basically disappearing for two weeks. I had a pretty busy week (I’m starting a summer camp that is basically school but ALL MATH, and I had a music workshop that takes a lot of my time) and I’ve been procrastinating at checking my WordPress notifications. Nothing new. 🙂

Aside from that, I’ve also had zero inspiration to write any posts? There’s one novel that I really want to review (Girl Made of Stars) but I’m not sure how I’d do that without going into my feelings because it’s really personal to me. And I don’t exactly feel comfortable talking about it on a public platform like this.

Anyways, I ended up piggy-backing on this pretty cool trend- guessing books’ summaries from their covers! I’ve seen a few of these posts on my reader over the past several months and I thought it would be cool if I hopped on the bandwagon too!

Except, with a twist.

All these books are LGBTQ+ 2020/upcoming releases in Young Adult (happy Pride Month friends!) and honestly, this is going to make it even more fun in my opinion 😀

As a disclaimer, this was harder than I thought to find the books in the first place because I have already heard of many of the releases! (which is great, of course, but it means that there was a limited amount of books to choose from)

1. “The Fascinators” by Andrew Eliopulos (5/12/20)

My guess for the synopsis:

A high-school boy (let’s call him Ethan) is from a small town living with his parents as an only child. He has always known he was gay but isn’t out to anyone (or maybe he’s out to his parents? idk man). Then he meets another new boy who is energetic, lovely and introduces Ethan to a new world of magic. They fall for each other. Yay.

The actual synopsis:

Living in a small town where magic is frowned upon, Sam needs his friends James and Delia—and their time together in their school’s magic club—to see him through to graduation.

But as soon as senior year starts, little cracks in their group begin to show. Sam may or may not be in love with James. Delia is growing more frustrated with their amateur magic club. And James reveals that he got mixed up with some sketchy magickers over the summer, putting a target on all their backs.

With so many fault lines threatening to derail his hopes for the year, Sam is forced to face the fact that the very love of magic that brought his group together is now tearing them apart—and there are some problems that no amount of magic can fix.

So… I was sort of right? I was right about the main character being a gay high school guy in a small town. I was also right that there is a M/M romance and that there is magic (I wonder how I knew… maybe it’s because of the sparkles on the cover, I don’t know).

2. “When We Were Magic” by Sarah Gailey (3/3/20)

My guess for the synopsis:

Six girls are the main characters and there are alternating POVs. Two are best friends, two are new to the group, and the other are wild cards. Some of them fall in love with each other, some of them fall in love with other people, but their friendship stays true even during trying times. The setting is a big city, and these girls are in college/university. Maybe NYC? Some themes in this story include sexuality, coming out, gender identity, friendship, love (yeah I’m just rattling off themes in every YA novel now).

The actual synopsis:

A moving, darkly funny novel about six teens whose magic goes wildly awry from Magic for Liars author Sarah Gailey, who Chuck Wendig calls an “author to watch.”

Keeping your magic a secret is hard. Being in love with your best friend is harder.

Alexis has always been able to rely on two things: her best friends, and the magic powers they all share. Their secret is what brought them together, and their love for each other is unshakeable—even when that love is complicated. Complicated by problems like jealousy, or insecurity, or lust. Or love.

That unshakeable, complicated love is one of the only things that doesn’t change on prom night.

When accidental magic goes sideways and a boy winds up dead, Alexis and her friends come together to try to right a terrible wrong. Their first attempt fails—and their second attempt fails even harder. Left with the remains of their failed spells and more consequences than anyone could have predicted, each of them must find a way to live with their part of the story.

Okay, so I was sort of way off. This looks like a speculative fantasy set in our world. The only thing I got right was that there are six girls (which was obvious, given the cover) and that two of the girls in the group fall in love with each other. Other than that, nothing. I even thought this was a contemporary despite the word “magic” being in the title although I guess that can be excused because it has a contemporary-looking cover. Also, it seems like there’s only one POV.

Not gonna lie though, I’m totally here for queer witches who commit murder 😉

2. “The Mermaid, The Witch, And the Sea” by Maggie Tokuda-Hall (5/5/20)

My guess for the synopsis:

Actually I already this book has something to do with pirates, somehow, so I didn’t guess that 🙂 other than that I’m a blank slate though!

Kaya/Kela/Kai some girl with a name starting with K (idk it just seems right) is an orphan who lives with her Godmother, sailing the seas of whatever magical kingdom they live in. She’s always known her Godmother was magical, a witch, and that being a witch wasn’t exactly… the best way to make friends, but Kela never knew the truth of her past, of her own magic, until she meets a group of ragtag pirates who teach her secrets from her old life and her new one, threatening to unravel the delicate balance between past and present and magic and normality.

oh, regarding the queer rep Kaya/Kela/Kai could be aromantic/asexual! i feel like it would work best with my outlined story.

My guess for the synopsis:

Aboard the pirate ship Dove, Flora the girl takes on the identity of Florian the man to earn the respect and protection of the crew. For Flora, former starving urchin, the brutal life of a pirate is about survival: don’t trust, don’t stick out, and don’t feel. But on this voyage, as the pirates prepare to sell their unsuspecting passengers into slavery, Flora is drawn to the Lady Evelyn Hasegawa, who is en route to a dreaded arranged marriage with her own casket in tow. Flora doesn’t expect to be taken under Evelyn’s wing, and Evelyn doesn’t expect to find such a deep bond with the pirate Florian.

Soon the unlikely pair set in motion a wild escape that will free a captured mermaid (coveted for her blood, which causes men to have visions and lose memories) and involve the mysterious Pirate Supreme, an opportunistic witch, and the all-encompassing Sea itself.

Okay, so once again, I was… pretty off. I guess I interpreted the main character as younger- maybe twelve or thirteen- so it really threw me off when the synopsis said that she feel in love with a noble- Lady Evelyn Hasegawa- because that means that she is probably at least twenty-ish.

Anyways, I like my story idea better. Someone should write this as an upper MG/ lower YA novel. I think it could be a bestseller 😉 also, the cover is SO pretty other than that weird face in the sea?? What’s going on there?

If I’m being honest none of these really struck me as a book I need to get my hands on right now. Then again, I’m feeling slump-y again so here comes the rereads 🙂

I promise to try and post more consistently- at least once a week for sure.

(and once again we’re 1000+ words)

Also, would you be interested in seeing a Part Two of this post, maybe with a different theme? Have you read any of these books, and what did you think of them? Were my predictions sort of correct? 😉