CT LGBT+ Book Club

Join us to discuss our book club pick Just by Looking at Him by Ryan O'Connell (description below)!

We’ll start with introductions, then discuss the book (what we liked, didn’t like, etc). We’ll wrap it up by discussing thoughts for our next months book pick.
Here’s a rough schedule:
• 7:00-7:15 — Arrive, order something to eat / drink, informal introductions.
• 7:15-8:00 — Discussion
• 8:00-8:30 — Planning for next month / continued chatting.
In addition to discussing the book, my hope is that this group will connect people with similar interests to form a community of queer folks who love to read! If we get off-topic on a subject we all are interested in, that’s great! And you’re welcome to stay after to chat and mingle.

**Location: Panera Southington

About Just by Looking at Him by Ryan O'Connell
From the star of Peacock’s Queer as Folk and the Netflix series Special comes a “funny, tender, and beautiful” ( Gary Janetti, New York Times bestselling author) novel following a gay TV writer with cerebral palsy as he fights addiction and searches for acceptance in an overwhelmingly ableist world.

Elliott appears to be living the dream as a successful TV writer with a doting boyfriend. But behind his Instagram filter of a life, he’s grappling with an intensifying alcohol addiction, he can’t seem to stop cheating on his boyfriend with various sex workers, and his cerebral palsy is making him feel like gay Shrek.

After falling down a rabbit hole of sex, drinking, and Hollywood backstabbing, Elliott decides to limp his way towards redemption. But facing your demons is easier said than done.

“With his singular voice and unforgettable wit” (Steven Rowley, author of The Guncle ), Ryan O’Connell presents a candid, biting, and refreshingly real commentary on gay life, laugh-out-loud exploration of self, and a rare insight into life as a person with disabilities.

Join us to discuss our book club pick Blade Between by Sam J Miller (description below)!

We’ll start with introductions, then discuss the book (what we liked, didn’t like, etc). We’ll wrap it up by discussing thoughts for our next months book pick.
Here’s a rough schedule:
• 7:00-7:15 — Arrive, order something to eat / drink, informal introductions.
• 7:15-8:00 — Discussion
• 8:00-8:30 — Planning for next month / continued chatting.
In addition to discussing the book, my hope is that this group will connect people with similar interests to form a community of queer folks who love to read! If we get off-topic on a subject we all are interested in, that’s great! And you’re welcome to stay after to chat and mingle.

**Location: Panera Southington

About Blade Between by Sam J Miller
From Nebula Award winner Sam J. Miller comes a frightening and uncanny ghost story about a rapidly changing city in upstate New York and the mysterious forces that threaten it.

Ronan Szepessy promised himself he’d never return to Hudson. The sleepy upstate town was no place for a restless gay photographer. But his father is ill and New York City’s distractions have become too much for him. He hopes that a quick visit will help him recharge.

Ronan reconnects with two friends from high school: Dom, his first love, and Dom’s wife, Attalah. The three former misfits mourn what their town has become—overrun by gentrifiers and corporate interests. With friends and neighbors getting evicted en masse and a mayoral election coming up, Ronan and Attalah craft a plan to rattle the newcomers and expose their true motives. But in doing so, they unleash something far more mysterious and uncontainable.

Hudson has a rich, proud history and, it turns out, the real estate developers aren’t the only forces threatening its well-being: the spirits undergirding this once-thriving industrial town are enraged. Ronan’s hijinks have overlapped with a bubbling up of hate and violence among friends and neighbors, and everything is spiraling out of control. Ronan must summon the very best of himself to shed his own demons and save the city he once loathed.

Join us to discuss our book club pick Stag Dance by Torrey Peters (description below)!

We’ll start with introductions, then discuss the book (what we liked, didn’t like, etc). We’ll wrap it up by discussing thoughts for our next months book pick.
Here’s a rough schedule:
• 7:00-7:15 — Arrive, order something to eat / drink, informal introductions.
• 7:15-8:00 — Discussion
• 8:00-8:30 — Planning for next month / continued chatting.
In addition to discussing the book, my hope is that this group will connect people with similar interests to form a community of queer folks who love to read! If we get off-topic on a subject we all are interested in, that’s great! And you’re welcome to stay after to chat and mingle.

**Location: Panera Southington

About Stag Dance by Torrey Peters
The kaleidoscopic follow-up to the bestselling Detransition, Baby

In this collection of one novel and three stories, Torrey Peters’s keen eye for the rough edges of community and desire push the limits of trans writing.

In Stag Dance, the titular novel, a group of restless lumberjacks working in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some of them will volunteer to attend as women. When the broadest, strongest, plainest of the axmen announces his intention to dance as a woman, he finds himself caught in a strange rivalry with a pretty young jack, provoking a cascade of obsession, jealousy, and betrayal that will culminate on the big night in an astonishing vision of gender and transition.

Three startling stories surround Stag Dance: “Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones” imagines a gender apocalypse brought about by an unstable ex. In “The Chaser,” a secret romance between roommates at a Quaker boarding school brings out intrigue and cruelty. In the last story, “The Masker,” a party weekend on the Las Vegas strip turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between two guides: a handsome mystery man who objectifies her in thrilling ways, or a cynical veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood.

Acidly funny and breathtaking in its scope, with the inventive audacity of George Saunders or Jennifer Egan, Stag Dance provokes, unsettles, and delights.

Join us to discuss our book club pick The Boy With a Bird in His Chest by Emme Lund (description below)!

We’ll start with introductions, then discuss the book (what we liked, didn’t like, etc). We’ll wrap it up by discussing thoughts for our next months book pick.
Here’s a rough schedule:
• 7:00-7:15 — Arrive, order something to eat / drink, informal introductions.
• 7:15-8:00 — Discussion
• 8:00-8:30 — Planning for next month / continued chatting.
In addition to discussing the book, my hope is that this group will connect people with similar interests to form a community of queer folks who love to read! If we get off-topic on a subject we all are interested in, that’s great! And you’re welcome to stay after to chat and mingle.

**Location: Panera Southington

About The Boy With a Bird in His Chest by Emme Lund

Though Owen Tanner has never met anyone else who has a chatty bird in their chest, medical forums would call him a Terror. From the moment Gail emerged between Owen’s ribs, his mother knew that she had to hide him away from the world. After a decade spent in hiding, Owen takes a brazen trip outdoors in the middle of a forest fire, and his life is upended forever.

Suddenly, Owen is forced to flee the home that had once felt so confining and hide in plain sight with his uncle and cousin in Washington. There, he feels the joy of finding a family among friends; of sharing the bird in his chest and being embraced fully; of falling in love and feeling the devastating heartbreak of rejection before finding a spark of happiness in the most unexpected place; of living his truth regardless of how hard the thieves of joy may try to tear him down. But the threat of the Army of Acronyms is a constant, looming presence, making Owen wonder if he’ll ever find a way out of the cycle of fear.

A heartbreaking yet hopeful novel about the things that make us unique and lovable, The Boy with a Bird in His Chest grapples with the fear, depression, and feelings of isolation that come with believing that we will never be loved, let alone accepted, for who we truly are, and learning to live fully and openly regardless.

Acidly funny and breathtaking in its scope, with the inventive audacity of George Saunders or Jennifer Egan, Stag Dance provokes, unsettles, and delights.