this book is lgbtqia+ (#1)

This Book is LGBTQIA+ is my way of putting a spotlight on books that may not be widely recognised as such. I want these books to have as much exposure as they can, and I hope you add some of these titles (or all) to those never-ending TBR piles!

Today’s book is:

because you’ll never meet me by leah thomas

Title: Because You’ll Never Meet Me

Author: Leah Thomas

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Genre/s: Contemporary, sci-fi (genre bender)

In a stunning literary debut, two boys on opposite ends of the world begin an unlikely friendship that will change their lives forever.

Ollie and Moritz are best friends, but they can never meet. Ollie is allergic to electricity. Contact with it causes debilitating seizures. Moritz’s weak heart is kept pumping by an electronic pacemaker. If they ever did meet, Ollie would seize. But Moritz would die without his pacemaker. Both hermits from society, the boys develop a fierce bond through letters that become a lifeline during dark times—as Ollie loses his only friend, Liz, to the normalcy of high school and Moritz deals with a bully set on destroying him.

A story of impossible friendship and hope under strange circumstances, this debut is powerful, dark and humorous in equal measure. These extraordinary voices bring readers into the hearts and minds of two special boys who, like many teens, are just waiting for their moment to shine.

Why This Book is LGBTQIA+

One of the two main characters, Moritz, is gay. He’s sincere and serious in the beginning (and more than a little rude), but as time goes on he opens up and gains confidence. It’s amazing to watch a character grow, and a friendship form, just by reading letters. It was lovely.

I decided to read Because You’ll Never Meet Me because I had a headcanon that the two boys would fall in love (there are those queer tinted spectacles again). And it kind of came true!

If you want to read more of my thoughts on Because You’ll Never Meet Me, click here.

the importance of continuity

To me, continuity is so important. I need it to make whatever I’m reading or watching enjoyable, because I need the story to be plausible and believable. This is more common in movies, though (especially of the horror variety), I must say.

A lot of the time, I feel like writers use the rule of: if it wasn’t mentioned, it wasn’t not part of the original story.

e.g. The Grudge 2, in which Karen (Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character) suddenly has a sister. In the first movie, Karen didn’t mention having a sister or not, so the above rule was used. In fact, this rule was again used in The Grudge 3, in which the grudge woman suddenly has a sister (repetitive much?).

e.g. 2. Jeepers Creepers 2 pretty much took every part of mythology mentioned in Jeepers Creepers, and shoved it down the toilet. The thing is the monster only needed to eat parts of humans (or a whole one, I guess) to create his human-esque body. When he gets the kid at the end of the first movie, bam. Done. The creature has what he needs. And then in #2, he’s still hunting people … uhm, okay. And then there’s also a scene where the head of the last kid he ate becomes his head and then morphs into the creature’s actual head, and every plausible idea the movie ever had just went completely out the door.

And sometimes that rule doesn’t even matter at all, we’re just gonna do whatever we want.

e.g. 3. When the Initiative closes down in season four of Buffy, a mysterious high-up military dude says “fill it with concrete”, and then lo and behold Buffy and Spike visit it in season seven. WHAT? It was filled with concrete, dammit.

e.g. 4. Juliette in Shatter Me (the series, rather than just the first book) underwent an extreme change of the romantic nature from the first book to the last. I mean, I’m glad it happened because I prefer the guy she ended up with, but it didn’t particularly make any sense to me. I mean, I know people can change their minds but woah was this unforeseen.

Anyway, I could keep giving examples, but I think you get what I mean. Continuity is integral because it keeps the all important aspects of plausibility and believability in the story. Just because something wasn’t mentioned doesn’t make that silence an opportunity for insertion of something else. It just looks pretty tacky, in my opinion.

Now, an example of really good continuity are the Step Up movies. I binge watched them recently, and there was a connection between each and every one. I was pretty amazed, because I have seen way too many multiple-movie series where continuity is ignore completely. But the sequel tied into the first one, which tied into the third, fourth, and fifth. It was so great, and I was super proud that the writers thought to include this because continuity-based thinkers like myself can just sit back and relax and watch the movie, rather than nitpick it the entire time.

I suppose one could say that this continuity issue is personal, but I can’t be the only one, can I? Can I? *looks around for other continuity-minded people*