Reading

Planète B

The French movie Planète B was awesome! In 2039, Julia Bombarth, an ecological activist from Grenoble, gets sent to a virtual prison for terrorism. Nour Hamdi, a journalist from Baghdad whose French visa is going to expire soon, steals a headset from the military base where she's working as a cleaning lady and discovers the truth.

I knew I would love this movie as soon as I saw the trailer. I also thought I would ship the ladies, but now I think this is actually a sapphic movie. There's no kiss, but it's pretty blatant. The director didn't cast Adèle Exarchopoulos as Julia randomly.

The Day of the Jackal

The British TV series The Day of the Jackal was excellent. It focuses on a highly skilled hitman and the MI6 agents trying to catch him.

The hitman is played by Eddie Redmayne, his wife by Úrsula Corberó (Tokio in La Casa de Papel) and the MI6 agents by Lashana Lynch (Maria Rambeau in the MCU) and Nick Blood (Lance Hunter in the MCU).

( Spoilers )

Signal Boost

There are 4 DAYS LEFT for EU citizens to sign the European Citizens' Initiative petition to ban conversion therapy in the European Union.

- 570,000 signatures are still needed (with the massive mobilisation currently happening, we're getting ~100,000 new signatures a day, so there's a chance)
- 2 countries still need to reach the threshold: Slovenia and the Netherlands are in good position

Please share on all your social media! Here's a Tumblr post and a Bluesky one, for a start. If you have friends in Slovenia and/or the Netherlands, please message them. A lot of people don't have the time to catch up on their dashboards/timelines and can easily miss the information.

Odd Spirits by S.T. Gibson

In the illustrated novella Odd Spirits by S.T. Gibson, a prequel to the novel Evocation, newly-married Rhys and Moira have a malevolent spirit in their home.

This is bi m/f, which will expand into m/m/f in the main series.

Thunderbolts*

Thunderbolts* was a lot of fun. I definitely enjoy the smaller team-ups more than the huge Avengers movies.

There was a big theme of mental health. It reminded me of the TV show Legion in the X-Men verse.

I was not big on Bucky's look as a US representative, but after that, he looked very sexy. So did Yelena! <3

There are 2 mid/post-credits scenes (and this time, it was worth waiting until the end).

D'un trait de fusain by Cathy Ytak

D'un trait de fusain by Cathy Ytak was excellent. In 1992, a French high school girl finds out that one of her gay friends is HIV+. Together, they will join ACT UP.

This was such a moving story! It always takes me time to motivate myself to read/watch stories about AIDS, but ACT UP is a source of inspiration for awareness-raising activism. For more Activism Fiction Books, check out my rec list. And for a fiction movie about ACT UP France, you can watch 120 BPM.

There's major m/m. Two main characters have synaesthesia.

Entry tags:

reading log

Reading Log: March and April 2025

March and April Books:

"Overdue: A Tale of the Middle Kingdoms #2" by Diane Duane
"The Landlady" by Diane Duane
"Assistant to the Villain" (audio) by Hannah Nicole Maehrer (hated it)
"The Nightmare Before Kissmas" by Sara Raasch
"Spin Me Right Round" (audio) by David Valdes
"In the Lives of Puppets" (audio) by TJ Klune
"The Last Olympian: Percy Jackson and the Olympians #5" (audio) by Rick Riordan
"Legendborn" by Tracy Deonn

Reviews are on StoryGraph.

I was surprised by how good "The Nightmare Before Kissmas" was.
If you liked "House on the Cerulean Sea" but you can stand more heartbreak, I highly recommend "In the Lives of Puppets."
I am apparently late to the Tracy Deonn party, but it's a good party and the last book of the series isn't out yet, so you have time.

Thyme Travellers: An Anthology of Palestinian Speculative Fiction

Thyme Travellers: An Anthology of Palestinian Speculative Fiction edited by Sonia Sulaiman was amazing.

I was impressed by the quality of most of these short stories, so I wasn't surprised when I learnt just yesterday that this book was a Locus Award finalist. Good luck, everybody!

I've also read Sonia Sulaiman's work in Inara: Light of Utopia, an anthology of queer and trans Palestinian utopian writing.

There are a few sapphic characters.

The Next Prince

The first episode of the BL Thai drama The Next Prince was awesome! Khanin finds out that he's the hidden Prince of Emmali (somehow in South-East Asia). Charan will be his bodyguard.

It stars Zee/NuNew (Lian/Kuea in Cutie Pie). Actually, that's because I loved the original promo for The Next Prince back in December 2022 that I decided to watch Cutie Pie.

It's delicious annoyances-to-lovers. There are cool fight scenes, as well as some fencing. And it's going to be 14 episodes long.

It's available legally and for free on iQiyi.