An amazing addition to any classroom library. This is helpful for kiddos to help see where they land on the LGBTQ+ community in a safe way.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

It took me almost a year to get to this one after missing out on downloading the title before the archive date. Luckily, my local library had it. So, I was able to finally read it. This was a really good handbook of all things queer. It covered a wide range of topics and would likely help any person who is questioning their sexual or gender identity for the first time. The writing had a very conversational style that was easy to read and incredibly funny at times. However, there were also times that it felt a bit too flippant, in my opinion. I liked the positive attitude it had, though, and it tackled really heavy, important topics in an accessible way. My only real problem was that it seemed to push coming out as a panacea for everyone. The author did note many of the major drawbacks some people face when coming out, but that felt dwarfed by the attitude that coming out will make it all better. I agree that being out has great benefits, especially to mental health, but not everyone is in a situation where they can be out to everyone all the time. Even though the author acknowledged that fact, it still felt almost as if being closeted was belittled. My favorite thing about the book was the inclusion of all the different voices. The author conducted surveys and interviews with a variety of LGBT individuals, and their words and stories were included here and provided valuable perspectives. Overall, this book was an accessible wealth of information about being and living queer that I'm sure many young people (and parents) will find immensely helpful. Therefore, I rate it 4 out of 5 stars.

This review is my opinion.

I don’t have much to say about “This Book Is Gay” except that I am very disappointed with it. I expected more after hearing such praise and learning that, like me, Juno Dawson is a trans author! However, the book strayed from topic to topic and included anecdotes from LGBTQIA+ teens that hit the extremes: they either had nothing to do with the chapter or they were blatantly written to fit the section’s theme. Nothing felt natural, except the flow, which was so natural that it was difficult to follow. In my speculatory opinion, Dawson wrote the entire book without any plan or editing in order to “relate to teenagers” as if they learn from chaos instead of structure. It was difficult to stay engaged due to the casual writing style, but I also found the content offensive and irrelevant for the targeted audience. "This is that instruction manual" and "this book is for everyone" are not the phrases I would use to describe “This Book is Gay” - in fact, I believe a better title would be “This Book is Mildly Offensive But Gets Away With It Because The Author Directly Addresses The Jokes By Saying ‘LOL Just Kidding’”. As a trans and queer reader who has experience HBT bullying, I sincerely hope uneducated cisgender/heterosexual readers don’t pick this book up and learn that, as one example among others, cutting down the LGBTQIA+ acronym to LGBT out of convenience is acceptable. If there is one place to learn about the LGBTQIA+ community, feel safe to discuss questioning your sexual and gender identity, and feel accepted by the author, shouldn’t it be this book? Shortening the principal abbreviation of “This Book is Gay” may feel like a small example of writing a half-hearted book, keep in mind that adding QIA+ would take less than five seconds and would mean the world to thousands, if not millions of readers. Considering this is THE book for LGBTQIA+ readers, it was a sorry try at supporting the community. I sincerely hope you learned from and enjoyed this book, but if you’re considering reading it now, I would recommend you choose another LGBTQIA+ novel that draws a clear line between insulting and teasing.

You’re probably looking at this book and thinking ‘Er…Daisy? This has been out for years now! Why are you including it?’. Well, there’s a good reason. This Book Is Gay was originally released back in 2014 and in 2015 she came out as a transgender woman. Her old book was under her deadname ‘James’. Even my old library has that copy. I wanted to see it with the new updated cover.

Juno is such an incredible writer and even won an award last year for her book Meat Market!

This book is definitely more non-fiction than her other books and does exactly what the synopsis suggests. It gives a really interesting look into different elements of the LGBTQ+ community! Juno, if you ever read this mini review, I had to skip Chapter 9 about gay sex because I’m ace and couldn’t get myself to read!

The rest of the book is hilarious yet informative in a way that will really help any age who is questioning themselves and help them engage too! You get to learn through some of Juno’s own personal experiences growing up and discovering who she really was. Spike Gerrel’s brilliant illustrations add to the humour too!

If you know anyone, whether young or old, who has recently come out or is just curious about the community, tell them to read this!

LOVE! While I like to believe that I am fairly knowledgeable about labels and descriptions, definitions, etc. when it comes to the LGBTQ community. However, there is always more to learn. I greatly appreciated this book for providing more insight and explanation. For those who are new, just learning, or even unsure, this would be a great resource to help discover more terminology along their journey.

Thanks to #NetGalley and publisher for the ARC of #ThisBookIsGay in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review. I really liked this book. It was very informative and helped allow me to see different perspectives on labels in the LGBTQ+ community. It was also nice to see my own identity shown in the book. Bceause of this im giving it 4/5 stars.

I remember reading the first edition of this book, and finding it to be an incredible resource for queer youth.... albeit, a little exclusionary at times. This newer version is much more inclusive, but I still hesitate at some of the language used, and the examples put forth. There are still a lot of binaries in the language used, and I'm not sure how I felt about some of the "gay icons" included in the list at the end. All that said, this is a phenomenal resource for youth, and I'm so glad that it exists. It would have been absolutely life-changing to have something like this as a young person myself.