Once I started listening to this audiobook I found it very hard to stop! It was extremely compelling and I really enjoyed it. It's a thrilling ride filled with mystery and some fantastical elements and it's just a great fun read. The writing was excellent - switching between POVs of the main characters, but their voices were so distinct. This applies to both the writing and the audio narrators. I also loved the representation in the book, with interesting and relevant discussions of both sexuality, identity and race. I identified with more than one of the characters, which really added to my enjoyment.

I was provided with an ALC from the Publisher via Netgalley. As mentioned, the audiobook narration was excellent and I loved the use of multiple narrators, because it was so easy to follow who was speaking. There were a few moments in the book where the volume seemed to be inconsistent and others where lines had obviously been rerecorded, but this didn't really take away from my overall enjoyment.

Overall it's a great book that I would recommend to anyone who is looking for fast paced thrilling read, that while it is dark academia, it doesn't get too bogged down in the fantastical elements. It still managed to feel pretty contemporary in it's writing style even though it is technically historical fiction (set in the early 90s). The reason it's not a five star for me is that I wanted more about the interpersonal relationships of the characters that would have resulted in me having more emotional involvement in the story.

Rep: bi Korean-American mc, Black gay mc, gay mc, sapphic Black sc, gay scs, trans sc, queer scs, Asian scs, Black scs

Rating: 4.5

This book is a queer dark academia with cults, secret societies, witchcraft, curses and demons. It’s set in 1991, so the characters face a lot of homophobia/queerphobia and racism. The author did a great job of adding in the queer history. The story is told retrospectively. There was 3 povs in this book. Each of them are in very different places with their sexuality.

The first pov is Zooey, he’s new to school and has a secret. The other two pov characters, Daniel and Leo, introduce him to their secret society/club for gay students. Here, they can all be their true selves and not have to worry about anything. Little does Zooey know, Leo and the other’s recently discovered a magic book. They previously performed a ritual on Leo to stop the bullying, then agreed not to use it again. That’s when Zooey transfers in and also starts being bullied. The guys decide to help him out by using the book again, but things start going very wrong.

This starts off seeming like a contemporary book. There’s only a few hints at magical realism, until we get about halfway. That’s when the fantasy/paranormal elements kick in. At around 60% is where shit hits the fan. I got really sucked in then. I was already enjoying it before, but things just ramp up after that point. Don’t be fooled by the slow start.

I liked all of the guys. They were each really different, and were all at different stages of accepting themselves. Other than Stephen, we didn’t really spend much time with the other Vicious Circle members. And even he was pretty quiet and somewhat an enigma. I would have liked to learn more about him and the other members. Oona as well. She only makes a few appearances but she seemed really cool.

At times it can can hard to read, knowing that the author based parts of this on his lived experience in college. While this is fiction, a lot of these things did happen to queer people and PoC, and even still happens today. That being said, the author did a great job of being accurate with the time period, and with the queer culture and history. Also with weaving real world events, like the presidential elections and the AIDS epidemic, into the story.

The narrators did a great job. I liked that each pov had its own narrator.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one. It started off slow with the paranormal elements and action, but once we get to it, it was hard to put it down. Please read the trigger warnings before going into this.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an audio ARC of this book

Actor, musician and writer Andy Mientus debuted with a YN novel about a public school for boys in the late 1980s, where a group of students set up a secret gay club, and one of the boys happens to be black bi and suffers from a triple stigma and being misunderstood even inside the club. The boys steal an occult book from the academy director, read spells and die one by one.

I'd like to say that Mientus has fallen into the trap of a debut novel, but this isn't technically his first book - he's already written as many as three illustrated stories for middle school. Still, he's stuffed the text with a lot and everything. There's the dark academy (when will the fashion for romanticizing psychological abuse of children go away?), and the multiple ROVs, and experiencing the triple stigma, and the romance line, and the George W. Bush political campaign, and the AIDS epidemic, and occult demons and witches. (However, the scene exorcising the main demon, where the hero is aided by an unseen chorus of men who have died of AIDS, is good). In the end, the novel falls apart into several unequal themes, of which the "epidemic" one is obviously the most important for Mientus, and the academic-occult one for entourage and atmosphere.

Be that as it may, Fraternity is a rare beast in the world of YA: written by an openly bisexual man with a male gender socialization, the text holds at least on authenticity and credibility of psychological material, rather than playing into fetishization.

*I received this book for free through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

3.5 stars

Leo was my favorite! He was a fun character. Zooey was whatever. Daniel's POV wasn't interesting. The writing was quickly-paced. I like the queer, dark academia, and paranormal vibes. The plot was layered, had some twists, and was attention-grabbing.

I enjoyed all of the narrators. They all had different voices which helps you remember whose chapter you are in. The cover is unique. All-in-all, the book had its light moments and its dark moments. I would enjoy seeing more of the world in a sequel (with some character development)!

Unfortunately I'm going to have to DNF this book pretty early in because the writing just isn't good quality in my opinion, and continuing with the book isn't worth my time. I do enjoy what I've heard of the narration, just don't like the actual content of the book.

Fall 1991: Zooey Orson transfers to Blackfriars School for Boys and is quickly inducted into a historic secret club for queer students called the Vicious Circle. As he befriends Leo, Daniel, and Steven he is swept up in the unfamiliar world of boys who have accepted this part of themselves that he cannot even bring himself to name.

Fraternity is a difficult but important book that weaves dark occult magic with queer culture and history. It’s a story draped in darkness that doesn’t let up through most of the book, but as it’s YA I was expecting a hopeful ending if not an overly happy one (I wasn’t disappointed). The ending was satisfying and left me in tears both of queer joy and of the deep kind of sorrow that comes with reading about the tragedies and trauma experienced by queer people who came before me (and still experienced by many today).

Facing down a lifetime of having to hide themselves or be outed and face the consequences, the members of the Vicious Circle cling to one another for safety, for love, for sex, and for a space they can always be themselves in. Sometimes home is not a place you rest your head but the people who see you for who you are.

The author tackled many very difficult topics in only a few hundred pages and wove a story of occult magic and rituals into it as well, and I felt it was successful. At times the narration can be a bit cringey and some of the story felt clumsily put together but the writing was overall very good. At the beginning of the book I felt unsure about the representation of gay men and the thoughts that some of the characters had about being gay, but it was also probably an accurate representation of being a gay boy in the early 90s. I don’t need to agree fully with a character in order to see the truth and importance in them. The one character I wish we had been able to learn more about was Steven, as he was mostly a proxy for what happens when you abuse power.

I thoroughly enjoyed the audiobook which featured a unique voice for each narrator (including the author himself). There's something powerful about audiobooks to me, especially when done well. I feel like I've gotten to the know the characters on a more personal level and they reside in my mind as unique voices. The deep lines cut even deeper when I hear them spoken.

The characters are not always lovable but they are real and I loved them for that. They do horrible things, they face terrible odds, they lose and are lost again and again. Not everyone makes it out alive.

This isn’t any easy book by any means. Homophobic slurs and brutality, death by magic, death by AIDS, violence, on-page conversion therapy, off-page statutory rape, and racism are all things to look out for when entering the world of the Blackfriars boys. Unfortunately, these are all things that occur in our own world still. The story of Zooey, Leo, Daniel and Steven may be fiction, but it is all too real (barring the occult magic and demonic possession, as far as I’m aware).

“...history lets us carry the work of those who came before us forward, so that we might finish it.”

Not everyone makes it out, but we don’t forget those who are left behind. We keep fighting: for us, for them, and for everyone who comes after.

A dark-acidemia told from the perspective of 3 boys who are at different places when it comes to their sexuality set in the 90s.
Although it is a dark story filled with a secret society and loss, the author was able to balance it with light hearted moments that also made me laugh. I was able to see myself in each of the characters when it comes to my own experience with my own sexuality; the questioning of it, the hiding and fear, and then fully embracing it. And hopefully others can relate too.

Fraternity is a queer dark academia book set in an all-boys boarding school in the 90s. We follow three boys, Zooey, Daniel, and Leo as they start their sophomore year at Blackfriars which will turn out to change all of their lives for good.

The book basically has two storylines/narratives that run concurrently and are linked: a search for and struggle with identity and the paranormal. The POV shifts between Zooey, Daniel, and Leo throughout the book as they tell the story of what happened at Blackfriars.

Heads up: Make sure you read the author's note and content/trigger warnings as this is set in the early 1990s and the vocabulary and setting reflect this.

All three boys are members of the Blackfriar secret gay society The Viscious Circle, and they're all trying to keep their sexuality hidden from most of their peers as being out isn't a feasible option in a school in the 90s where most students appear homophobic and/or racist. They all are attempting, with various levels of success, to fly below the radar and just get through school unscathed and mostly unnoticed.

Zooey is a recent transfer student who had to leave his previous school after he was <spoiler>groomed by his male teacher and afterwards was </spoiler> relentlessly bullied. He carries great shame about what happened, thinking he was at fault and he is also struggling with figuring out and coming to terms with his sexuality, as well as being half Asian and white-passing.

Daniel is a black student jock whose family is "new money" in a school of mainly white kids who think "old money" is the only acceptable way of being rich. His father especially has always put a lot of pressure on Daniel to remember that average or decent isn't ever good enough, and Daniel fears he can never tell his family he's secretly in love with his roommate.

Leo, Daniel's roommate and boyfriend, is too flamboyant to be able to hide from the school bullies. Leo only got into Blackfriars because his father was a legacy as his family isn't rich or influential. He was raised by a single mother, his father having passed away before Leo was born, and while not growing up with wealth, Leo did grow up with a loving and supporting mother. He's generally confident in his skin but when the verbal taunts turn to physical beatings, he knows something needs to change.

This is where the paranormal comes in. They find a book that's supposedly magic and try a spell that makes Leo "invisible" and thus stops the bullying and harassment he's been facing. The boys quickly learn that doing magic has consequences but when Leo's past is discovered by the school bullies, they have to figure out if the risks that come with using the book are maybe worth dealing with one more time.

From here the plot unravels a little but it also gets even harder to put the book down (or in my case, turn off the audiobook) and I found Fraternity a really intriguing read.

The audiobook is great, different narrators are used for each boy so the dual POV works really well.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the audiobook ARC in exchange for an honest review.