The Queer and the Restless by Kris Ripper

I will say this for Kris Ripper, zir writing is really good and ze knows how to tell a story!

Overall I really enjoyed this one. I could see myself in Ed in a lot of ways - sometimes painful ways, especially when it came to his situation with his family. It's painfully similar to my own and was hard for me to read, which I count as a point in this book's favor.

As far as the story itself goes... I felt like Ed and Alisha were a bit over the top with their respective obsessions. Not to say people can't get caught up like they were but it felt like the story pushed it to the max simply so they could have that conflict. Which now I think about it is a very rom-com trope and maybe not actually that big of a problem.

Two nitpicks from me:

1. there's a tendency for authors not to mention if a character takes their binder off or not before they go to bed and it bothers me because sleeping in your binder is really dangerous and if they are sleeping in it I WANT CONSEQUENCES and if they're not please tell us so we know they're okay?!!

2. The scene with Ed's dad felt so unnecessary. It was brief and felt like it only existed so we could learn Ed's dead name? I couldn't figure out a reasoning beyond that. But like. Give me trans books where we never learn a character's deadname! Please? It's not necessary. it doesn't add anything. I kind of get that we needed Ed to have that after freak out, but I feel like there could have been a way to do it just as naturally without deadnaming him.

Overall, super cute romance.

This book was just okay. I've liked the other books in the series much better.

Review to come tomorrow.<i>*I received this book from NetGalley and Riptide Publishing in return for a fair review.*</i>

This is the third book in the Queers of La Vista series, which is important in several ways – somewhat minor characters (depending on the book and situation) pop up throughout the series – sometimes getting major starring roles of their own, sometimes just mentioned in passing, there’s a murder mystery that’s been running throughout the series (well, at least the first three books now), and – maybe most importantly on a personal level – I acquired access to this book a good longish while ago, but didn’t read it until now. Because I’d read and loved the second book (no not because of that), so asked for the third – then when I got it, attempted to read the first book . . . and couldn’t (mind you, I know that some people ‘still’ see that one as the ‘best’). Which blocked me.

The Queers of La Vista series is one of those oddball ones that require a certain broad reading ability. As in – the first book involves two men getting hot and heavy (so MM romance; one of whom is a rather depressing sort – and I believe he was before he acquired multiple sclerosis – which certain didn’t help his depressing personality) with a touch of BDSM tossed in (not sure how much, there were tastes of it in the 27% of the book I’ve been able to read so far (the two main characters in this book are Emerson Robinette and Obie ‘NoLastNamegiven in book synopsis’ – both get mentioned, and Obie has one or three lines of dialogue in the third book); second book involves two women (so FF romance), one kind of a poster child for Butch women (the well dressed kind), while the other is all curves and feminity (Jaq Cummings and Hannah – both show up and have significant lines in book three); book three, this book here, involves a man and a woman, so MF romance. With a twist (more detailed later). Book four involves a poly relationship involving three men (so a MMM romance – Cameron plays a biggish role in book three; and both Josh and Keith (to certain extents) play roles in prior books)). And book five involves another FF romance (and this one also being something of a twist – what with it being a ‘pretend’ dating thing, but I’m just going by the book description here; this one stars Zane Jaffe who has popped up in all of the books I’ve read as a fun loving, weird dancer, who is obsessed with putting a baby in herself (as in getting pregnant, not as in humping people to put a baby there).

Right. Those were some rather large paragraphs. But this is supposed to be about this book here, so let’s get to that, eh?

The book stars Ed Masiello, half Mexican half Italian, and Alisha, whose genetic make-up – if given – didn’t stick in my brain. Ed works as a reporter on fluff general interest stories – though he’d prefer more hard hitting work; while Alisha works in an adventure company – setting up adventures for people (like setting up hang-gliding in Hawaii for fat lazy balding accountants), but would prefer to be doing the adventures herself – though ‘going with the flow’ type of adventures, not preplanned.

Ed and Alisha have known each other for a while, before the book opening, but they’ve mostly been in adjoining circles, not talking much to each other. Until this book that is. When the two hook up. Which is where the twist comes in, you know that MF romance, but with a twist. Since Alisha is a lesbian and feels odd thinking of herself as straight (so she thinks of switching to using ‘queer’); while Ed also has some issues thinking of himself as straight – even though he has always been attracted to women. It’s the part wherein his father wants nothing to do with ‘Anna’ until she ‘starts acting normal again’ that might explain a few things (what with Ed’s birth name being Anna – Ed’s spent most of his life as a lesbian attempting to figure out how to fit his body, until he realized what exactly was going on – i.e., he is transgender (and is in the transition process)).

The murder mystery that has been bubbling along for a while now in the series plays a big role in this story – Ed is obsessed with it and works diligently to try to figure out what is going on – mostly on his own time, though. It’s an obsession that has an impact on his life (gets in trouble at work, relationship issues, etc. etc.). Quite neat how everything occurred.

Another ‘neat’ thing was the relationship involving Ed and Alisha. In some ways it felt more real than some I’ve read lately – especially their point of conflict. For both have personalities that the kind that do not exactly mesh together well. So it was neat to see that actually play out in a more realistic way than have a point of conflict that was some generic romance trope, but that actually focused on the characters that were in the story. <spoiler>On the other hand, it was rather easily overcome.</spoiler>

You know those couples you see, who have been together for 10, 20, 30 years and are ‘known’ as always fighting, always bickering, but showing occasional flashes of love? I’ve a suspicion that if Ed and Alisha actually made it that long, that they would be one of those kinds of couples. Because their personalities really are, at times, opposed.

Neat to see this story unfold and fill up the pages of the book. Both the romance and the mystery.

One last thought that I almost forgot to include – I like humorous sex scenes – there was at least one quite good humorous sex scene in this book.

Rating: 4.38

January 3 2017

This novel could almost be the first in a completely new set, from tone alone. Obviously, it is the third novel in Kris Ripper's Queers of La Vista set, but this is where we start to get onto the serial murder aspect that kinda got buried in The Butch and the Beautiful but was originally touched on in Gays of Our Lives. Props for the titles of this series, though, really.

We've got our first trans protagonist in this novel, and I liked the amount of detail that went into Ed's thoughts on whether he passed and his transition up to this point, as well as his interactions both with family members and with work in the lead up to Alisha's introduction.

This novel far better blended the love interest with the main character's life. It also helped that I quite liked both of them. The two of them seem, at the beginning at least, to be looking for similar things, and I found it interesting that Alisha originally identified as a lesbian but was happy to put that label aside and that it wasn't made a huge big fuss of overall.

As the novel went on, the two of them were also able to compromise as it became clear that their similarities were not going to completely make up for the differences between them.

I found myself surprisingly liking the grad students that Ed lived with, and of course there are cameos from Honey, Cameron and Obie who I loved in other books.