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Reviews
Queer Icons From Gay to Z: Activists, Artists & Trailblazers by Antoine Corbineau, Patrick Boyle
gellyreads's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
3.5
This is pretty cute! I wish there were more pictures. I also wish they acknowledged that Lady Gaga is Bi and not an Ally…
Content Warnings
Minor: Racism, Transphobia, Biphobia, and Homophobia
marshaldodge's review against another edition
3.0
This is a fun and colourful book about some of the most prominent people in the LGBT-community. It's an easy read and accessible to all. That being said I have some gripes with this book.
As someone else pointed out in their review, the "icons" seem to be cherry-picked by the author. Most of the people in this book are artists, actors or otherwise famous people who are still around today. There seems to be a personal bias as the author thinks Frank Ocean's pastel coloured hair really suits him or the movie "the spy who dumped me" is underrated.
Nothing wrong with that as the rest seems to be factual, though I think the author should have included more historical characters who have had a more substantial role in society like Alan Turing. He helped win the second world war and pioneered modern computers and technology. He was gay and got ostracized and chemically castrated because of that. He committed suicide and got pardoned by the government in 2013, 60 years after his death.
We do get a small paragraph mentioning Turing's law but I'd rather learn more about him than some talkshow host (no offense to talkshow hosts). That being said, every person in this book only gets a page or two so you're only getting a summary of each person anyway. Which is ok. I didn't expect this book to be a collection of essays. It's short and sweet.
Aesthetically, the book is very colourful and has nice illustrations of some of the people mentioned although it would be nice if everyone got illustrated to get an idea of what they look like. That way I could recognize them whenever I come across them in other media as I'm terrible with remembering names (I'm sure I'm not the only one). Ian McKellen and Ellen DeGeneres got illustrated but not Annie Leibowitz or Jane Lynch. I guess they're not "iconic" enough.
On the other hand, some pages are hard to read because the author chose to print blue text on a blue background, or pink text on a pink background (even if the text is a darker shade of blue or pink). Thankfully, it's only a handful of pages.
My final critique is proofreading. The author got some minor details wrong, like misspelling Dr. Roxane Gay's book "bad feminist" as "bad feminism" or mentioning that time Elton John dressed up as Donald Duck but writing "Daffy Duck" instead. Minor details, sure, but got me wondering what else they got wrong. I read this book in Dutch so maybe something went wrong during translation.
All in all it's a good, bite-sized book that's nice to look at. If you're interested in the topic this is a good starter and could be a gateway into more serious literature.
As someone else pointed out in their review, the "icons" seem to be cherry-picked by the author. Most of the people in this book are artists, actors or otherwise famous people who are still around today. There seems to be a personal bias as the author thinks Frank Ocean's pastel coloured hair really suits him or the movie "the spy who dumped me" is underrated.
Nothing wrong with that as the rest seems to be factual, though I think the author should have included more historical characters who have had a more substantial role in society like Alan Turing. He helped win the second world war and pioneered modern computers and technology. He was gay and got ostracized and chemically castrated because of that. He committed suicide and got pardoned by the government in 2013, 60 years after his death.
We do get a small paragraph mentioning Turing's law but I'd rather learn more about him than some talkshow host (no offense to talkshow hosts). That being said, every person in this book only gets a page or two so you're only getting a summary of each person anyway. Which is ok. I didn't expect this book to be a collection of essays. It's short and sweet.
Aesthetically, the book is very colourful and has nice illustrations of some of the people mentioned although it would be nice if everyone got illustrated to get an idea of what they look like. That way I could recognize them whenever I come across them in other media as I'm terrible with remembering names (I'm sure I'm not the only one). Ian McKellen and Ellen DeGeneres got illustrated but not Annie Leibowitz or Jane Lynch. I guess they're not "iconic" enough.
On the other hand, some pages are hard to read because the author chose to print blue text on a blue background, or pink text on a pink background (even if the text is a darker shade of blue or pink). Thankfully, it's only a handful of pages.
My final critique is proofreading. The author got some minor details wrong, like misspelling Dr. Roxane Gay's book "bad feminist" as "bad feminism" or mentioning that time Elton John dressed up as Donald Duck but writing "Daffy Duck" instead. Minor details, sure, but got me wondering what else they got wrong. I read this book in Dutch so maybe something went wrong during translation.
All in all it's a good, bite-sized book that's nice to look at. If you're interested in the topic this is a good starter and could be a gateway into more serious literature.
kimmyv's review against another edition
5.0
The cover is what drew my eye, and the content is what made me purchase this book. A wonderful way to learn about queer history and remind us how far we’ve come.
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