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A review by librovermo
In the Shadows by Joan Ellis
2.0
I’m participating in The Queer Liberation Library’s Mega Queer Summer Reading Bingo, and one of the squares is queer pulp fiction. The cover of In the Shadows is incredible and the blurb sounded interesting, but I was deceived!
This is less a book about a passionate affair as the blurb suggests, and more a book about desire, self-hatred, and repeated SA by horny men of the 1960s who didn’t understand how a woman could possibly be single. And while that’s alright, I wish there had also been more (or any) of what the blurb promised, especially since the story that was there fell really flat for me.
Despite the fact that I didn’t like the book itself, it was interesting to read and think about the wide variety of queer books we have freely available now (Well, for the most part. Looking at you, book bans). We have access to way more books that are written by people who can provide an accurate portrayal of the queer experience than ever before, and the number is only growing. And books with with queer people in them aren’t always strictly about the queer experience - they often just exist as regular characters in a story about whatever. Reading In the Shadows was like exploring a part of history that provided a great reminder of how far we’ve come in the book space and it made me feel proud.
Anyway. That’s it. I’m just feeling really happy about so many books that exist 😊
Oh wait, that’s not it actually. I forgot to mention that the digitized version is full of errors. There are grammatical errors as well as straight up typos, like “fife” instead of “life” for example, and there were many more I didn’t bother taking note of.
This is less a book about a passionate affair as the blurb suggests, and more a book about desire, self-hatred, and repeated SA by horny men of the 1960s who didn’t understand how a woman could possibly be single. And while that’s alright, I wish there had also been more (or any) of what the blurb promised, especially since the story that was there fell really flat for me.
Despite the fact that I didn’t like the book itself, it was interesting to read and think about the wide variety of queer books we have freely available now (Well, for the most part. Looking at you, book bans). We have access to way more books that are written by people who can provide an accurate portrayal of the queer experience than ever before, and the number is only growing. And books with with queer people in them aren’t always strictly about the queer experience - they often just exist as regular characters in a story about whatever. Reading In the Shadows was like exploring a part of history that provided a great reminder of how far we’ve come in the book space and it made me feel proud.
Anyway. That’s it. I’m just feeling really happy about so many books that exist 😊
Oh wait, that’s not it actually. I forgot to mention that the digitized version is full of errors. There are grammatical errors as well as straight up typos, like “fife” instead of “life” for example, and there were many more I didn’t bother taking note of.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape
Minor: Sexual harassment