A review by redsilva95
Proud by Juno Dawson

3.0

"We fight on. We, as LGBTQ+ authors, know how important it is to see ourselves in stories. If we live in stories, it means we live in the real world too. We are claiming space, claiming our oxygen. Since the dawn of time, we have been told in a litany of ways that we are 'less-than', 'out of the ordinary', 'abnormal', 'subnormal', or plain 'different'. We are none of those things. We are gloriously ourselves, and we show the world our glory during Pride.
That is why Pride is both party and protest. It's noisy, it's colorful, it's glittery and it's very, very visible. It's a statement to the whole wide world that we are here, we celebrate our varied and diverse culture; our history; our struggles."

I really liked what this anthology has to offer: a collection of 12 short stories written and illustrated by LGBTQIAP+ people. There's plenty of diverse representation in here and it's glorious. As it happens with every collection, there are some in which you connect and love more than others. Unfortunately, I found many of the stories in here to be just "okay". Either they felt too rushed or the writing style didn't click with me.

You will find in here a sapphic retelling of Pride & Prejudice, a queer sports team, a group of teenagers fighting for equality, among many other tales that fits the theme of LGBTQIAP+ pride. My favorites were the ones written by Simon James Green, Kay Staples, David Levithan and Dean Atta (this last one is a beautiful and very emotional poem that got me teary-eyed).