How Queer Does a Book Have To Be For It To Count?
A case study of A GUEST IN THE HOUSE by Emily Carroll
Despite Emily Carroll being one of my favourite graphic novelists, I didn’t include A Guest In the House in my round up of queer books out August 15th. In fact, I didn’t pick it up myself until months later. And that's because I didn’t know it was queer. That’s not particularly unusual: the value of me rounding up queer new releases is that this information is often difficult to find pre-publication. The interesting thing, though, is that so many people reviewing this book on Goodreads also don’t seem to know it’s queer.
First, I have to recommend this book. I sat down to start it before bed and ended up accidentally reading it cover to cover. I then promptly spent another hour or so looking up reviews to try to understand the ending. Then I woke up the next day, sat up in bed, and immediately picked it up and read it again cover-to-cover. I’ve never done that before with a book! The art is gorgeous, the story is atmospheric and gothic, and it gave me a lot to think about.
One thing I noticed in the reviews, though, was a) how much people detest an ambiguous ending and b) how many people said some version of, “I was getting queer vibes” or “Is this queer?” So let’s take a look at A Guest In the House and what kind of book “counts” as queer.
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