Queerly Popular

Welcome to today's episode of Queerly Popular. Today, we're going to talk about the 2022 book  Never Been Kissed by Timothy Janovsky. It's a lovely book about Wren Roland, a young man who has never been kissed, and his feelings for his friend (and almost kiss) Derick Haverford. The book is about their relationship and how they try and save a local landmark from Derick's dad. I love this book and h...

Welcome to today's episode of Queerly Popular. Today we will be talking about the film  Hidden Kisses . Before I get into anything else, I made a mistake last episode. I thought this was a German language film, but it is a French film. Sorry about the error. Hidden Kisses is a movie about 2 boys who are caught kissing and what happens to them because of this. The film is basically evenly divided b...

On today's episode of Queerly Popular, we are talking about the 2022 book  Blaine for the Win by Robbie Couch, author of  The Sky Blues which I previously talked about. Blaine for the Win is a book about a high school junior who is dumped by his boyfriend on their anniversary because he is not a Serious Guy (TM). So he decides to run for senior class president in order to get his ex-boyfriend back...

Welcome back to season 3 of Queerly Popular! Today, we are going to talk about the 2023 book  The Borrow A Boyfriend Club by Page Powars. The book is about a trans boy in high school who joins a club which he thinks is about cars and sports in order to prove to people that he is a "real boy". It ends up being a club where people can borrow the members as boyfriends and wacky hijinks ensue as Noah...

Welcome to the final episode of the second season about the 2016 film  Shared Rooms . This is a short film (75 minutes) about a group of gay men in Los Angeles starting on Christmas and ending on New Year's Eve. There are 3 seemingly separate stories that end up coming together in the final few minutes of the film. It is a fun and cute film, but it is also very fluffy and shallow. There is not a l...

Welcome to today's episode of Queerly Popular! Today we are talking about the  Something Like..... book series. It is a series of 9 novels and 3 books of short stories about a group of gay friends (or rather people who become friends) centered in Austin, Texas. Each book is told from a different character's perspective and we often get to see the same event through multiple characters' eyes across...

Welcome to this week's episode. We're talking about  Always the Almost , a book about a trans pianist and how music and friends help him discover who he is and why music matters to him. This is a lovely book filled with queer and trans joy, heartache, self-discovery, friendship, and all the stuff that being a teenager entails. I cannot recommend the book highly enough. I do also read the author's...

Welcome to this week's episode of Queerly Popular where we will be talking about the 2013 movie  Geography Club .  Geography Club is a fun (and relatively short) movie about a 16-year old boy, Russell, and his coming out of the closet. He finds acceptance and friends in a "geography club" that becomes a GSA. This is a fun and sweet movie, but is not outstanding in any particular way. I definitely...

Today's episode is about the book  The Sky Blues by Robbie Couch. Robbie has written a couple of other books and they are all delightful books and well worth reading. This book is abourt a boy in MIchigan who is openly gay and who decides to prompose to a popular straight guy. Things go off the rails before the promposal happens (read/listen for why). After everything goes sideways, Sky learns tha...

Today's episode is about the 2019 book I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver. The book is about an 18-year old non-binary person named Ben who is kicked out of their parents' house and ends up living with the sister who abandoned them 10 years before. The book follows them through the second half of their senior year of high school as they pick up the pieces of their life and create a new one wh...

Welcome to today's episode about the movie  Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe . Couple of things. First, this is a shorter episode than normal. I loved the movie, but I realized after I started talking that most of what I wanted to say, I said last week. So rather than repeat it, I added a couple of topics to this episode. I start off with the movie and my thoughts about it....

Today's episode is about the books  Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (2012) and  Aristotle and Dante Dive Into the Waters of the World (2021). These two books tell the story of  how Aristotle "Ari" Mendoza and Dante Quintana meet, fall in love, and navigate a relationship together in El Paso, Texas in the late 1980s. The books deal with their coming out, their Mexican-Ameri...

Welcome to my review of Red, White, & Royal Blue (movie). I talked about the book in an earlier episode which you can listen to if you want. This episode is almost as long as the last episode about  Heartstopper , but I am sure you will enjoy every minute of it. In this episode we talk about a couple things I needed to add to the  Heartstopper episode, why we should love what we love, delve a litt...

This week we are going to dive deep into Heartstopper Season 2. Two warnings: This is all spoilers. If you haven't seen the season and don't want to be spoiled, watch the season first and then come back and listen. This is a very long episode, almost 90 minutes. I try not to go over an hour if possible, but this one just had so much going on that I had to go longer. In this episode, we will dive d...

Today, we talk about Alexis Hall's books  Boyfriend Material  and  Husband Material . They are a queer romances where two very different men pretend to date each other and it turns into something real and then they decide to get married and all the wacky hijinks that ensue. I really love these books and encourage you to go read them if you like romances. A lot of it is follows romantic tropes, but...

Today's episode is about the 2020 Netflix film  The Prom which is based off of a musical, which is based off of a real life event. It's a lovely, lovely film that I really love and enjoy about the trauma a young lesbian undergoes at the hands of homophobes and "allies" who don't really care about the person they are trying to help. Except for one thing that I will go on a bit of a rant about (10-1...

Today we are doing something a little different and talking about  Dear Evan Hansen the movie and the book. I talk about the book because the book has some added material that sheds some light on some of the events of the story. I talk about why I prefer certain things from the musical or the movie and why, a problem I have with the movie, a problem I have with a lot of fans of the show unfairly v...

Hey all, I lost my voice over the weekend (sounded like someone who inhaled a ton of helium and was speaking very softly) and it is still rough. I'm gonna try and record my Dear Evan Hansen episode tonight or tomorrow, but there is no guarantee it will happen. Just depends on how my voice holds up. Thank you for your understanding.

This week, we'll be talking about  Pose , a series in FX about ballroom culture in NYC in the 80s and 90s and the lives of queer and trans people who were a part of that culture. This episode is heavy on talk about characters because the characters are the backbone of the show and they have rich and interesting lives. I also talk about my favorite scenes (see the links below) and why having three...

Today's episode is about the 2011 movie,  Into the Lion's Den . It is an independent suspense/thriller movie about a trio of gay friends who end up at a redneck bar. By the time it is over, there is death, nudity (most of which it totally gratuitous), and some disturbing scenes. Warning, there is sexual assault in the movie. I talk about the sexual assaults and use the word "penis" many, many time...

Today, we talk about the 2011 movie  Longhorns . This is a shorter episode for a short (75 minutes) movie that was light on plot, but heavy on nudity. All 5 male main characters had full frontal shots during the movie and there was a good amount of sex. Just know that going in. If language or nudity bothers you, don't watch the movie. Want a hilarious synopsis? Here's a great one from IMDB: "Beers...

In today's episode, we are talking about the Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey. This series consists of (as of this writing) 37 books, 17 anthologies, and 1 Companion (basically an encyclopedia) book that talk about the history of the world of Velgarth focusing mainly on the nation of Valdemar. There's obviously a whole lot to talk about in this episode, so I do my best to hit mostly high points....

In today's episode, we talk about the 2017 movie  Beach Rats . Disclaimer going in: this is not one of my favorite movies. I don't dislike it, but I do have some not so great feelings about it particularly about the ending and how hyper realistic the movie is. I do think it is worth talking about (hence the episode), but I will not be returning to watch it over and over again. Beach Rats is a film...

Today we are talking about the 2008 film  Were the World Mine . It's a really cute romantic musical comedy based on Shakespeare's  A Midsummer Night's Dream . And it isn't at all subtle about it, after all a big part of the movie is the play being put on in a school. It's a fun movie, but there is a big problematic portion related to people's consent being taken away. Tune in to hear more. If you'...

Today's episode is about the 2020 film, "The Thing About Harry". It was made for the Freeform channel and is about 2 guys who circle in each other's orbits for years before finally dating. It's lots of fun and really cute. It stars Jake Borelli as Sam and Niko Terho as Harry. Like  Love, Simon , I have seen this movie many, many times and love it dearly. However, it does have a big problem when it...