Blog Tour Review & Guest Post | Boy Queen by George Lester

Happy Weekend my lovely readers. I hope you are staying as cool as possible. It’s mighty hot here in the UK isn’t it. Anyways, today I’m really excited to be part of the blog tour for Boy Queen by George Lester – his debut LGBTQ+ YA and I loved it! I am sharing my review of this wonderful book as well as George sharing his tips for writing about inclusivity and diversity. But before that here is a little bit more info of this A-M-A-Z-I-N-G book!

Boy Queen by George Lester
Published by Macmillan Children's Books on August 6, 2020
Genres: LGBTQ+, Contemporary
Amazon | Book Depository | Waterstones
Goodreads

Life's a drag until you try . . .
Robin Cooper’s life is falling apart.
While his friends prepare to head off to university, Robin is looking at a pile of rejection letters from drama schools up and down the country, and facing a future without the people he loves the most. Everything seems like it’s ending, and Robin is scrabbling to find his feet.
Unsure about what to do next and whether he has the talent to follow his dreams, he and his best friends go and drown their sorrows at a local drag show, where Robin realises there might be a different, more sequinned path for him . . .
With a mother who won't stop talking, a boyfriend who won't acknowledge him and a best friend who is dying to cover him in glitter make up, there's only one thing for Robin to do: bring it to the runway.
Boy Queen by George Lester is a sparkling debut full of big hair, big heels and even bigger hearts

My Review

I feel like I’m bringing out John Barrowman in this review. This book is *singing* FABUUUUUULOUS!!!! When I started reading this book I couldn’t stop. (I admit I had to pause my book to read some Midnight Sun) but I was already halfway and the rest I finished in a day.

Robin Cooper is hard on himself, he feels that after all these rejections what could he do, he is a failure to himself, to his life plans with his best friend Natalie. But some things aren’t meant to be. It wasn’t until his birthday where they went to a drag show, in a gay club called Entity, that he found the light in his darkness. He found all the colours, the beauty, the musicality, the drama, a chance to shine in his own way. Robin is starstruck by drag and all he wants to do is become his own drag queen.

Robin is a flawed character and throughout the entire book he learns a lot about himself. George tackles toxic relationships and homophobia and the poison of lies within friendships and relationships. When he starts his life in drag, ultimately he becomes two people, but he can’t live without them to be who he truly is. I admit I’ve never seen Drag Race, and I was wondering whether I should for this book, but I didn’t which I enjoyed more. I educated myself a lot with this book and thoroughly enjoyed that aspect. I loved the sheer joy, fun, glitz, glamour and owning the stage and expressing yourself of being a Queen. I thought it was Dragtastic!

George has created a fantastic set characters. Each of them have their own place in Robin’s world, their own part to play in the book. Natalie isn’t afraid to say it how it is, or grill Robin’s boyfriends, Greg is the cute straight guy that loves his friends and will do anything for them. Priya is the outgoing and large as life persona, who loves to slip on her dance shoes. Finally, Seth is the cute bad boy, who can’t stop looking at Robin. But you know who I loved even more, Robin’s mum! I’ve never found a mum in a YA book that I really admire. She reminds me of my own mum, and I love how she will do anything for Robin. She is a rock, the foundation and who he really wants to make proud. She is a pretty awesome woman.

As Greg says Condragulations, to George on his debut and it’s a stunner of book and one to simply devour. Boy Queen is ultimately about expressing yourself, chasing your dreams and never giving up.

Thank you to MyKindaBook for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

George’s Guest Post

TIPS FOR WRITING INCLUSIVELY/DIVERSELY

Thanks so much for having me! This is such a huge thing to talk about in a single post but I am putting my editor hat back on for the purposes of this and will do my best to give you some tips to make your writing more inclusive!

As a disclaimer, I do so hate the blanket term of writing ‘diversely’ or ‘inclusively’ when it comes to describing characters that aren’t cis-het-white people…that’s a problem in itself. What you should be doing is writing to reflect the world around us, and that includes people of all shapes, sizes, races, sexualities, disabilities, etc. Now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get into the nitty gritty.

THINK ABOUT YOUR STORY, NOW THINK AGAIN!

One thing I want you to think about is the story you are writing. Why are you writing this story? Should you be the person to write it? For example, if you’re writing a book featuring a gay male main character and you are not a gay male, why do you feel you are the person to write this particular story? When you consider how few LGBTQ+ books are published in the UK every year, do you really want to be writing a book that could stop an actual queer person having that space on someone’s list? Think it through.

BE CRITICAL OF YOURSELF

When you’re writing, I think it’s important to take a look at your work with a very critical eye. I know this is hard because you are very close to your own work but honey, you’ve got to learn. Take a step back and look at your cast of characters. Are all of your characters white? Are all of your characters heterosexual? Are all of your characters able bodied? Are all of your characters skinny? I’m not saying you have to sit down and list every single character’s attribute as part of their description but think about it; if your book is about a bunch of skinny, able-bodied, heterosexual white people having a good time, then ask yourself why? Surely the art that we create should be reflective of the society in which we live and if that’s what you’re writing about you’re probably not doing that.

But this is not a box ticking exercise. I have my black character, I have my gay character, I have my disabled character, tick, tick, tick, that’s not how it works. If you’re going to have a character who is not of your experience in your book, think about these characters and the lives that they have outside the confines of your main character’s story. If they don’t have one, and they are purely there to support your MC, and be their gay best friend then you’re going to have to work a little harder.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

Something I really recommend, and this helped me so much when fleshing out Greg, Natalie, Priya and Seth in Boy Queen, is to write a chapter from their perspective. This isn’t something that will be included in your final manuscript BUT it is something that will help you discover more about their world. What is their morning routine like? What’s happening at home for them while all of this is happening for your protagonist? What are their dreams and aspirations? Like I said, this isn’t stuff that needs to be included on the page but these characters will change so much in the next draft of your manuscript if you know more about their lives beyond what the reader is seeing, trust me! (And I don’t mean just do this for your ‘diverse’ characters. Do it for any and all your secondary characters. It will really help!).

When writing a character that is not of your experience, you need to have researched it. By doing the research and putting the work in, you will be able to avoid harmful stereotypes or fallbacks. (The sassy black friend, the campy, gay best friend etc.) Make them real people, give them their own views, strengths, weaknesses, ambitions, hobbies, don’t just rely on cookie cutter characters. You’re better than that, I know you are.

So when you’re trying to write ‘diversely’ or ‘inclusively’ or, as I think it should really be called, ‘the real freaking world around us(!)’ you need to think about it. No writer is perfect, no writer is without biases, no writer knows everything about everything. So don’t be lazy. Put the work in, do the research, get a sensitivity reader if you feel like you need one, question whether what you’re saying in the book is harmful or problematic, in doing this you will write a better book, I promise.

George’s new book Boy Queen is out from 6th August 2020, £7.99 and is available from all good bookshops. You can find him as a boy on Instagram @TheGeorgeLester or in drag @ThatGurrrlQueen.