Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Queering was such a unique and fulfilling read, it truly felt like it had it all. I absolutely loved the journey, and found myself gripped from start to finish. This was inspiring, romantic, suspenseful, hilarious, and heartbreaking.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book, as this book has already been published, I will not share my review on Netgalley at this time.

This book had me hooked from early on and I couldn't put it down, over the space of four days I was taken away to a small Alaskan town where Taylor Brian MacKenzie, a seventy-year-old grandmother, and substitute teacher lives a double life as an author of queer literature that has been her escape for decades.


I immediately wanted to reach into the pages of the book and draw Taylor out for a hug because this woman surely needs one... or many. She is the victim of time, misogyny, cruelty, and a fear that she could shrug off the role she is forced to have lived over what she was born to be.

Seeing herself in one of her students, Grace, whose vivacious soul is slowly being crushed under the control of her homophobic, ignorant father? We, as the readers, are then back to the 1970s, where life is truly just beginning for Taylor as college calls to her along with the possibility of independence and discovery of just who she may become. You cannot help but connect with Taylor and her best friend who is also the love of her life as they feel so real - their story is bittersweet and far too short but so tangible that your heart aches for them.

Queering is an often hard and emotional read that does cover some difficult and potentially triggering topics, but they are written with the care and respect that they deserve. With the recent increase in aggression towards members of the LGBTQIA community, books such as this are a must to show not only is their representation in the media for all members of our world but to highlight the ignorance many direct towards people for their gender, race, religion, sexual orientation not only affects people of many ages but hasn't sadly changed much since for example the seventies when part of this book takes place.


We can only hope that things do change.... because going back as seems to be now? Is terrifying for many of us, and Brooke Skipstone highlights this so well.

I cried reading this book, both at the beautiful moments and the sad... and boy, did I laugh at some of the antics that take place. All I will say is that some of the revenge is indeed best-served cold. This is a book about love, about friendship and survival. It is one for those who endeavour to hope for more but also see the reality of this world and do not like it nor wish to stand quiet. It's incredible, and I'm so glad I got to read it, I encourage you to pick up a copy today, but get a box of tissues for the tears. Oh, and remember - love and friendship do come to those who truly deserve it.

Firstly, thanks to the author for sending me this a while back, I finally managed to get to it!
I read The Moonstone Girls about a year or more ago and I absolutely loved it.
Unfortunately The Queering wasn't as captivating as the previous one for me. I liked it ok, but I preferred much more the storyline about Brooke and Taylor rather the "what's happening now" part. I get that the author wanted to highlight being lesbian, but there are also gay guys. Not all men are homophobic and not all girls are lesbian. There is a wide range of denominations, especially nowadays, and I felt like the book was very black and white. There were no grays. You were either a lesbian or homophobic. No in-between.
Said so, I did enjoy the reading and I would definitely read more from the author 😀

I loved the premise of The Queering but unfortunately there was no connection with the characters and for a book that is supposed to span several decades it just felt a bit flat for me. Thewriting was great and so I will pick up another of Brooke Skipstone's books in the future.

Sapphic stories are so important, especially ones like this. Loved this book beyond words and am so excited for future books by Brooke Skipstone

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the way the book is written. It's addictive and quick to read. It handles real topics about the LGBTQ+ community (which I also consider myself to be part of, hence me requesting the book in the first place). The author's fear and frustration could be felt at every moment as well as happiness and love. There's a bit of mystery and revenge thrown in for good measure both of which I also found to be a bit of a delight.

This book covers some very important issues and raises awareness for some of the prejudices that we face in our community both today (with the transphobia that's sadly running rife at the moment) and many years ago (when being gay/lesbian wasn't the 'in-thing).

Four stars.

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I had not clue how I was going to feel about this medical-based romance book but it honestly I loved it. I loved their banter, their connection, and their enemy-ship.

For a book that is meant to span decades, this one fell really flat for me. I expected a lot more from this, especially a queer historical novel - something we still don't see, or get, a lot of.

Could not connect with this story. The premise seemed quite interesting but unfortunately did not hold my attention.

I was so, so excited at the possibilities this book held - but it unfortunately did not meet any of my expectations. What could have been a beautiful story about love, empowerment and chosen family turned into an endless sermon with heavy-handed, black-and-white views on feminism, progressive politics, and men as a whole - all of whom were shown as evil, one-dimensional characters.

Every character in this book lacked nuance and growth - essentially becoming soap boxes for the author to stand on. I was hopeful at the start for Taylor and Brooke's story, which had the potential to be an emotional and impactful story about lost queer love. However, it quickly ran off the rails and became so unrealistic I could no longer suspend disbelief to enjoy it.

Grace and her girlfriend - while they could have served as a redemption of Brooke and Taylor's love story - were just tools to hop from chapter to chapter of Brooke's story. I started to skip their portions of the book as they largely did not drive anything forward.

Ultimately, while I finished The Queering and gave it two stars in support of the themes it's attempting to push forward, I do not believe it was successful in any of its goals.

Sadly had to DNF this title.
I think the premise of the book was great, and I was so excited by the blurb, however it was the writing style that I didn’t really gel with. Read about 50 pages in total.
Still a great book to read for Pride Month or for those wanting to expand their LGBTQ book collection

Title: The Queering
Author: Brooke Skipstone
Summary: Trapped between a homicidal brother and a homophobic podcaster eager to reveal her lesbian romance novels, a seventy-year-old grandmother seeks help in Clear, Alaska.
Suffocating in a loveless marriage and lonely existence, Taylor MacKenzie lives only through her writing, using the pen name Brooke Skipstone, her best friend in college and lover before her death in 1974.
Afraid of being murdered before anyone in her family or community knows her life story, Taylor writes an autobiography about her time with Brooke and shares it with those closest to her, hoping for understanding and acceptance.
Accused of promoting the queering and debasement of America by a local podcaster, Taylor embroils the conservative community in controversy but fights back with the help of a new, surprising friend.
Can she endure the attacks from haters and gaslighters? Can she champion the queering she represents? And will she survive?
Things I loved about this book: I thought it had a unique plot; has a more mature protagonist; the plot doesn’t revolve entirely around a new romantic relationship; suspense!
Things that I didn’t love: There were moments in the plot where I struggled to keep up because there was so much happening, and the “present” timeline felt rushed at times.
ARC provided by @netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Disclaimer: My feelings about this book are based solely on the content that I was not unexpecting and wasn’t forewarned about. So, content warning the standard and obvious: homophobia, racism, misogyny, violence, murder, and also content warnings for: child pornography, sexual assault, familial sexual assault, and minor teenagers being videotaped in sexual situations without their knowledge.

Alright, now that that’s out of the way. So I really wanted to enjoy this book. I loved Brooke Skipstone’s last book I read, which was ‘Some Laney’s Died’, and I enjoy her writing style. There were a lot of enjoyable parts and I loved the relationship between the two main female characters and then I enjoyed the secondary relationships too that we get in the flash forwards. They were very sweetly written relationships and very true I think too having to hide yourself as a queer woman in a small town.

I wasn’t expecting the ending of the book though, which features the secondary main character, who is a minor, finding out that her (already imho emotionally and mentally abusive) father is unknowing to her recording her in her private moments when she dances naked in her room, when she and her also teenage girlfriend are together, when she showers and baths, and when she uses the bathroom. We then find out that he forces his Nazi group to also view and have possession of these videos to incriminate themselves as well. He then threatens to release the tapes and say that she full and well knew that he was recording her, with a photoshopped copy of her signature.

I really did enjoy certain parts of this book, but I was already having a hard time with the homophobia, misogyny, and openly nazi father, and the ending to it and reveal of that was just the nail in the coffin for me. I almost didn’t finish it, and I’m still not sure if the ending was worth me pushing through my emotions and how it all made me feel.

While there should be books about these topics, I think at the very least there should be some heavy content warnings for it. Especially to the level that this book had.

Im obsessed with The Queering. Skipstone did an amazing job telling this story and hitting the real life obstacles the community faces. I will definitely recommend this book to anyone!!!

I’ll be honest I immediately wanted this because of the lesbian elder, Alaska setting, and just general weird synopsis. However it was just ok. My mood played a part and I think the dual timeline really played with me.

In another mindset and preparation for the book, this could be a knockout but I just wasn’t prepped for it. The quirks and bones are all there but I was left feeling the relationships blossomed without any real backbone to it. The writing style is definitely one that takes a minute to get used to but I loved the dialogue and the connections of setting. This won’t be my last read by the author and when I mark it as a 3 star read it’s genuinely a positive- it’s me, not you type review. This is a read with characters we don’t often see and deserves to be shared

LGBTQ+ stories are almost always focused on youthful romance, so this was a refreshing, interesting story. I loved the relaxed writing style and the convergence of multiple genres. This is not necessarily my genre, but I still enjoyed trying out something new with this story, and I thought the author executed their ideas well.

While I really enjoyed reading this title and appreciate the publisher and Netgalley for letting me read it, it was too inconsistent for me to truly recommend. I found the characters compelling, but the overall tone of the book was all over the place. It was hard to reconcile the darkness of the male characters with the fun and warmth of the women. The villains were believable, but the escalation of violence seemed out of step with the rest of the action of the book. It was so nice to see older queer characters find each other and fall in love, but in the midst of a harrowing attack while recounting the most traumatic events of the main character's life just felt off and hard to fully embrace. I really did think it was fun and the plot elements kept me interested, but the shift in tone throughout kept pulling me out of the narrative.

Whilst this had an interest concept, I found myself struggling my way through it because the delivery was a little bit all over the place for me.

To be honest, I still don't fully understand if this is meant to be based on a real story or not. It tells the story of an author writing under the pen name Brooke Skipstone, named after someone she loved and lost, and is written by an author writing under the name Brooke Skipstone, and includes extracts from what appear to be the RL author's other books (which I had assumed were fictional when I first started reading, as the extracts we get from them read like paradoies to me) as the on-page author's book. So I'm leaning towards yes, but it's not made super clear.

In terms of the story itself, the most interesting part to me was the book within a book, where the story of the real Brooke Skipstone (fictional or otherwise) is told.

There's a lot this story is trying to say about queer community in the face of violent homophobia, and whilst I appreciate what I think the message was supposed to be, I don't think this book truly achieved what it was aiming for.

Overall, a slightly confusing read for me that did have some highlights.