Bury Your Gays – Calling Out Corporate Greed and Problematic Views of Queerness

Information:

• Goodreads: 4.05 out of 650 Ratings
• Age Category: Adult
• Genre: Horror
• Series: None

Summary:

Misha was told to do the one thing a gay man who just wants to make authentic, queer horror novels never wants to hear: either kills his gay characters off after they admit their love for one another or make them straight. Why? Because queer stories only sell when they are filled with tragedy. Misha, being a half-closeted gay man who shows his feelings and sexuality through his stories, refuses. And suddenly, all of the monsters he’s written as characters begin haunting him. He and his bestie, Tara, are put on a timeline to figure out what is wrong before one of his own creations yanks out their bones, grinds them to dust, and smokes them.

Review + partial spoilers:

We all know that corporate greed and the media’s unwillingness to show queer stories is a real thing. Even one of my favorite shows, Supernatural, allowed one of their characters to finally admit his feelings only when that character sacrificed themselves to save everyone else. Queer tragedy is everywhere in media. While I do think we’ve come a decent way in books (Kind of), there’s still a long way to go in television.

This book hits on how important having more representation than self sacrifice and tragedy can have an impact on audiences everywhere. While those stories do still definitely have a place, it cannot be the only place that people who identify with these characters can find someone like them. Misha, our main character, shows his sexuality and his trauma through his stories. He’s good at what he does because it comes from such an authentic and personal space. Misha makes the initial call of refusing to kill off his characters, resulting in the agency sending twisted versions of Misha’s own trauma, the monster he’s created, to kill him. And when he ultimately decides to go with what they want to save his life – the monsters are still coming for him because that’s what’s bringing the agency money now. It’s a small percentage more profitable to kill him and watch his spiral than it is to keep him alive and allow him to share his stories. It takes Misha convincing an audience to want happy queer stories for the agency to allow him to live – while still erasing A-sexual and A-romantic representation. This is ultimately their complete downfall.

We watch Misha face his monsters throughout this story. We get to see what it can be like for our main character to be able to rely on his queer friends/boyfriend without any of them having to sacrifice themselves to solve this story. His support system helps him cope and process through this. The writing is able to get the guilt of feeling unable to come out phenomenally. There was even a moment that I genuinely teared up – when Misha had an altercation with his friend and his friend’s brother. He has never been accepted for who he is until he met these two people who stand by his side no matter what. Even when what he tells them sounds absolutely bonkers, he has surrounded himself with people who show him care and love in a way he’s never experienced before.

Even when the media is shown that queer stories can be profitable, they then take it overboard. No more queer tragedy and conflicts. Only happy, good stories here. Pride flags every where, false positivity, and calling everyone ‘girl.’ The media takes one aspect they have seen of queer culture and turned the dial to 100 – exactly what we see every single June when companies who do nothing for the community any other month of the year suddenly are a hundred percent pro-queer community, as if we can’t tell most of it is performatory.

This book was fun, with body horror and a main character losing his mind as he’s hunted down by his own creations. It’s engaging and seamlessly weaves in the commentary. I loved it. It didn’t absolutely floor me and there were things that I didn’t find as enjoyable. Zeke, Tara, and pretty much everyone who wasn’t Misha felt one note. They served their purpose and nothing more. There were also moments when it felt as if I could put the book down and not pick it back up, but those moments were few and far in between.

I’d love to know what you thought of the book as well!