Calendar Girls July 2019

It’s the first Monday of the month and that means it’s time for the Calendar Girls!

Calendar Girls is a monthly blog event created by Melanie at MNBernard Books and Flavia the Bibliophile and now be hosted by Katie at Never Not Reading and Adrienne at Darque Dreamer Reads.  It is designed to ignite bookish discussions among readers and was inspired by the 1961 Neil Sedaka song Calendar Girl.

This month we are celebrating summer love, with the theme “Bookish OTP.”

Like most people I know, I am heavily invested in the romantic lives of (probably) far too many fictional characters. Recently, I have discovered the great love of Adam Parrish and Ronan Lynch from the Raven Cycle books by Maggie Stiefvater. I feel it’s too soon in to call this my OTP, but good is that a well done slow burn. There is something so great about kissing your crush and immediately going onto the roof to flap your arms like a weirdo because he kissed you back. I can’t wait for the next installment of Ronan’s story when it comes out in November. Hopefully, there is little couple drama because these boys have been through enough.

I was pretty invested in the relationship between Ari and Dante. My favorite troupe of idiots realizing they have feelings for each other. That was an incredible book.

The Song of Achilles, featuring the amazingly beautiful love story of Achilles and Patroclus. It’s truly one of the greatest love stories ever told.

 

I am also extremely invested in the relationship between John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton in the yet to be titled historical fiction novel by DC Wheelwright (me). It’s pretty good. John Laurens was an interesting man who put up with so much being friends with Alexander Hamilton, both in real life and in my novel.

(I’ve heard a rumor some more of this book could end up on this blog in the near future, but the writer is nervous because I’m afraid it’s actually terrible if you’re even 1% interested let me know.) 

I also have many television OTP style ships but this is about books and not about how much I want Dean Winchester and Castiel to hold hands. (It’s the final season, let it happen.)

However, if I’m going to declare one bookish ship that I would ride or die for, it’s Henry “Monty” Montague and Percy Newton from Mackinzi Lee’s Montague Siblings books.

I have said it before and I will say it forever, I would sacrifice my life for Monty. He is so dumb and oblivious to how Percy feels about him. I mean, it’s totally a just friends thing to lay on a roof holding hands. There’s nothing like a platonic make-out in the middle of the opera. Percy definitely doesn’t have feelings for Monty. He’s so dumb in the first book and it’s perfect. It’s why I love these books.

In the last couple of months, I’ve been talking about Monty a lot in different forums, and why he’s a great character and why his relationship with Percy is so important. I don’t think there’s enough bisexual male representation in media overall, and also Monty is kind of slut and it’s nice to see a character who is sex-positive and leans into it. Percy is a disabled person of color who in the narrative of the book has to deal with blatant racism by everyone around him. I think this book does a good job highlighting these issues, which although the book is set in the 1700s are issues that still persist.

Monty and Percy are important characters and their love for each other is extremely important to me. They balance each other, Monty give Percy a push to be a bit more adventurous. Monty is a disaster person (Mackenzi Lee confirms this option) and Percy helps him be a slightly smaller disaster. I loved watching them evolve through the novella and seeing what is hopefully a happy ending for them The Lady’s Guide.

This ship, these characters, mean a lot to me. I love that I live in a time where I can talk about these characters with other people who also love them. Fandom culture has its toxic places, but it has many, many, many more fantastic and amazing people.

I look forward to discussing Monty and Percy further with the rest of the Calendar Posters and seeing who y’all chose! (Hopefully more dumb people in love for me to read about!)

Until next time Internet,

Deanna