Duck: Star, was that not a duck of a week? All that political pond-slop gave me beak-sag.
Star: We urgently need romance right now. Like we need air.
Duck: And to add some duck news—because we’ll have NO HUMAN POLITICS HERE, thank you—ducks have apparently been “executively ordered” to no longer enter fast food restaurants. And this includes TACO BELL, duck-dammit! Thank cod you’re here, Star, because if I can’t get my goldfish tacos, I’ll loose the will to paddle.
Star: The day they ban ducks from Taco Bell is the day they discover the meaning of soaked.
Duck: Down to the undies. On it.
Star: Moving on, we’ve been quacking a lot about Kris Ripper‘s Book Boyfriend this week. Wonderful writing. For the most part, we read Book Boyfriend as an audiobook, which was a double-joy because Pete Cross’s narration was beak-to-flippers gorgeous. A real treat. I especially love how Cross voices dialogue.
Duck: Me too! Great book! I love the ways Ripper’s main character PK really grows.
Star: True. When characters grow in romance it makes us happy.
Duck: Quack-happy! And slap-happy! Now, to avoid pond-suck spoilers, let’s just say Book Boyfriend is about PK, a queer guy whose secret crush on his friend Art inspires him to write a novel. But sometimes, when we’re anxious, it’s easier to pour love onto the page than admit to it, am I right? Even when there’s a book launch looming ….
Star: As I see it, PK has anxiety, and when we’re anxious, life feels harder.
Duck: Feeling anxious is like paddling through custard. You have to work twice as hard while protecting your beak-holes from all that goo. Your flippers get sticky, your tuft gets gummed, and THEN you find out custard’s made from EGGS, and you think, “Oh, duck me, no!”
Star: Eggxactly.
Duck: *quacker-sigh*
Star: Anyway, PK’s anxious. And like the best of us, when he’s anxious, he can be a bit of a goober. His big heart keeps missing the mark, and as a reader I’m there for ALL of it, because PK’s love is BIG, even though he’s ducking scared to share it.
Duck: In Book Boyfriend, Kris Ripper shows us emotions. This makes Star geek out a lot. When they were an editor for a lit mag, they were forever hoping writers would show emotions rather than just telling them. It got really BORING how much Star geeked out out about this.
Star: What’s not to geek out about?
Duck: Okay, Star. Back to the characters in Book Boyfriend, who are duck-lightful.
Star: I was aglow to see a main character moving from he/him to they/them. It made me feel seen. Then there’s also Ripper’s voice. We always love Ripper’s voice, don’t we, Duck? I just want to stuff whole lines from Book Boyfriend into my mouth.
Duck: Star, it’s a book! You can’t eat paper, duck-dammit!
Star: No paper-eating, just a TON of fangoosing.
Duck: Now, let’s contrast Book Boyfriend with Anora—a movie Rotten Tomatoes rates “92% fresh,” but which from about the midpoint, made me want to hurl my pondweed.
Star: Usually, we’re all about positive portrayals of sex workers, and while the character of Anora kicked impressive tuft—I mean, here’s a human who, when threatened, fights with beak and bone—the movie completely devolved, IMDO, after a super-ducking awesome start, and left us wishing people hadn’t learned certain swears. Because some swears should NEVER BE SAID by straight, white people. EVER.
Duck: Agreed! The quackduckery! I thought you humans could beep that pond-crud out.
Star: When we’re smart, we do.
Duck: This explains a LOT.
Star: And when it comes to Anora … oh, the pond-suck boredom!
Duck: As a duck, when it comes to boredom, I can usually take A LOT. I’ll watch a presentation with bar charts until my feathers start to drip. But halfway through Anora, I was snoring my flippers off.
Star: In the second half, we actually fast-forwarded a sex scene. And we NEVER skip sex scenes.
Duck: It’s practically a point of pride. Frankly, Anora just ground us down.
Star: Our sparkle had curdled.
Duck: Our flippers were dry.
Star: We’d rather do Wordle while eating a fry.
Duck: Star, was that an attempt at poetry or are you mildly confused?
Star: Both. Call me Shakespeare.
Duck: Dear Shakespeare, PLEASE call Star. We need your help. Thank you.
Star: On that note, have a good week, friends!
Duck: And if you pass a Taco Bell, for duck’s sake, text me!
You can get BOOK BOYFRIEND here:
E-book: Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Kobo
Audiobook: Audible, Kobo Audiobooks, Libro.fm, Chirp
Paperback: Amazon, BAM, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, Indiebound, Target
Featured image: Book Boyfriend image was snagged from Amazon, and Star Tavares designed everything else using Canva. Cod bless Canva.
Romancey Pants 