aimiller's Reviews (689)

I will say right off the bat that I received a copy of this through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, and I am grateful to the publisher for the opportunity to read this.

I would really give this 2.5 stars, and chalk most of it to not being my thing genre-wise. It's pretty gritty but sometimes in a kind of borderline-over-the-top way? And sometimes I felt like the bad guy was like way too smart, to the point where I got frustrated with the main character couldn't outsmart him, but that's clearly a Me thing.

I will also say, though, that the presented background plot thing with Native folks was... rough. At first I thought it was just going to be an off-hand mention, and I rolled my eyes but was like "okay, whatever," but it kept going. Folks, please, can we not. The lack of specificity just reveals how convenient this is for authors to use and it's really not good and it can and will ruin a book for me. (Though it is not the only reason I didn't love this, is just a big reason why I can't recommend it to folks.)

Anyway--it was fairly engaging, and if you like gritty and can ignore the racism. The cliffhanger at the end was very good and the next book might be interesting/reveal more, so that's cool!

A really interesting look at the materiality (versus the direct content) of the book in Indian country. Round does really careful good work to navigate the role of the book in communities and its impact, paying really good attention to specificity. My favorite chapters were the ones talking about proprietary authorship and reprinting--I thought those were so interesting and I'd love really to explore more the notion of trademarking something for a nation but held in one's name. The chapter about illustration was also fascinating. Overall a really good book I'd definitely recommend to folks who are interested in the history of the book and its contested role in colonization!

I want to say first that I received a copy of this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program, and I'm grateful to the publishers for the opportunity to read this book.

This was a lot of fun, way more fun than I was expecting. It wasn't as centered around the aspects of it I thought it might be at first, but it's definitely a fun time with a lot of moving parts that weren't super dizzying and all made sense. Tightly told, really well paced, and the mysteries aren't too easily figured out nor do they seem to come out of left field.

My biggest issue with the book is a spoiler so:

the whole thing with Max being in love with Shay was a NIGHTMARE. Like for the most part it was handled okay narratively, with lots of people being like "she's a child, you CAN'T" and really he responded okay except it just like didn't stop? And the part where he was like "I won't flirt with you if you don't flirt with me" made me ALL KINDS OF UNCOMFORTABLE because it's not her job to maintain boundaries??? And the way it was resolved within the story was like... really struck me as a bad note to end on.

Overall though, this was a pretty fun read, and I'd recommend if it you want more interactions between superheroes and competent, talented folks without powers. The ending is a nice balance of "could be a sequel, could be a standalone" and I'd be happy either way, really!

Before I get into my review, I want to acknowledge that I received this book through the Early Reviewers program on LibraryThing, and I'm grateful to the publishers for the opportunity to read this book.

I'll say right now that I had extremely low expectations for this book, and it in some ways exceeded those expectations by not being as explicitly racist as it perhaps could have been. That being said, it was uh... still fairly gross. Though Robinson cites a number of Ojibwe sources as having help him craft the book, and it's clear he spoke one Ojibwe person, it's not clear if he spoke to them about this story, or asked permission to tell it in this venue, nor is it clear if he had any sensitivity readers, as none are thanked. He did his research but the way it's presented in the book, it's clear who this story is for and who is supposed to benefit from its retelling: white children. That's extra horrific to consider when we think that for white children to get this message, it's just chill to depict the brutal killings of 13 Ojibwe children and some Dakota children as well. (And let's not get started on the convoluted representation of the Dakota people. It's a nightmare.)

On a more quibble-y note, the romance felt so forced that I literally rolled my eyes. I don't know if it's a product of the age-range the book is intended for (I see stuff like it happen a lot with MG books) but it was still annoying.

There are plenty of books by Native authors that have a stronger connection to the communities represented and do a better job of teaching complex lessons to children than this one, so I'd say seek those out. Hell, Joseph Bruchac's Arrow Over the Door is also basically aimed at white children and does a better job.

EDIT: It's been brought to my attention that the book was not intended for a MG audience, but rather upper YA and adult. Though my reading of the book as aimed at a middle grade audience colored my initial reading, I stand by my earlier points about the violence, regardless of who this book is aimed at.

Even as someone who hasn't watched Clone Wars yet (shh, I'm working on it,) this was a fun little romp that I would have absolutely loved as a kid. There were parts of it that made me go 'bzuh??' specifically regarding Breaker's character--I wasn't sure like if he was being coded as like autistic at times, or if spoilers were part of that, but it was all very weird. Also there was like a very unsubtle reference to the movie that I think kids would find delightful.

I might actually look for the second book, though, because I do want to know what happens next with these characters, and these are very soft and lovely and remind me of getting into Star Wars as a kid, which is nice.

Just a delightful read. Doty is so aggressive in his readings, and it's really delightful. His rage during the Wizard of Oz chapter is so GOOD and palpable, and his reading of Psycho is super interesting and opens up so many doors for the future. I was less interested in the middle chapters, but that was mostly because I haven't seen those movies. (I also haven't seen Psycho, but reading the chapter makes me want to see it!) This book is so great and really changed my life, and I strongly encourage folks who are interested in having a good time check it out.

I should start this by saying I received a copy of this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, and I am grateful to the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

Now I will also say here that I am not a regular reader of published erotica of any form, much less transgender erotica, but I felt, as a transgender person (albeit cafab and transmasculine,) it was important for me to read and review this. I'll also be upfront about the fact that sometimes I read erotic fanfiction, and my recommendation for you is to uh read that fanfiction instead. It's hotter (in my experience) and you aren't just like "oh, welp, here's another sex scene" which is how I was by the end of the book.

Re: the trans stuff... it was okay? There were at least 2 moments where I was like "fuckin really???" where characters, upon first meeting the trans woman character, were like "that's a man" and then flipped around pretty fast after she says that no, she's a WOMAN, but like.... wholly unnecessary, imo. And then there was a whole sequence where someone was extremely transphobic and it was mostly constructed as a way that the cis male character could be like "I felt extremely protective of the trans woman." Also I called the trans character's dark secret at the very beginning because I understand how trans storytelling works.

I will admit to mostly being disappointed with the book because I was hopeful that we would get some of that sex from the trans character's point of view, which would be really cool. But no, the entire book was from the cis man's perspective. I get why that is, within the context, but it just made me feel kind of unsure about how I was supposed to approach the book and the sex scenes in particular. As a reader, I'm way more interested in how transgender people experience and navigate sex than I am in hearing a cis man go on and on about it. Also: the man does at one point have penis-in-vagina sex with a cis woman, and says "It had been a long time since I'd had sex with a woman" like bud you've spent the last 80% of the book fucking a woman? Just a weird slip of language that to me establishes how the author thinks about this whole thing? Or maybe just the character, but it's not corrected within the text so.

And maybe this is just the fault of the genre and the genre not being what I want it to be, and so that's on me and not the book! But it was kind of disappointing to read, and not that hot to me overall.

So I will start off by saying that I received this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, and I am grateful to the publisher for the opportunity to read this!

I want to say upfront that I don't think me not liking this book is wholly the book's fault? I might just be too Dumb to understand it. I tried to let go and just let the book take me where it was going, but it didn't... feel like it went anywhere? It was very confusing for me and hard to follow, which I suspect is part of the point and so like good on that one, but it wasn't a story I felt I could follow, I didn't really... care? About Robert or what he was doing, the experiment, or in figuring out what was "real" (not that I'm sure the story wants you to do that, but y'know.) Some of the phrasing was really beautiful, I just think I'm too dense for the whole plot. You might like it if you like buckwild, nearly incomprehensible sci-fi that asks really deep questions about the nature of who we are and what constitutes our realities? But it wasn't my cup of tea.

More like 3.5? It's a decent collection of a bunch of different pieces touching many aspects of Indigenous masculinities, but the pieces at times feel disparate and disconnected from one another. They're also of varying levels one after the other, which is both interesting and also kind of gives you whiplash as you move from community work to work delving really deep theoretically and then back again. I found the articles about artistic productions to be the most interesting, especially the chapter on female masculinity, but overall this is a pretty decent book with some great opportunities for assigning things.

I will say first I received this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program, and I am grateful to the publishers for the opportunity to read this.

I found this book overall to be sort of meh; for all that the book has Margaret Witt (and a coauthor) as the author, it's weirdly told in 3rd person, and in this very odd, kind of stilted voice? That choice was interesting, but made it hard to get through the book. I'm also wary as a person of the US military, and there's a lot of the sort of military bruhaha that makes me uncomfortable; the homonationalism was just uncomfortable, and it was especially hard to read about Witt's early experiences of sexual harassment. I know, given Major Witt's story, that I should have been primed to have that, but it was still uncomfortable.

The value of this book, for me, was in the way the book explained legalese and the arguments about DADT, which definitely have some historical value. If you want a fairly comprehensive and approachable explanation of the legal arguments around it, I would definitely read this book!