I'm semi-picky about which books I give above 4 stars. I have to like the way the prose flows, it has to be able to suspend my disbelief (since I mostly read fantasy/magical realism-adjacent things), it has to grip me in a way that gives me shivers at LEAST once, if I question the writer's choices - that's a 3.5 or less. And this book, oh, it blows most of the things I've read last year out of the water. It's a fantastic work. 

I think horror is the hardest to write - without relying on elements such as music, sound design, color design, etc, it's hard to make the reader feel truly immersed in the horror aspect of a book, something that comes to film and visual media more easily. The tension that's built in this book is hard to top, and a lot of the descriptions stuck with me long after I'd moved on.

I recommend this book wholeheartedly.

What a fun novella! I listened to the whole audiobook in one afternoon and am planning to do the same to the sequel. 

I read a fair bit of fanfiction, which I'm a bit ashamed of, but in my defense I'm incredibly picky with it. I think I just love a satisfying indie read, and fanfiction is the only real way to get something trope-y, indulgent, and featuring characters you know and love engage in some on-screen, overt gay pining (amid shenanigans) - or so I thought, until I picked up this read. I mean this as the highest of compliments; it reads like a good, cozy fic. 

The characters are familiar, relatable, and cliché for a caper story, which felt like coming back home after a long time away - there's Winslow, your typical stony-faced-man-of-few-words cowboy (with extra bisexuality sprinkled in), Archie the GNC, fat pickpocket that didn't feel like a "not like other girls" type despite all signs pointing otherwise, Adelia the 8-months-pregnant assassin/femme fatale that never seemed to break a sweat, Cal the edgy rival to the protagonist (only there because he has to be), and Hero, chaotic nonbinary demolitions expert that pulled a Princess Bride (attempted) poisoning on the protagonist when they first met him, because they were bored and wanted to see what would happen. They're fun, they bring a fresh twist on each of the tropes they embody, they ride hippos through a bayou, they're all very cool. 

As an aside regarding Hero, I've seen a couple of reviews on here either get petulant and confused over the singular they pronoun, or insist that "there has to be a REASON for a nonbinary character, it felt like there was no REASON for the they/them pronouns and it wasn't relevant to the plot, why would Gailey include them, boo hoo!" This is actually my favourite type of representation, as a nonbinary person. I love to see nonbinary characters do their thing and have fun, and the story not to focus on the gender aspect - the fact that they're nonbinary is incidental and normalised, rather than pointed out and made the center of their story. Hero is great in that they are assured in their gender, and as a nonbinary person too, I think the fact that they're pissing people off for not fitting the mold everyone thinks nonbinary people should adhere to in a story would make them very happy. 

I also really enjoyed Gailey's writing style. It's fun, it flows well, it kept me company while I was working. I didn't have any expectations of this book, really, and it was a light, predictable read, in a comforting way. Yes, you can see the twists from a mile away, yes, tropes dominate the story, but god was it a fun, campy ride.

I thought I'd enjoy this book more based on recommendations from friends and other reviews, but a lot of what people praised about it felt a bit overstated/almost cheesy, to me. The sci-fi element (from the name of the book, to the promise of starship shenanigans in the blurb) felt kind of hastily done, and a lot less thoroughly world-built than Shizuka's origins/development (Faustian bargains, Hell, etc). It almost felt like a disservice to Lan as a tritagonist, to have so much less of her history, thought, and motivations explored and revealed. 

There were many things I liked about the book, I'm just disappointed I didn't enjoy it more. Katrina's arc was well executed, albeit cliché at times; as a trans writer, I feel like Aoki can make her trans protagonist as universally relatable as she wants, she has that right (speaking as a trans person myself). Also, many trans people will pour their heart and soul into a hobby as a means of escape, to the point of obsession, and get so good at it that it feels mary-sue-ish - I'm guilty of this with art, and one of my trans roommates is making a phenomenal video game right now. I bring this up because cis friends who have read this book see Katrina's violin playing skills as "overpowered", for lack of a better term, and I completely disagree, trans people are just that cool. 

Lan and Shizuka's relationship was everything I loved in a meet cute - two older wlw (When do you see that??? I love that!!! They're giving owl house Eda levels of pining) struggling to flirt and falling flat on their faces. And the misunderstandings! Ugh, when Shizuka

got a call from Astrid about making dinner and Lan assumed a "housekeeper" was a romantic partner, and got really sad about it, it was so cute.

Or when

Shizuka saw Lan in uniform and had a gay little freakout, I may have squealed in delight despite being way too old for that myself.

Older wlw absolutely carried this book for me,

age gap be damned. They're both consenting adults, and yes, one's in her mid 40s while the other's almost 80, but has Shizuka really lived these past 46 years, suspended in a weird violin-murderhobo stasis? I don't think so. Let her kiss a hot starship captain I beg of you.

So, what didn't I like? I've already mentioned the story's treatment of Lan - her voice and inner world just feels much emptier than that of Katrina or Shizuka, and she deserved more as a tritagonist. Also, regarding Marcus:

the treatment of Marcus was... not great. He killed some people and never really got a resolution. The other loose ends were all tied up, and Marcus was just sort of left with nothing. For a book that is all about community and healing and support, this kid, who was clearly hurting, never got the support and rehabilitation he clearly needed. He was just forgotten about by his own family, who seemed to move on from his absence far too quickly.

Similarly, nothing ever came of

Katrina's friend Evan. I would have liked to see something occur there - like, there were all these threads that got converged at the end, there was even an undocumented immigrant Floresta hires in the epilogue - a random new character shoved in there - and you're telling me Aoki didn't have time for a petty moment with Katrina and Evan's friends, except with the power dynamic now flipped? Come on.

Some of the more cringe-worthy moments like

Astrid walking in on Katrina

gave me the worst second hand embarassment. And Lucy's character felt just a bit cliché with her inferiority complex and the way she spoke about/dealt with it. 

All in all, a fun read with excellent representation that unfortunately fell short in many places. My library doesn't stock the Wayfarers series, so I continue in my fruitless search for good queer sci-fi that doesn't "masquerade as sci-fi" through a contrived title and cover.

I read this series after it was recommended to me by a friend, but couldn't find myself truly invested in any of the three books. 

I enjoyed the story for the most part, the worldbuilding and magic mechanics were really interesting, but the plot is where it fell short for me. I remember yelling to my friend (about the second book, not this one), "SHE'S JUST GONNA KILL ONE OF THE CHAMPIONS, STEAL HIS IDENTITY, AND FACE NO REPERCUSSIONS?!" and it felt as though my enjoyment of the rest of the series only went downhill from there.

I don't like Lila. She's insufferable, and while that's the point, she also never changes, or shows particular remorse. She gets away with so much just because she's "special", whatever that means - we keep hearing other characters refer to her as good at things, or clever, or apt, but we never physically see these qualities in her character. It hit me how much of a psychopath she is when

Hastra has a bit of a breakdown over taking his first life. I remember thinking, "woah, that's the first accurate response to trauma I've seen in this book!"

Lila has never done that! She just goes along with horrific things that happen to her, and seems to do just fine with the power of an "I'm not like other girls" complex alone.

The plot armour is so thickly layered on these protagonists that I got conditioned into not rooting for the NPCs at all. If an NPC got brought into the fray - they were gonna die, them's the rules.

Too many hot twinks lost to defending the world's most magical heteros.

I jest. Mostly.

ALSO, and this is a personal gripe,

EMIRA GOT DONE SO DIRTY. Half the book was going on about how she was this cold, closed off person who had a lot of issues, and then they just offed her. She never got the control she so lacked in life, she never got a badass fight defending Rhy (who was present!), she didn't even get properly mourned in my opinion.

Plus, still not over Alucard's name. The name only exists because of Castlevania, it's Dracula backwards, that's the only point of it. You named another character a symbolic name from a different franchise for no reason. Come up with your own! 

Too many mcguffins (too easily gained), plot armour that wouldn't have been as noticeable in a standalone book as it became in a trilogy, a lot of cliche/repetitive writing tricks, to the point where I could predict what quip or description a character would go with as I listened to the audiobook. 

The ending was satisfying, though, I'll give the author that. I had to see this story through to the end. 

I listened to this audiobook sandwiched between A Psalm For The Wild Built (my new favourite hopepunk/solarpunk book) and A Conjuring Of Light (the third installment in a trilogy that was left on a cliffhanger), so it was bound to get a lower rating from me due to bad timing alone. Still, some parts were... just horrible, and it brought the rest of the book down for me. 

Things I liked: 

- The food descriptions: I love how immersive the author got with the food, and how it provided a backdrop for character growth to take place. 

- Pacing: this is once of those books where each chapter is titled "time before xyz". I like the use of titles and timing to establish what the character fears or looks forward to, and build tension towards a climactic event. 

- The characters themselves: we've got a rag tag found family that's just full'o flaws, but loveable regardless. I mean, what other book features a trust-fund-kid-turned-addict help save a kitchen from impending bankruptcy? 

- Queer love: it's in there,

it works out

, I like that. It was very "at first sight" which some people may find tacky, but I'm a romantic at heart. 

- Core message: pushed on a bit too strongly/obviously, but

an anticapitalist book! We love to see it!

Things I didn't like:

- "forced" diversity: maybe I'm using the wrong term, but a few times in the book, I felt stating certain things was unnecessary. At one point, the protagonist witnesses a trans chef get a promotion, and is briefly confused over the chef's gender identity (basically going "why did [the person in charge] say "he"? Oh, he must be transitioning genders!" in his head). That chef is never mentioned again, so it felt almost unnecessary. The protagonist's skin is also drawn attention to quite a lot, like, "he could feel the sun on his dark skin" - I almost felt like the author was showing off/rubbing in how progressive of him it was to make the protagonist a POC. Luckily, no food references or fetishy similes regarding the skin ("the color of chocolate" or whatever), but still. 

- Attitude to slavery: one of the characters was sold into slavery with his family by a great-great-relative, to pay off debt. At one point,

the protagonist has a fight with him about this, because "at least [the character in slavery] received regular meals, had comfortable sleeping quarters, etc"

. The book's message is

an anticapitalist one, and the protagonist does say most of the things he said in anger (after months of isolation with just this other character), and apologises for his words almost immediately after because he thinks them through, that transition of mindset felt... quick, and feels antithetic to the overall plot and message.

I don't know, something rubbed me the wrong way about it, especially because to my knowledge, the author is white. 

- Erotica: just not my cup of tea. It got pretty descriptive at some point, in a fanfiction-y sort of way, and I cringed every time. 

- The ending: I just. Ew. Complete disregard for

trauma, since the character spends ?? 8 years in slavery ? and he IS a person of color so that feels very not right for a white author to write about, as part of the "best case scenario/resolution", even if it did work out in the end.

Final thoughts:
A decent, easy enough read where the characters are fun, flawed, and the plot is engaging. The ending feels under-thought, and overall the book feels like it oversimplifies+dismisses a LOT of current issues. 

Another thing that has to be said is that (for me at least) the narration's quality often makes or breaks my ability to truly enjoy the story. This one was stellar. James Fouhey has that ability to do voices that doesn't seem parodic or overly infantilising, and I found myself smiling at it often. 

Machado sheds light on what it's like to be in an abusive queer relationship in a very honest way that manages to be heartwrenching all the same. Grappling with the fact that you're being abused by a member of your own community, by another woman, another wlw - it hits hard; Machado's writing brought me to tears multiple times in this 5-or-so hour audiobook. The story plays with many tropes as it unfolds, with each chapter being titled "dream house as [insert plot device or trope here]" and while the author's voice remains strong throughout, this allows her to approach the fact of her abusive relationship through different angles and lenses, almost as if she's making sense of it as it happens - like abuse victims often do. 

As someone who was abused (periodically, but for a long time), I found that in my situation I echoed many of Machado's feelings and thoughts throughout this memoir. A heavy, but necessary read.

I couldn't find the Wayfarers series (something I've been meaning to read for a long time) at my local library, so in the meantime, while I looked elsewhere, I settled for this novel to dip a toe into Chambers' writing. "Settled" sounds like I didn't want to read this. I did, I just haven't heard much about it, so it had been this obscure little read to enjoy between other books on my list I'd been looking forward to more. 

I was hooked from the first line. Even before the first line, honestly - the dedication page stated, "for anybody who could use a break", and I, in the middle of my undergrad thesis, going through audiobook after audiobook in the background as I worked, nearly sobbed right there. Dex, the nonbinary protagonist whose story isn't about figuring out their gender, or grappling with their gender, or struggling to accept their gender in a society that doesn't, or whatever it is cis authors usually think we do all day, warmed my own nonbinary heart greatly. Dex's struggle comes instead from their perceived lack of purpose, and decision to uproot themself and go do something different, something they feel they have a calling to do, only to discover that their new vocation doesn't really fill that weird little void, either. 

I love Dex. I love the robot (whose name was so precious and cute that I refuse to spoil it, it's something I want you to go "awww" at for yourself when you see it on the page). I love the way the audiobook was read, with a little bit of varied intonation to suggest separate characters, but not enough to be outright silly. I relate to literally everything they both do as they navigate relating to each other. When the second book comes to my library in audiobook form, or when I scrape the money together to buy it, I can't wait to be reunited with these characters again. 

I remember reading this book and thinking, I'm glad that we have moved past every piece of media ever having to avoid the "kill your gays" (or, "irreparably harm your gays" in this case, or at the very least, "make your gays sad") trope because there wasn't enough positive rep out there for us yet. I'm glad that means that now, we can have tragic, haunting queer stories like this one. 

I love water-based horror (as opposed to oil-based, HA!). But, really - oceans are terrifying in a way all humans universally relate to, I think. Like the dark, or heights, most of us will look at this nebulous unknown and feel a lurch. Armfield knew how to draw that Lurch out of me. I was working on an illustration for class while listening to the bulk of this book, and when I look at the finished illustration posted on my Instagram, I can still recall the book in the background, being told to me as I drew. It stuck with me, the plot, the differing voices of Leah and Miri (the book alternates POVs), and how their love for each other united them. I felt the lesbian yearning, you know? 

Armfield also explores the varying ways we deal with grief. Often, there isn't much in the way of an answer, or an explanation, or understanding, even from the most sympathetic of friends. It's socially acceptable at first, but after the world expects you to move on, sometimes you sequester yourself in this strange gray area between "fresh wound" and "faded scar". Grief is a scab, I guess? I understood this so clearly after devouring this book in two days. Like, I knew this before, but it kind of gave me the words for it. A strange, unfamiliar flesh suit for a universally recognisable soul, is this story.