This book definitely has moments where it works. The emotional heart is strong. The non-linear storytelling is goofy but it works in theory. And I enjoy Nico and Will and several of the side characters and some of the humor. But it's definitely kind of artless in its execution and there isn't as much charm and quirkiness and there usually is in a Rick Riordan novel. The plotting is much more competent and coherent than in the Heroes of Olympus series, but that's a pretty low bar. And a lot of the references and jokes were just too cringey for me. They might be less so for someone who's actually currently the target audience. I'm glad that the youth of today get gay cringe about Nico di Angelo, but ultimately that's what this book is.

Lovely little high fantasy story about two trans elders (one newly out and from a culture that is not accepting, one who came out decades ago and never struggled with her identity) finding their directions in life in a rich setting steeped in Jewish folklore. The book definitely drops you into the middle of the world without explaining anything about it, so if you're not into fantasy novels where you are deeply confused for the whole first chunk, this may not be for you. There's also quite a bit of Generic Middle Eastern Aesthetic going on here, but overall the worldbuilding and characterization and storytelling all really worked.

Interesting but was due back at the library.

Maybe if I mark this as a DNF I'll forget that I was reading it with my ex and I'll actually go back and restart it and finish it this time cause it is GOOD but I've been associating it too much with that asshole to pick it up again.

Will absolutely be returning to this book, but it's so intricate that I want to be able to really focus on it, and that's not where I'm at right now.

Okay, I put off reading this book for a long time because it's so popular and so hyped up and I am a contrarian, but Tomorrow x3 is in fact EXCELLENT.

This novel tells the story of the relationships between Sadie Green, Sam Masur, and Marx Watanabe in an occasionally non-linear and experimental way over the course of about three decades. I've seen a lot of people describe this book as just the story of Sadie and Sam's friendship, but I don't think that's wholly true. Marx--and Sam and Sadie's relationships with him--is just as important as they are.

We meet Sam and Sadie as long-lost friends reunited and quickly learn why their initial tween friendship ended. Marx is at first Sam's roommate and then becomes generally the backbone of everything when Sam and Sadie start creating videogames with each other. 

The games in this book--Solution, Ichigo, Both Sides, Mapletown, Master of the Revels, and others--are intriguing and add a lot to the story in the way that they use literary and pop culture references, show changes in tech and cultural norms over time, and help to show us things about the characters. This is not, however, a book about videogames, so I'm not mad at all that none of the games are particularly original in the grand scheme of things. Of course they're not. If Gabrielle Zevin came up with a fully original videogame, she'd probably use that concept outside of the confines of her novel. However, I do know that there is controversy around the resemblances of certain games in this book to certain games in real life, and I don't want to invalidate the feelings of anyone for whom that is a significant issue here.

Sadie is, I think, who I would have become if I'd grown up with more privilege and gone into STEM in college. I see a lot of myself in her, in her flaws and her literary interests as well as in her struggles with misogyny and her relationship with Dov.

Sam is in many ways a classic quirky character, a nerd who struggles to express his feelings and doesn't always know how to do interpersonal relationships. He's not explicitly autistic in the text, but he reads as autistic to me in a lot of ways, and I also resonated with him a lot.

Marx is the producer, the mom friend, the glue. He is a lover of Shakespeare and Homer, a man with expert social skills who struggles with romantic relationships and is doomed to forever be a side character because he is an Asian man living in America in the 90s and early 2000s. I love him just as much as Sadie and Sam do.

The book is named for Marx (it's a Shakespeare quote, Macbeth to be precise, and it is in Marx's honor), and anyone who thinks the title should have been Unfair Games was focused on a VERY different part of the story than I was. Unfair Games the company is a supporting character at best. Marx IS the story.

There are some very harrowing depictions of domestic abuse and gun violence here that could be triggering to a lot of readership, and I think it's important to note that so that you know what you're getting. This is not a trauma novel. It does not follow the trauma plot. It does not revel in its characters' pain, and I love it for that. It is also a novel filled with a lot of pain because the characters, especially Sam, are filled with so much pain of so many kinds.

Also, definitely the queerest book I've read this year that was not explicitly marketed as queer. Everyone is very bi, and the relationship between the three main characters certainly does not resemble any cishet friend group I've ever known. And the most central couple that is actually a couple for the entire time we know them is two men.

Anyway, I loved it.

This is taking too long and there are other books I’m eager to get to. Will return to this at some point.

After years of seeing this book on shelves and in bookstores and avoiding it for thorny reasons known only to me, I finally read it on my partner's recommendation, and I'm so glad that I did.

There was so much that resonated here, so much that felt familiar and reflective of my own thinking on certain subjects, so much that was new and interesting and worthy of investigation.

There were also some things that didn't work for me as much, largely some of the stuff around punishment (a little too wishy-washy to feel like useful restorative justice, but this book was also published 100 years ago), but those moments were few and far between, and I do not have to agree with everything a book says to find it important and thought-provoking and worthy of revisiting. And The Prophet is definitely all of those things for me.

New favorite Becky Chambers book? I think yes.

Record of a Spaceborn Few is a cozy sci-fi novel about several humans in the Exodan fleet--descendants of those who left Earth centuries earlier in search of life elsewhere in the galaxy. They found it, and many humans now live planetside or work as spacers, but many others still live in the fleet itself, a socialist society without money where everyone is guaranteed food and housing and where the dead are recycled--and treated with honor.

All of our main characters have unique relationships to the Exodan fleet, its customs, and its history, and they give us a window into the questions that the fleet--and humanity at large--is grappling with. Why stay in a ship that has reached its destination? What happens to a post-money society in a galactic context that still uses currency? How do you avoid feeling worthless when your entire species seems so much smaller and more helpless than so many others, and when you are dependent on others for so much of your everyday existence? Is humanity inherently tied to Earth? What are we without it?

Becky Chambers doesn't attempt to answer any of these questions. She just explores them and has characters muse on them and produces a lovely, character-driven story in the process.

There IS death in this one. Quite a bit of it. So be warned.

My only gripe is the continued existence of law enforcement, honestly, but the Exodan model was never going to be perfect, so it's okay.

I think it's finally time to admit to myself that I'm not gonna be finishing this anytime soon. Will return to it when I'm in the headspace for it.