Loved the worldbuilding and the characters and the themes. The pacing was a bit off at times and the mystery plot was a bit obvious, probably as a symptom of the author moving from novellas to novels with this book. I liked all of the choices. I just think the execution could be polished a bit more in future books (which I definitely plan to read).

The narration for the audiobook was kind of odd. If they were going to do accents for the entire book, surely it would have made more sense to find a narrator with an actual Egyptian accent?

If you enjoyed the Kane Chronicles or the Bartimaeus Trilogy as a child and want something that draws from the same mythologies but has a better understanding of imperialism and other issues, A Master of Djinn is definitely a great choice for that. 

And it's sapphic!

One other thing: I was under the impression that Islam and magic don't mix and that it's bad to mix the two in fantasy writing, but I haven't seen anyone say anything about that aspect of the book, so it's possible that I was misinformed.

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

I have spent a lot of this year looking for good queer graphic novels, and this one absolutely fits the bill. This sapphic reimagining of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is adorable and spooky and has a gorgeous art style, fun characters, and an engaging plot. I read it in two sittings. It's a bit slow at the beginning, but by about the 1/3 mark, the story really picks up. I would absolutely recommend Hollow to anyone who enjoys graphic novels, sapphic teen stories with no homophobia, or Halloween. 

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

I've read some bad books about bisexuality. I've read a lot of poorly researched, uninformed nonsense about my community that still got published because the author was a tenured professor somewhere. Bi by Julia Shaw was none of that. 

This book isn't fully comprehensive, but it does its best to be an introduction to bisexual issues that will be useful to newly out bi people as well as family members and allies. 

I consider myself fairly well-informed about bisexual issues, so I already knew most of the information in this book, but I did still learn some interesting things, especially in the history section. I also think that the bibliography at the end of each chapter is a really useful starting point for independent research on any of the topics that Shaw discusses. 

This book is definitely coming from a white lens and aimed at an American and Western European audience, which means that there are some holes, but I think that Shaw did a better job at discussing intersectionality than the authors of most books like this do. I wish there were more discussion of the way that colonialism caused homophobia and transphobia in much of the world, but I did appreciate the critiques of homonationalism and of western approaches to immigration and people seeking asylum. 

Overall, while it had its holes, I highly recommend this book as a great starting point for nonfiction about bisexuality. 

Please note that it contains discussions of homophobia, biphobia, racism, misogyny, and various other bigotries and oppressions.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

I thoroughly enjoyed this absurdist poetry collection. It's hard to describe without just quoting full poems, but the style of humor was exactly up my alley.

Some poems are homages to other pieces of media, including one called "Poem on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" and one speculating on how Abraham Lincoln could have built the log cabin he was born in. Some are lists. Some are dialogues. 

The last chunk of the book is an extended story about a polygamist ape kingdom. It was bizarre and confusing and at times charming but generally less interesting for me personally than the rest of the book.

If you like poetry and utter ridiculousness with some heart and some intellectual references, then I highly recommend this little collection. If not, pick up something else.

Braiding Sweetgrass is the top selling book at the bookstore where I just stopped working, and maybe that should have been a red flag.

This book is a collection of essays about botany, indigenous plant knowledge, the relationship between the two, and the author's relationship with both as an indigenous botanist. Kimmerer weaves together indigenous creation myths, legends, and plant traditions with personal anecdotes and knowledge gained in her own experience as a scientist.

The writing is very lyrical, and quite a few of the essays had really interesting things to say. I especially enjoyed the cattail sections and the discussions of the honorable harvest—up to a point.

Before I get into my more serious critiques of this book, I just want to note that Braiding Sweetgrass is a long book that repeats itself a LOT. I think that about a third of the word count could have been edited out without changing the content or the messaging at all.

I have no interest in policing or questioning the author's heritage or her authority to speak on indigenous issues. However, this is not a book aimed at indigenous audiences. It is aimed at neoliberal white women, and both the content and the sales are proof of that.

A lot of this book discusses the concepts of immigration and indigeneity, and this is where Kimmerer really lost me. She refers to Skywoman as an immigrant, claims that everyone (yes, including the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island) is somehow an immigrant), and then further claims that settlers can somehow "become indigenous" by just connecting with the land. This is ridiculous and unhelpful, and I think that one reason that so many white people love this book is that it makes them feel like they belong and like they don't have any responsibility to right the wrongs of their ancestors beyond like... being nice to plants.

Simultaneously, Kimmerer takes a frustratingly individualist approach to environmentalism with claims like "we can choose if we buy food or not" and of course the general assertion that we as individuals can heal the earth by just leaving gifts for plants and harvesting responsibly. There are no calls for collective actions, no demands for policy change, and very few discussions of the fact that climate destruction is an ongoing evil caused by corporations and the government and, of course, the continuing project of white supremacy. That last bit is discussed some, yes, but not nearly as much as the whole "white people can fix things by being nice to the earth" thing.

Kimmerer has a lot of beautiful and important things to say about our collective relationship with the land and our responsibility to it, as well as the important role that humans play in the ecosystem. But instead of even addressing the possibility of systemic change through, oh, I don't know, landback maybe, she spends the whole book waxing poetic about plants and then making her white readers feel good. And that's within her rights as the author! Good on her for figuring out how to sell so many copies of her book, I suppose, though making content concessions to make more money under consumerism is certainly an ironic move on the part of an author who spends much of her book speaking on the ills of consumerism and capitalism. Of course we're all doing what we can to survive in this horrible system. I simply feel weird about it here.

And why does she spend so much time talking about what a good mother she is and assuming that her daughters are going to give her grandchildren? Very strange.

And you are welcome to think that I'm just a white reviewer complaining about nothing, but my critiques are shared by several other reviews, including this one by an indigenous reviewer: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4565520935?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=2

If you love Braiding Sweetgrass, that's great. If it means a lot to you, or if you just loved the writing, or if it taught you a lot or introduced you to new topics, that's great. But it didn't really do it for me, and I find the near-universal obsession with it in the area where I live to be very frustrating.

I felt like this book was better than book one in some ways and worse in others. 

The expansions of the lore were fascinating, and I can't wait to see where things go with the Alanga in book three. The animal companions were just as wonderful and charming. Jovis and Lin's dynamic was compelling and complicated. Phalue and Ranami were wonderful, and I liked the overall development of their relationship and storyline a lot. And all of the politics felt very realistic, especially the disputes over natural resources and such. And overall, I'm really glad that the different plots were properly interconnected in this one.

But a lot of things just didn't quite work. I have conflicted feelings about Ranami's whole "suspicious of other orphans" thing. The main plot with the construct army felt weirdly underdeveloped because Nisong got so few POV chapters while also taking up far too much of the book. And there were quite a few plotholes. Also, I know I said the politics felt realistic, but what is up with the political messaging of this book? Are we just cool with inherited wealth and power now because we like Lin and Phalue? Not sure. Book three is going to need to spend a lot of time working through that particular issue.

It's not fully comprehensive, and I definitely found its view limited in certain ways (no mentions of Afro-indigenous or two-spirit people, for example), but this is by far the most simultaneously informative and accessible U.S. history book I've read. Highly recommend if you're interested in indigenous history or decolonization or honestly if you're just a person who lives in the United States. 

General content warning for graphic discussions of violence, death, genocide, colonization, racism, etc. as well as racial slurs in quotes.

My friend gave a dramatic reading of this in my living room. It was absolutely wild. Read it if you care about Marx I guess?

I don't think this book was good. Honestly, I don't think Alyssa Cole is a particularly good writer, at least not on the level of her prose.

But I kind of can't get enough of these contemporary romance books about fake royalty, and I'm not sure why. I'm firmly anti-monarchy, and I don't really get the whole royalty fantasy, but I'm fascinated by the way this series is exploring and questioning the role of monarchies in the twenty-first century. There are a lot of really interesting conversations happening here about history and heritage and decolonization and power—in the context of a fairly okay romance book.

Makeda was far too relatable as a main character. I experienced a lot of psychic damage from how personally targeted I felt by many aspects of her character. And Bez was hot. Very much my type. Very chaotic. Very fun. So I was invested in their relationship for sure, but I also thought the romance was just sort of fine. Very odd little book. Not as good as book one in the series cause the politics in that one were more interesting and we spent far too much of this one on a ship setting up book three, but I did definitely enjoy it. 

Very cute, very sapphic, loved the art style, happy to FINALLY have read an actual good actually queer graphic novel. Thank you to everyone who recommended this one.