I ended up enjoying this a lot more than I thought I would. Very dramatic and a bit nihilist, but I like the hope it left me with at the end. I’m not usually one for character driven novels (at least I think I’m not) but I loved the women in this story and really rooted for them all.

Truly this book was not meant for me. For starters, I feel like the actual plot of this book (aliens, saving the human race, escaping alien captivity, ect.) became a sub-plot to conveniently shuttle the main characters around to new locales to talk to each other in and gush about their feelings. It also had a few sci-fi tropes I'm really sick of like aliens over-exalting the way humans connect to each other/wanting to be more human and humanoid aliens. As someone who 100% would become a wholly new alien if I could, I'm sick of it.

What I liked about this book really worked for it. Janelle was a wonderful protagonist; interesting, funny, and with a good amount of moxie. The first part of the book was pretty cool. I liked the world-building and the concept of Janelle's secret library and the general push towards necessary trouble/revolution. Everything after that plotwise and otherwise, did nothing.

To me the author really bogged down the story with way too much character interaction. I'm not one for character driven stories in the first place, but this just felt ridiculous. The love talk was extremely corny, and it felt like nothing actually happened. Most of the time in the novel I couldn't remember what the main characters' plan was or what they were supposed to be doing. To be characters on the run they sure had a lot of time to lay around in fields or go to run down diners and bond over music and pine over one another. Also, the plot twist towards the end of the fourth part was completely unbelievable to me. It just felt too clean and easy to suddenly

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have Morris' older brother be in on the whole rebellion shit. Morris was a bit too accepting of it for me. And it seemed cheap to have his betrothed, Orsa?, remain a villain and have his brother have actually cared for him all along. I feel like a real character driven narrative would have had Morris be a lot more distrustful of his brother. Additionally, I would have liked the betrothed to not be a female character punished for her ambition, which is what it essentially came off to me as, and maybe be the one who was in on everything.

Basically, I found what was left of the plot to be very convenient, which is kind of an issue when there isn't that much plot to begin with.

Also, the inclusion of books and music being the driving forces of their relationship didn't do much for me. But that aside, I really felt like having

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the band end up to be time traveling aliens was kinda stupid. It didn't make sense to me to suddenly have their music be from the future and about Morris and Janelle. It seemed cheap. Maybe it was some kind of meta about how we can be our idol's idols, but it really was just annoying because I found more of the interludes about the band to be annoying filler anyways. In hindsight now they seem like overbearing allusions to the later plot twist.

Also, I can't remember if the band itself is a Korean band, or just Allister, but the author's word choices surrounding him later in the book are very questionable. For example, "He's a Korean superstar. Now he's an alien from a land far, far away in space and time?" and later, when describing the whole band, specifically Whisper, ow did no one realize they're aliens? We all just assumed their brand was colorful eyes, questionable costumes, and strange accents no one could quite place." I feel like this is extremely poor word choice from the author. It reads like aliens needed a human face that would be the most "alien" so they wouldn't be noticed and picked East-Asian faces. It can also feed into a larger discussion on the American societal view of Asians and Asian-Americans being the eternal other within American society. For a book that includes so much political allegories, initial fire, and Queerness it is a bit much to find this kind of poor wording.

All in all, I appreciate the rep for baby Queers/other Queer readers who will read this book. i also liked the ending more than other reviewers seem to. I love open endings where a reader is able to imagine what they think will happen, and I appreciate the author leaving this book with that ending and not stretching it into a series/sequel. I respect that choice a lot and wish more authors would make it. However, little else of this book really worked for me. I probably would recommend it to people who's reading tastes matched more of what this book is than what I thought it was going to be, because while it wasn't something I enjoyed reading at all, I can see how it would appeal to other types of readers.

Not my favorite collection of poetry I’ve ever read, but it had some lines and poems that stuck out to me. I particularly enjoyed “The Fall” and “D-Day”. It had a lot of vivid imagery, but was a bit literal and didn’t really leave much to be thought about.

It took me a few days to get together my thoughts on this book. Bub manages to capture a visceral feeling I feel like most people who are women or FAB can relate to. Reading these poems was like seeing many of my own thoughts on the page. One thing I really appreciate, is Bub's confidence that oozes from the pages. She bares her soul but it comes from a place of strength that is really intoxicating.

Some of my favorite poems include (I took most of the bolded lines to be titles so if these aren't the actual titles I apologize to the author lmao) "I Shed My Skin/ Like The Serpent," (pg 15), "Born in a Blizzard" (pg 21) and the untitled poems on pages 108 and 127, as well as "Lesson #222" (pg 129).

Some of the lines that have been stuck in my head the past few days:
"I tune out all the loud noises that stem from men's voices." (pg 12)
"if I refused to turn over in the womb, what makes you think/ I'd ever fucking turn over for you?" (pg 21)
"let the anger simmer" (pg 129)

I particularly loved the mixed media aspect of this book. The author's choice to include texts, photographs, and original artwork made it feel a lot more intimate and human. Having that aspect really helped connect the poems and myself to the words more.

Really a fantastic autobiography. I think it gives a lot to critical race theory and is incredibly eye opening. Something I would highly recommend to anyone.

The parts where the author was in Alabama made me very nostalgic since it’s my home state. All in all I prefer graphic memoirs I think because it helps the flow of the story much more. I enjoyed reading about the author’s life!

This book was very stressful and hard to get through at points. Butler is truly a master of her craft and this book is something I would highly recommend to any fans of speculative fiction.

All in all, I think the original manga here was fairly confusing and cluttered. I really don't feel like it's as deep as the movie tried to be, or as interesting. Shirow's art style is cluttered to me, and I didn't really care about the storyline or much else. I have heard that other series and volumes from this universe are better, so I might check them out.

I really enjoyed this book! I loved the worldbuilding, and how it didn’t feel like info-dumping/forced on the reader even though this is a novella. A nice balance of a cool, futuristic setting with character conflict and strong roots in culture and history. The writing was a bit dense, but in a way I enjoyed and was able to savor, so the story felt longer than it actually was. I’m looking forward to reading the other books in this universe!

I really enjoyed this! It was slow in a plot heavy kinda way, but that made the story seem to last longer in a way that I liked. The worldbuilding was great, and I was super into the characters and concept. Can’t wait to read the sequel!