Luna

I really tried with this one. I could tell the overarching story was fascinating and I wanted to learn more, but Haddon wields violence as a very blunt instrument. It didn't feel measured, used in service to the plot, but rather stuffed in at every opportunity.

And never have I ever come across an author with SUCH an anal fixation. By the third or fourth character subjected to anal r*pe it just got both weird (is it his greatest fear? A long-standing fixation? WHY IS THERE SO MUCH OF IT?) and also stale? Very one-note in a way that cancelled out any of the intrigue I felt about the world building.

I DNF'd about a third of the way through.

I felt soiled after reading these short stories. The last, in particular, was deeply upsetting and far too graphic.

I've never wanted to get rid of a book by any means necessary so strongly before. Seriously. Do NOT read this if you're a sensitive person.

A friend recommended this one and I held off for a while, thinking it might feel a bit too YA for me.

But oh god, no, its so great!! The historical and cultural context is so well done. The characters are deeply loveable. I had nostalgia for the SF bay Area, where I grew up.

Its because of this book that I've started delving into queer YA as a genre.

The plot, characters, and setting were all great, but the execution was lacking. I wish we'd had less of the first half and more of the second half...and a bit more of a resolution.

What this book really could have used is a better editor. With the right one to help curb some of Emily Danforth's rambling tendencies and lopsided arc this could have easily become 5 stars.

A stunning, nuanced, fabulously queer read.

I can't think of another book that gets both lesbian and bisexual representation so right! Plus the characters were complicated and compelling. None of the main characters existed to simply be a foil for any other.

Probably my favourite read of 2021 and certainly one of my Top 5 favourite Queer books.

Bought The Dawnhounds the day it was published in Aotearoa New Zealand, immediately hyper fixated on it for the three glorious days I was reading it, finished yesterday, turning right back around and re-reading it immediately because I KNOW there's things I've probably missed in my first read and honestly I'm not ready to set the book down just yet.

Defiantly queer and vibrantly indigenous The Dawnhounds is a genre-defying work of art. As spiritual as it is political Sacha Stronach's first book weaves a striking tale of magic and humanity, of old gods and new, organic technologies. It gives voice to the healing wholeness of being queer and the ways in which the (western, colonial) world around us misinterprets our power and refuses to understand.
I loved every page more than the last until it felt as though my heart might burst out of my chest. I cried at unexpected moments, having seen a mirror of myself, of my community in the pages. I caught echoes of the knowledge that queers are divine, loved despite living in twisted structures operating exactly as they were designed.
Just as Tamsyn Muir has captured queer humour and power in her series Sacha Stronach has captured queer spirit and fortitude in The Dawnhounds. Together the two herald a golden age in queer storytelling and showcase what is easily some of the best speculative fiction being published today. What a beautiful, curious wonder that they both hail from Aotearoa New Zealand.
Here's to being taniwha instead of heroes.

Lambda is a fascinating book that feels like a modern classic sci-fi. It features several of the themes I particularly enjoy in my spec fic like an unusual structure, exploration of one or several world-specific moral and ethical dilemmas, odd characters that are dear to many, but clearly set others at great dis-ease. The result is a book that feels like it sits side-by-side with my love of Star Trek: The Next Generation - in particular Data's character development over the series.

Most of the chapters are told through an ‘Auto Narrator,' set with a data-rich description style. At first the abundance of measurable data such as OCEAN personality test scores and specific dimensions of objects feels odd and a bit distracting. However, that didn't last long for me. By the second chapter it felt like a very specific, deeply considered choice that was instrumental in the world building.

There is something that feels uniquely Autistic to the prose of Lambda - and I use that descriptor in the least derogatory, most enjoyable and familiar way, being autistic myself. The pseudo-anthropomorphism of sentient objects, the government agent with special interests in burial urns and modern furniture design, and absolutely the info-dump style of prose. Even the parallels between Data's character arc in Star Trek: TNG (a character lovingly claimed by the autistic community) and that of object sentience and the Lambdas themselves. Who deserves protection under law? What assistance is offered to encourage an equitable society? How do those who easily hold status within society (deserved and undeserved) respond to these attempts at equity?

And underneath it all how much trust can truly be placed on a government and judicial system? How far do they go to maintain the status quo - that is maintain their power over the populous? How aware is the average person of their data privacy and to what end is their data being used?

There is so much that I loved and felt uniquely familiar to me in Lambda. But there were too many questions left unanswered for my tastes, too stark of a focus shift in the last third of the book, which doesn't feature any of the titular characters at all and barely speaks of them, to boot.


Among my questions:
Where did Cara's father actually go? Why and why was this left almost totally unexplored? I expected that the app posing as him had asked Cara about whether she'd picked up a particular book as a form of foreshadowing. It never came up again.

Where did the Lambdas go? Why did they suddenly seem happy? Was there ever actually any ALA? If no, who actually blew up the school? Was it Colin all along? And what, exactly, was Cara writing on all those pages of paper?

Maybe there's a yet-unconfirmed follow up being planned by Musgrave. But Lambda read to me like a stand alone so maybe I'll never know.

In the end there was so much about Lambda that I found deeply enjoyable despite the over abundance of questions lingering at the end. Hence 4 stars as opposed to the 3 I might give a novel that left me hanging that I didn't find quite so unique.

I'm a Book Buyer for a book shop on a University campus and I was SO excited when I read the description of I'm A Gay Wizard.

I ordered in several copies for our two week Out On The Shelves promotion focusing on queer authors and queer stories. As a non-binary queer person myself I know how affirming it is to see characters like you in media. It's personally and professionally important to be dedicating time and space for the queer youth on campus, many of whom are exploring their sense of self outside of their family homes for the first time.

Due to international shipping delays the books came late and I'm honestly so glad that they did. I picked up a copy for myself and was so horrified by the body shaming and the “he's just a self hating gay man” rhetoric that I culdn't get through more than a few chapters.

I've known too many trans masculine people who have been made ashamed of their bodies because of small dick/micropenis jokes. Far too many hateful people are given too much leeway because they're written off as being in the closet and self-hating.

This is not the kind of story I feel comfortable offering to queer youth. These are not messages that should be perpetuated in any form. And especially not by a queer author who should be reasonably self-aware enough to keep from writing them in a YA book.

I pulled these books from the shelves so no one is subjected to these harmful ideas under my watch. I highly recommend not giving this book your time an energy.

THE HIGHEST OF RATINGS POSSIBLE

If it were a thing to give a million stars, I would.

I got a reading copy of Gideon back in December, when I went to pick up my contract at the book store I now work at. The quote about lesbian necromancers in space drew me in and my god, Gideon did not disappoint.

The titular character, Gideon the Ninth, is uproariously funny in a way that feels deeply familiar. There's a certain sort of queer charm to the way she speaks that reminds me of an amalgam of so many queer folks I've known.
Harrow, her counterpart, is perfectly grumpy and distrusting (and holy shit wow powerful and formidable) an a way that complements Gideon well, without flattening either of them.

And the STORY oh my god the story. Chunkier books, like this, can sometimes feel either too drawn out or have pacing issues. I was rapt the entire time. Laughing out loud (on the train! in the back room at work! at home, on the couch!) the entire time. Wanting more, more, more the entire time.

My only qualm is that I tore through Harrow there Ninth just as quickly and Alecto has been pushed back from 2021 to 2022.

4.5 rounded down.

Absolutely up my alley. Clearly I should have been reading Jennifer Egan's work all along.
I loved the interconnected characters telling interconnected stories and I loved the unusual format.

The half star off comes from the less-than-ideal description of a (possibly, but never confirmed) trans character. Trans women didn't “use to be men.” They are women who have been mistakenly raised as men. In this day and age (let alone in, what was it, the 2030s? that Gregory's portion of the novel was set in) it should be pretty well known that it's inaccurate and offensive to describe trans women that way.

Alas, authors, like all humans, are fallible creatures. But honestly, this should have been caught by a sensitivity read before it went to print.

I really wanted to like Girl, Woman, Other more than I did. But the writing style didn't pair well with how scattered my attention was during the time I was reading it.

4 stars because I recognize the merit of the book, it simply came to me at the wrong time.

I really wanted this to be better than it was. The writing style was horribly meandering and confusing and even in the lucid parts I wasn't a fan of the narrative. I should have chosen to DNF in chapter two when the word ejaculate was used just far, far too many times to be comfortable.

Rhannon Wilde's debut is LOVELY. Henry is wonderful and believeably wired and confused. I found myself relating heavily to my own early crushes and queer feelings.

Len's history was fantastically fleshed out and gave you insight into his motivations all along the story arc. As a reader you understand, but Henry is often none the wiser.

It all feels believable, which is one of my main wants out of a queer romance. I'm excited to see what Rhiannon publishes next, as it's sure to be a winner.

Loved the book, but knocked off a star because we don't get any closure on Eli. Like...at all. And Eli's struggle was a central theme in the book. Usually that wouldn't bother me so much, and may not have caused a whole star off but it ended up feeling like Eli's gender identity and the mental health issues they faced from being in a wholly unsupportive environment were just tokenism. I want better for trans characters. The least authors and editors can do is not toss them aside in the final act of the book.