No Man of Woman Born

This book is an interesting new experience - almost like relearning how to read, and definitely learning what should be new norms. I enjoyed the main characters being transgender or nonbinary because this created scenarios where familiar fairy tale gender-related tropes gets turned on its head. I won't deny that the new pronouns tripped me up quite a bit because it's the unfamiliar words that jump off the page first. The guides at the beginning of each story were helpful in telling us what to expect. I really hope to see this kind of inclusion becoming more common. We all need this.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley.

DNF - PG 44

Why?

(Because I've not touched this in almost a week and finished a whole other book since I last picked it up.)

So my ‘ugh' shelf consists of my DNF books as well as those I bought and lost interest in before I got around to actually reading. (Which is why it's not just a DNF shelf.) That being said, I do feel bad for putting this book on the shelf because I know this book will be important to a lot of people - and that's great. For me and my enjoyment? I don't like it.

I made like one and a half, one and a third, one and a quarter stories - this is a problem with audio books, more on that later.

The first one... Was really kind of predictable and boring. So, I mean, you've got the evil dragon that exacts a yearly toll in the form of a human sacrifice. He just eats them and, apparently, that's enough to satisfy his evilness, though that's like barely a week's worth of food. I mean, the whole story, save for the addition of a nonbinary main character, is something that I would expect to see from Dragonlance circa 1992. It was predictable and depressing and the climax shows a distinct lack of care on the main character's part for anyone besides the main character.

The second one starts off and...magic is evil. ... I have honestly had it up to here with the whole ‘magic is evil' spiel in fantasy. The only way I could possibly deal with another ‘magic is evil, eradicate the mages' is if the mages are the main characters and in the midst of a rebellion and fighting back.

The good news is that these stories come with a trigger warning. The bad news is that they totally need it and after the tw for the first book, hearing what the tw for the second was and starting the second story, I have no more energy for depressing, and that's all I'm getting here.

Now, I like the idea, fantasy stories that aren't so gendered. That's why I wanted to read it. But...

I am cis - at least for as much as I care about gender - and do not often search for nonbinary stories. I am much more likely to search out stories from the parts of the queer umbrella that I am actually under. I can imagine that nonbinary people will be thrilled to see this collection. However, as a fan of fantasy and having at least some experience in the genre, I do wish the author had been a little more original.

Note about the audiobook: The narrator sounds very feminine and I am used to the gender of the narrator matching the gender of the main character. This left me referring to the main characters - and, indeed, picturing them in my head - as women. The narrator's voice is nice, but it is pretty heavily accented. During the first story, I kept having problems because the main character is talking to the Mayor and with the accent of the narrator, I kept wondering why the ‘mare' was talking back.

(Side note: After reading a couple of reviews on this book, I have discovered that it is, apparently, pretty heavy on the retelling aspect. If I had known that...I might not have complained as heavily as I did about the lack of originality. But I probably still would have, because even retellings do not have to be as predictable as this was shaping up to being.)

this was excellent??? review to come soon

I think I liked Early to Rise the most, with The Wish-Giver next.

Despite all the stories being essentially variations on a single theme, they're well-written, engaging, and each one is very unique. I loved this as an exploration of how gender variant characters can exist within the fantasy mold, but also as simply a hopeful, pleasant read wherein said characters can also have happy endings.

Merged review:

Despite all the stories being essentially variations on a single theme, they're well-written, engaging, and each one is very unique. I loved this as an exploration of how gender variant characters can exist within the fantasy mold, but also as simply a hopeful, pleasant read wherein said characters can also have happy endings.