Too Like the Lightning

Holy shit, I have no idea why so many people like this book. I gave up a quarter of the way through because it was creepy and fetishizing.

Like, great all the characters are mixed race, but after the fiftieth repetition of the super fetishizing reification of race (the Spanish king had exotic eyes because his grandmother was Chinese! This character has “deep Indian skin”! This other one was a Chinese but had just enough African blood that her hair was curly) I wanted to scream.

But the fucking last straw was the bullshit with Dominic and how he's so clearly female bodied but he's such a ~manly man~ and that means being creepy and touching other people without consent! And then the narrator gets all “he's so manly don't you want to know if he's wearing a strap-on, isn't this so taboo and exciting?!” No, the character is rapey and you're a fetishizing asshole.

Grosssssssss