Reviews with content warning for Medical content - Love After the End: Two-Spirit Utopias & Dystopias

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Love After the End: Two-Spirit Utopias & Dystopias by Joshua Whitehead

10 reviews

bookishmillennial's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

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skudiklier's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

I never really like reading short story collections because it takes me so long to get into them and then by the time I'm invested that's right when it ends. Then that's on loop the whole book. But that said I did really like this collection! Super super interesting worlds, some of which I really wanted more of, but the stories were all a great length on their own. Lots of beautiful writing and apocalyptic stories with at least some hope in them.

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moonyreadsbystarlight's review against another edition

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emotional reflective

5.0

So many great stories in here! I'm used to anthologies having a mix of hits and misses, but this one was really great all the way through. Even the intro alone had me wanting to go buy the editor's nonfiction! I'm looking forward to finding work from a lot of the authors featured in here.

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spinesinaline's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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maeverose's review against another edition

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hopeful

3.5

This is a very beautiful and needed collection of stories by queer indigenous authors. As is expected with short story collections, they were hit or miss for me. I’m including my ratings and content warnings for each story in this review so if you don’t want to see the content warnings feel free to skip it.

A note on my ratings: I rate books/stories on my personal enjoyment level, not on any objective writing or storytelling factors. (1= hated it, 2= not for me, 3= just fine, 4= really liked it, 5= loved it)

Abacus by Nathan Adler (3⭐️)

Cw: sexual content (very minor)

History of The New World by Adam Garnet Jones (4⭐️)

Cw: sexual content, slavery, murder, racism, xenophobia, violence, injury, colonization, abandonment, pregnancy

The Ark of the Turtle’s Back by Jaye Simpson (3.5⭐️)

Cw: transphobia, sexual content, slavery, infertility (sort of), grief, medical content, colonization, pregnancy/baby talk

How To Survive The Apocalypse For Native Girls by Kai Minosh Pyle (2⭐️)

There’s nothing wrong with this story it’s just not for me, largely because of the narrator’s voice. They sounded very young and naive for 16 and it irked me.

Cw: transphobia, f slur, child abuse, fire, murder, minor mention of war

Andwànikàdjigan by Gabriel Castilloux Calderon (5⭐️)

This story made me feel so much and so strongly in such a short amount of pages. wow

Cw: murder, death of loved ones, grief, fire, descriptions of scars similar to self harm scars (but not self harm), descriptions of cutting for non self harm reasons, gun violence, colonization, blood, confinement, death of a parent

Story for a Bottle by Darcy Little Badger (2.5⭐️)

Cw: kidnapping, confinement, animal harm, child abuse

Seed Children by Mari Kurisato (2⭐️)

Cw: blood, death, cannibalism, injury, gun violence, religious bigotry, violence, murder, vomit

Nameless by Nazbah Tom (3.5⭐️)

Cw: war, murder, alcohol, addiction, vomit

Eloise by David A. Robertson (4⭐️)

I don’t know how I feel about this one. I really liked the writing style and the concepts

but I’m confused why Emma wanted to forget Cassie. Unless I missed it they never explained that and it felt like something that should’ve been explained.

Cw: grief, depression, cancer

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lynxpardinus's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful reflective

4.5

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rorikae's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

‘Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction’ is an expansive short story collection centered on futuristic stories written by indigenous authors. This is an excellent collection that dives into different possible futures where queer and two-spirit indigenous people thrive. A few stories in particular really shone in this collection, including ‘History of the New World,’ which explores the heartbreak of deciding between saving Earth or searching for a new world; ‘Story for a Bottle,’ which follows a girl kidnapped and held hostage in a floating city that was once created to support a whole community, and my absolute favorite story in this collection, ‘Eloise,’ which explore memory and what we choose to keep with us through a heartbreaking story about young queer love.

This collection has introduced me to new authors whose work I want to explore as well as the opportunity to dive further into the work of authors I have loved in the past. If you like speculative short stories, you really must pick up this collection.

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krys_kilz's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

A truly incredible collection! My favorite stories were: "History of the New World" by Adam Garnet Jones, "Andwànikàdjigan" by Gabriel Castilloux Calderon, "Story for a Bottle" by Darcie Little Badger, "Nameless" by Nazbah Tom, and "Eloise" by David A. Robertson.

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mmccombs's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful reflective medium-paced

4.0

Expansive and hopeful short stories that reimagines what the future could look like (I.e. a queer and Indigenous one). I thought all of the entries were solid, I definitely enjoyed History of the New World and The Ark of the Turtle’s Back the most.

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goblingirlreads's review

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emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Wow, this is an absolutely stunning collection of short stories. The themes that tie them together are love and dystopia plus every story was written by an indigiqueer or two-spirit person so the stories are full of Indigenous characters and queerness. I am a genre reader and I have always loved a good dystopian apocalyptic story and this book delivered. I would read full length novel versions of all of these stories but they were also perfectly crafted at the length they are. All of the stories tackle huge themes and made me think so deeply about humanity and our dark future if we continue down a path of planet destruction and human rights atrocities. However, I also found the stories to be ultimately hopeful and provide a light in that dark tunnel. I'd pick up any of these authors again in a heartbeat and I hope to!

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