Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Seven Summer Nights by Harper Fox

1 review

pawtory's review

emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I have a really hard time rating this book. I listened at 1.2x speed so maybe that's why it didn't feel slow paced to me like it seems most others have rated (I though  the narrator was excellent btw). On the one hand it did feel kind of slow, but on the other as the title indicates it takes place primarily over just a week and my head has a very hard time reconciling that to the events of the book.  I really loved the relationship and characters and even what the sort of mystery ended up being (and of course,  Fox's consistently beautiful prose). Even the side characters are well fleshed out and even tho Rufous can be annoyingly forgivin while Archie was surprisingly wrathful, they felt extremely real and I loved them.  But that it took place in such a short time on paper bothers me bc I could much better picture those things developing and coming out over a course of weeks at least, or better, months. But it didn't, so the pacing felt strange. Had it been, I probably would have given it 5 stars. The only other issue I had was the employment of old-world magic. It was ok but I think I would have much preferred the "magic" be more in that realm of deniability or agnosticism. Mainly one thing in particular regarding a trans character,  which I'll elaborate on in content spoilers. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Sexual content, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Death, Confinement, Medical trauma, and Transphobia

Minor: Injury/Injury detail and Suicide

Transphobia tag:

There is a side character who is trans and everyone sees as a guy except Rufous can't figure out if it's a joke at first or what. He misgenders him a fair amount in his internal narration tho not maliciously and goes along with it outwardly. Near the end, the trans character goes into thd labyrinth and comes out as his "true self," actually now in a male body. I think the way Fox handles this is well intentioned but I much preferred when Giles was simply treated as his gender in SPITE OF not entirely "passing." It just felt weird and a bit ham-handed from the perspective of a trans reader. This can all be forgiven seeing as it's set in a time period without the language or better understanding/ acceptance of the trans experience as well as being written/published during the time a lot of public trans discussion was still fairly new, but since it's the first uneniable example of magic in the book I thought it worth bringing up.