Reviews

Hey, I know that you are off to play Thirsty Sword Lesbians with your Divinity School cohort, but could you give Grantham back their copy of Evangelion?

lou_1440's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This review is not gonna be very coherent but oh well!

First of all-the honest best comp title for this is Gideon the Ninth. So no wonder I'm obsessed. Toxic Sapphic relationships, dense and complicated relationships with religion, weird magic that takes a massive toll on the health of its users, death metal biker gangs, a unique framing device including use of second person, and a writing style that's both hypnotic and pretty dang confusing at times.

This book is messy, it's gritty, it's revolutionary, it's COOL. It's a standalone, which I love and respect. There were so many moments where I gasped in horror or shock or astonishment or glee. It's not for the faint of heart! The violence is pretty intense, and there's rather explicit and kinky sex scenes.

On the negative side, I can see why people will hate this. It'll be too much, not good enough at certain things it tries to pull off, and it DESPERATELY needs a map. Honestly, don't care about that.

The framing device is SO GOOD. I read the last page, stared into space in shock, and then immediately flipped back to the beginning to reread the first chapter and AAAAAAA. The sheer volume of tattooed lesbians in here is INCREDIBLE. The choice to kill off your main character and then allow them to resurface as the AVATAR OF AN EXPLOITED NATURAL RESOURCE RISING UP TO BUCK OFF THE CAPITALIST COMPLEX THAT HAS BUILT UP ON ITS BACK???

I have moved this immediately to my favorite reads of all time.

kadomi's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

WTF did I just read? Finishing this book left me quite confounded. It had a strong start, a confusing middle, and an absolute what the fuckery ending. I haven't been so confused by a book since reading Harrow the Ninth. Speaking of that series, the middle part vaguely reminded me of Gideon the Ninth, but way less cool.

In any case, this is a challengingly written sapphic revenge story that is very anti-capitalist. The first person narrator Marney (a terrible narrator, I kinda hated her) loses her family as a kid at a peaceful worker protest. Her family all worked in the ichorite industry, a mysterious metal that is driving industry, and Marney is a so-called lustertouched, highly sensitive to this metal to the point it makes her ill, but also able to manipulate it. Marney then runs into a band of bandits, let's say they're communist, as they're also plotting to overthrow evil nobility and capitalists. Oh, and just about everyone is a 'crawly', a lesbian.

Eventually, Marney falsely pretends to be a baron's daughter, in the running to marry the ichorite industrial's daughter, so she can finally move in and kill him to avenge her family. And then it gets weird...er, I should say.

I'll give it 3 stars because it was fascinating, but I can't honestly say I would recommend it to anyone, other than admiring that such queer literature exists today.

Content Warnings

krystaldelusion's review against another edition

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adventurous inspiring mysterious

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

5.0

My life for crawlies.

Acknowledgment for such great influences as Karl Marx, Evangelion, Stone Butch Blues, and Tamsyn Muir.

10/10 no notes.

Content Warnings

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