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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
Even though it's very much an insta-love, I enjoyed the romance here and I liked the subtle implementation of magic. The setting is lovely, but I wish the author hadn't felt the need to remind us we were in San Francisco every other sentence. The only gripe I have with this is that there are just way too many characters and only two have any sort of depth.
A little bit of magic and a lot of San Francisco lesbian historical fiction. Entirely engaging.
I didn't dislike this book, but I'm not sure I liked it either. I was expecting way more of a fantasy element, instead of one reference at the beginning that doesn't return until the very end. There's not much time to get to know the characters, and the romance happens pretty much instantly. I did enjoy the setting, it felt very in-depth and well researched, I just felt like it would have been better with an actual plot and better incorporated fantasy elements.
Beautiful. Evocative. Magical. It made me nauseous, it made me smile, it made my heart yearn for Helen, to soothe her melancholy. It's suggestive, hopeful, heavy, and rich with a gorgeous cover that I could stare at all day. Even after I finished it for the first time, it was worth a reread just to see how all the pieces slotted together from the very first page.
Other reviewers are correct in that there is a lot of unexplored magical potential within this novella. They are aspects that I would've enjoyed more of, too. And more Helen. :c
Other reviewers are correct in that there is a lot of unexplored magical potential within this novella. They are aspects that I would've enjoyed more of, too. And more Helen. :c
Spoiler
I wanted to know what happened to her all those years between.
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Another novella! This was great! I loved the magic paper folding and how the women loved and took care of each other.
Passing Strange suffers from setting the wrong expectations. In one of the most misleading publisher blurbs I can recall it is described as "Inspired by the pulps, film noir, and screwball comedy, Passing Strange is a story as unusual and complex as San Francisco itself". It also won a World Fantasy Award and was a Nebula award finalist.
The problem is that there's nothing screwball comedy here. There's nothing film noir here. The story definitely isn't complex. And the fantasy aspect is done so poorly you'll wish the author had dropped it and just written a straightforward historical fiction.
It also has a strange framing device: In modern San Francisco an elderly Japanese-American woman is diagnosed with something terminal. She goes to some secret passage. Unearths a long locked away treasure. Defrauds a rare book seller. Then commits suicide.
And none of that has anything to do with the actual story. Yet it takes up the first 15% of this novella. Then we get a flashback to her youth, 1940s San Francisco, and find out that this is actually a story about how two of her friends met and fell in love (star-crossed love, naturally) in 1940s San Francisco. But it takes 25% of the length of the novella just to really get that started.
Though it takes forever to get to this point, once it gets underway I actually really enjoyed this part. This is a story of queer romance in a 1940s San Francisco that was definitely not accepting of it. The author is clearly very familiar with vintage San Francisco.
It should come as a surprise to literally no one that being gay in the 1940s sucked. Sham marriages to men just to keep up pretenses. The "three-garment test" where women were legally required to wear three pieces of women's clothes or get arrested for not being female enough. Constant threat of sexual assault by police.
That's all happening in the background but the core of the story is about Loretta Haskel and Emily Netterfield falling in love and going on dates. It is actually really sweet and the "going on dates" part was, by far, my favorite part. How often do you ever see characters just going on a date in any kind of media?
Of course, nothing good can ever last, especially when you're queer in 1940s San Francisco. And then you get the part that is excoriated in many reviews. Out of nowhere deus ex machina magic saves the day.
If you cut out the beginning 25% that has nothing to do with anything. And cut out the horrible deus ex machina final 20%....well that's 45% of the story we're talking about being pretty terrible. So 55% of it was very sweet and quite nice, which just isn't enough to merit better than 3-stars.
The problem is that there's nothing screwball comedy here. There's nothing film noir here. The story definitely isn't complex. And the fantasy aspect is done so poorly you'll wish the author had dropped it and just written a straightforward historical fiction.
It also has a strange framing device: In modern San Francisco an elderly Japanese-American woman is diagnosed with something terminal. She goes to some secret passage. Unearths a long locked away treasure. Defrauds a rare book seller. Then commits suicide.
And none of that has anything to do with the actual story. Yet it takes up the first 15% of this novella. Then we get a flashback to her youth, 1940s San Francisco, and find out that this is actually a story about how two of her friends met and fell in love (star-crossed love, naturally) in 1940s San Francisco. But it takes 25% of the length of the novella just to really get that started.
Though it takes forever to get to this point, once it gets underway I actually really enjoyed this part. This is a story of queer romance in a 1940s San Francisco that was definitely not accepting of it. The author is clearly very familiar with vintage San Francisco.
I’d hoped to go to Oxford, but the war—” She faltered. “I queried Harvard and Yale, but did you know neither of them accepts women?”
It should come as a surprise to literally no one that being gay in the 1940s sucked. Sham marriages to men just to keep up pretenses. The "three-garment test" where women were legally required to wear three pieces of women's clothes or get arrested for not being female enough. Constant threat of sexual assault by police.
That's all happening in the background but the core of the story is about Loretta Haskel and Emily Netterfield falling in love and going on dates. It is actually really sweet and the "going on dates" part was, by far, my favorite part. How often do you ever see characters just going on a date in any kind of media?
Of course, nothing good can ever last, especially when you're queer in 1940s San Francisco. And then you get the part that is excoriated in many reviews. Out of nowhere deus ex machina magic saves the day.
Spoiler
The necklace Haskel's grandmother gave her turns out to be made of magic pixie dust that let's you paint a scene and then transport into it to get away from bad stuff. Not one tiny bit of that was foreshadowed or telegraphed.If you cut out the beginning 25% that has nothing to do with anything. And cut out the horrible deus ex machina final 20%....well that's 45% of the story we're talking about being pretty terrible. So 55% of it was very sweet and quite nice, which just isn't enough to merit better than 3-stars.
Brilliant Unexpected Story
I really didn't think the story would go in the direction it did. But it made it even better. Please be aware that there is some bigotry, prejudice and racism in this book. It's treated as wrong but it's still there. There is also suicide in this story. Mainly it's a story of two women falling in love and doing everything to stay together.
I really didn't think the story would go in the direction it did. But it made it even better. Please be aware that there is some bigotry, prejudice and racism in this book. It's treated as wrong but it's still there. There is also suicide in this story. Mainly it's a story of two women falling in love and doing everything to stay together.
Liked the wlw rep. Everything else was disappointing. Would not recommend.
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No