A review by tomesproject
Abbott by Saladin Ahmed

4.0

closer to a 3.5-3.75/5, but I'm bumping it up to 4 because of how much I liked the overall story. The writing felt a little clunky at the beginning, but then I fell into the way Ahmed wrote the characters and the story. So, the main thing I didn't really appreciate about this was (I don't know if it has an actual name, but I call it "queerleading"), re: Abbot's sexuality. I assume this is something that came from the writer because BOOM! publishes a lot of queer, f/f stories that are more central to the story. So, ostensibly, Abbot is maybe bi or pan? She is mentioned and we often see her with her ex-husband, she had another great love that was a man, but halfway through the book, we're introduced to another woman. Abbot has history with this woman, and it's kind of coded in a way that's queer. Then she essentially disappears until the end of the book where they kiss on like the last page.

There's nothing wrong with that, I guess? Romance just wasn't at the forefront of the story. However, we spend a lot of time with Abbott and her ex-husband and Abbott and this young boy with a crush on her, and in those scenes, or directly following those scenes, there's a lot of *wink wink* maybe they'll get back together. So, if you're looking for a f/f romance or a queer relationship, don't come here for that, it's more of a sprinkle on top. Come here for a wild story about a black, female investigative journalist, who starts to discover something supernatural in 1970s Detroit.