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A review by natalielorelei
Night Shine by Tessa Gratton
3.0
3.5 stars. I really enjoyed Tessa Gratton's Tor article about monstrousness and genderqueer identity, so I wanted to read the novel she was pulling a lot of her examples of her own approach from!
I found it enjoyable but not earth-shaking. The fairy-tale-esque worldbuilding and the weight that it gave to names and the conceptions of magic and spirit vs demon were all pretty cool. It was also really neat to watch so many gender-fluid characters navigating their own identities and finding their own ways of taking space and being in relationship to each other, and the novel had interesting things to say about the lines between love and possession and what equal relationships look like in a society with unequal power dynamics.
However, I felt very held at a distance from all of the characters. This definitely felt like a plot-driven novel, rather than a character-driven one, which could be fine, except that so much of Nothing's arc was internal that I had a hard time settling in and getting invested. I kept reading because I was curious about what would happen, but I found it very easy to set the book down and forget about it. Maybe I'll try some of Tessa Gratton's adult fiction--I almost wonder if part of what didn't work for me was that YA novel thing of leaving a lot of space for the reader to fill in their own feelings and experiences and imagination?
tl;dr: I liked this, but I didn't love it like I wanted to.
I found it enjoyable but not earth-shaking. The fairy-tale-esque worldbuilding and the weight that it gave to names and the conceptions of magic and spirit vs demon were all pretty cool. It was also really neat to watch so many gender-fluid characters navigating their own identities and finding their own ways of taking space and being in relationship to each other, and the novel had interesting things to say about the lines between love and possession and what equal relationships look like in a society with unequal power dynamics.
However, I felt very held at a distance from all of the characters. This definitely felt like a plot-driven novel, rather than a character-driven one, which could be fine, except that so much of Nothing's arc was internal that I had a hard time settling in and getting invested. I kept reading because I was curious about what would happen, but I found it very easy to set the book down and forget about it. Maybe I'll try some of Tessa Gratton's adult fiction--I almost wonder if part of what didn't work for me was that YA novel thing of leaving a lot of space for the reader to fill in their own feelings and experiences and imagination?
tl;dr: I liked this, but I didn't love it like I wanted to.