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A review by ktgaay
Subterranean Pornographer XVII by Lysander Arden
5.0
First off, thanks so much to Lysander for sending me an ARC!!
Okay I love this book a lot. The world building was impressive, the characters were so much fun, the prose was beautiful.
The world feels so tangible and real but it happened so naturally that there was no sacrifice in storytelling. They managed to transport me into this dystopian hell world, while still giving me plenty of time to fall in love with the plot and the characters. And I did fall in love with XVII. My sweet little anarchist bb boy and his dumb politician boyfriend. XVII’s character growth through the book was chefs kiss perfection, he’s healing from trauma, he’s helping the marginalized, he’s radicalizing. I did not fall in love as much with his politician boyfriend. There was nothing wrong he just didn’t feel all that tangible as a character outside of being a rich simp. But XVII’s character development plus the addition of maybe my favorite character more than makes up for it. Which leads me to Tia. I love Tia so much!!! Tia was such an interesting character and he surprised me in the best way. I really hope we get more of his story in the future.
This second installment had everything I loved so much about the first book, with even more nuance and some more complex subject matter. The darker themes dealt with in this story were written in a way that somehow captured the uncomfy reality of these things while also keeping it light enough to still feel fluffy and fun. I could probably write a ten page essay about how good this was so probably just read it.
Okay I love this book a lot. The world building was impressive, the characters were so much fun, the prose was beautiful.
The world feels so tangible and real but it happened so naturally that there was no sacrifice in storytelling. They managed to transport me into this dystopian hell world, while still giving me plenty of time to fall in love with the plot and the characters. And I did fall in love with XVII. My sweet little anarchist bb boy and his dumb politician boyfriend. XVII’s character growth through the book was chefs kiss perfection, he’s healing from trauma, he’s helping the marginalized, he’s radicalizing. I did not fall in love as much with his politician boyfriend. There was nothing wrong he just didn’t feel all that tangible as a character outside of being a rich simp. But XVII’s character development plus the addition of maybe my favorite character more than makes up for it. Which leads me to Tia. I love Tia so much!!! Tia was such an interesting character and he surprised me in the best way. I really hope we get more of his story in the future.
This second installment had everything I loved so much about the first book, with even more nuance and some more complex subject matter. The darker themes dealt with in this story were written in a way that somehow captured the uncomfy reality of these things while also keeping it light enough to still feel fluffy and fun. I could probably write a ten page essay about how good this was so probably just read it.