A review by maiakobabe
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

4.0

Hot damn! I have never read a book with so many nonbinary trans characters (both main and background) which was very exciting. It also has some stuff going on with language and story structure that felt very new and fresh. The lead POV character is Aster, a member of the "lower deck" classes on board the generational ship Matilda . This means that she and her dark-skinned, gender-ambiguous neighbors are forced to do the manual labor required to keep the ship running: maintenance of its systems, monitoring its internal sun, farming in its indoor fields. She is also a talented doctor and scientist who synthesizes her own medicines and does house visits to treat patients. She also reads like a character with Autism, though I can't remember now if that word was ever actually used in the book. Her main emotional relationships are with The Surgeon of the ship, a young trans doctor who tutored her; her aunt Melusine, who raised her after her mother's suicide; and a sister/friend/crush named Giselle whose repeated experiences of trauma have exacerbated what seems to be a bipolar disorder. This book contains many references to assault, rape, systemic violence, and oppression. It's not an easy read. But it's worth it.