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sucreslibrary's reviews
1244 reviews
The Haunting of Velkwood by Gwendolyn Kiste
Did not finish book. Stopped at 10%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 10%.
the writing is so so so bad. it's either sentence fragments or unwieldy run-on sentences with so many commas. none of it works in a stylistic way it just makes the whole thing feel extremely juvenile
Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge
2.5
the men in this are so awful it distracts from the interesting stories of the beasts. having to read the female main character be constantly berated and harassed (and read her also be in love with these men that treat her like absolute shit) really wore on me by the end, and the repetitive nature of each story/chapter didn't help with that. there's also just a lot of weirdness with how the male vs female beasts are written and characterized. idk! there were elements in this i thought were interesting, but as more and more of the story leaned into the personal relationships with the main character i became more and more bored and then increasingly upset as i realized we were supposed to find these awful men charming.
Transcendent 3: The Year's Best Transgender Speculative Fiction by Bogi Takács
3.75
I've had this one sitting around for a while, and I'm glad it picked it up! I did have a weird sense of deja vu though, because the second story in this collection ('Death You Deserve' by Ryler Knowles) is also included in 'Nerve Endings: The New Trans Erotic'. I recognized it almost immediately as it was one of my faves from that collection, and I had no idea it had been used in multiple anthologies!
some standouts for me were:
Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time by K.M Szpara - trans guy turned into a vampire, brings up interesting biological ideas re: vampirism and what a trans person being changed could look like
Heat Death of Western Human Arrogance by M. Téllez - follows a plant alien and her thoughts on her relationship with a human woman + plays with the idea of placing certain human frameworks on a race of beings very different from us
Minor Heresies by Ada Hoffmann - this one took a little longer to kick in for me, but when it did I quite enjoyed it! follows a human/alien hybrid who goes a little too far on a mission and sees things she shouldn't
Don't Press Charges and I Won't Sue by Charlies Jane Anders - much more horror than most of the stories, about a trans woman kidnapped by a group that then forces her into a male body through a slow, terrifying process that will simultaneously "erase" her true self. really good shit, probably my fave of the whole collection
The Heart's Cartography by Susan Jane Bigelow - really sweet story of a trans girl meeting a time traveler
some standouts for me were:
Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time by K.M Szpara - trans guy turned into a vampire, brings up interesting biological ideas re: vampirism and what a trans person being changed could look like
Heat Death of Western Human Arrogance by M. Téllez - follows a plant alien and her thoughts on her relationship with a human woman + plays with the idea of placing certain human frameworks on a race of beings very different from us
Minor Heresies by Ada Hoffmann - this one took a little longer to kick in for me, but when it did I quite enjoyed it! follows a human/alien hybrid who goes a little too far on a mission and sees things she shouldn't
Don't Press Charges and I Won't Sue by Charlies Jane Anders - much more horror than most of the stories, about a trans woman kidnapped by a group that then forces her into a male body through a slow, terrifying process that will simultaneously "erase" her true self. really good shit, probably my fave of the whole collection
The Heart's Cartography by Susan Jane Bigelow - really sweet story of a trans girl meeting a time traveler
The Free People's Village by Sim Kern
2.5
extremely mixed feelings about this one. i think there's some stuff that works in here, and that middle portion was most of it, but it's unfortunately bogged down by a lot of lecturing and constant white guilt from the protagonist. i think maddie is realistic as a character, but that doesn't necessarily mean we need a book from her perspective. i didn't like how black characters were employed by the narrative to be constantly educating maddie and didn't get to have much character of their own, and this continues until literally the very end of the book. i also honestly think the romance could have been cut out of this completely and the book would likely have been better for it - there wasn't much between maddie and red and i never at any point bought into their love. i resented angel as a character for basically the entire book and wish gestas had someone better. there's also something that happens near the very end that was so extremely corny i had to actually put the book down for several minutes before i could continue.
i also resented how "cis" was thrown around in this book, and by that i mean it was often employed in a way that lets trans men off the hook despite them engaging in the same misogynistic behavior as the cis men around them (the most prominent trans guy in the book is shown to be speaking over a woman at one point, yet the rest of the book only cis men are referred to as an issue. trans men are men and can employ misogyny in the same way, and it's silly to show that and then backtrack to framing cis men as the only ones doing these things). i also think it's wild to label random side characters as cis when we literally do not know that - example was at one point maddie was watching speeches being given and a woman she didn't know stepped up onto the stage and was described as a "cis woman" - how do you know that? there is literally no way for you to know that. it reminds me of a book i read last year that was trying extremely hard to include nonbinary background characters but that meant the protagonist would just look at them and decide they were "enby" without knowing that in any way whatsoever. i find it harmful and regressive and it annoyed me the entire book. i think it also stood out to me that there weren't, as far we were aware, any transfem characters that were a part of the plot. it's always disappointing to be reading something aiming to be diverse + inclusive + radical in its politics and there are no trans women to be found in the text. are you really going to act like there wouldn't be trans women all over this political movement that was forming? it's honestly a pretty glaring omission.
the good stuff is that i think it depicts leftist organizing well, warts and all, and that at several points i was expecting one thing but it subverted my expectations. do i think it's silly that the "tankie" characters actually referred to themselves as tankies? yes. did i appreciate that they were shown to be important members of the movement and did much more work than maddie ever did? also yes. i was glad this book never went in the direction of "white anarchists showing up just to wreak havoc at peaceful protests" since that narrative is extremely tired and does nothing to serve us. the direct action that was taken was necessary and shown to be so, and i appreciated that. i even appreciated that it didn't have a "happily ever after" ending, and the last portion talking about planting seeds for future generations and continuing to hold onto hope despite watching movements fall apart spoke to me deeply. it's important to keep that fire alive, even if it feels hopeless.
idk! it has interesting ideas but is hampered by its protagonist and the author's desire to constantly explain oppression and society through the mouths of their black characters. it's very much a "privileged white woman becomes radicalized" kind of story, but one where maddie doesn't even have as much of a character arc as she should.
i also resented how "cis" was thrown around in this book, and by that i mean it was often employed in a way that lets trans men off the hook despite them engaging in the same misogynistic behavior as the cis men around them (the most prominent trans guy in the book is shown to be speaking over a woman at one point, yet the rest of the book only cis men are referred to as an issue. trans men are men and can employ misogyny in the same way, and it's silly to show that and then backtrack to framing cis men as the only ones doing these things). i also think it's wild to label random side characters as cis when we literally do not know that - example was at one point maddie was watching speeches being given and a woman she didn't know stepped up onto the stage and was described as a "cis woman" - how do you know that? there is literally no way for you to know that. it reminds me of a book i read last year that was trying extremely hard to include nonbinary background characters but that meant the protagonist would just look at them and decide they were "enby" without knowing that in any way whatsoever. i find it harmful and regressive and it annoyed me the entire book. i think it also stood out to me that there weren't, as far we were aware, any transfem characters that were a part of the plot. it's always disappointing to be reading something aiming to be diverse + inclusive + radical in its politics and there are no trans women to be found in the text. are you really going to act like there wouldn't be trans women all over this political movement that was forming? it's honestly a pretty glaring omission.
the good stuff is that i think it depicts leftist organizing well, warts and all, and that at several points i was expecting one thing but it subverted my expectations. do i think it's silly that the "tankie" characters actually referred to themselves as tankies? yes. did i appreciate that they were shown to be important members of the movement and did much more work than maddie ever did? also yes. i was glad this book never went in the direction of "white anarchists showing up just to wreak havoc at peaceful protests" since that narrative is extremely tired and does nothing to serve us. the direct action that was taken was necessary and shown to be so, and i appreciated that. i even appreciated that it didn't have a "happily ever after" ending, and the last portion talking about planting seeds for future generations and continuing to hold onto hope despite watching movements fall apart spoke to me deeply. it's important to keep that fire alive, even if it feels hopeless.
idk! it has interesting ideas but is hampered by its protagonist and the author's desire to constantly explain oppression and society through the mouths of their black characters. it's very much a "privileged white woman becomes radicalized" kind of story, but one where maddie doesn't even have as much of a character arc as she should.