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You Get What You Pay For by Morgan Parker
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
Amid the calumnious pushback in the United States against so-called “critical race theory” (it’s not) in schools remains the single truth: you don’t learn the true history of the US in school. The same goes for Canada, where we learn about the enslavement of African people in the US, but we don’t learn about slavery in Canada or our own history of anti-Black racism following abolition. So I do my best to read and learn, especially from Black women. In You Get What You Pay For, Morgan Parker engages with the legacy of slavery and nearly four centuries of anti-Blackness on this continent. Her tone is brutally forthright, holding nothing back as she looks at how the shape of American society has influenced her life. In an era that has too long billed itself post-racial or colour-blind, Parker insists that, yes, you need to see her race in order to see the arc of her life so far. I received an eARC from NetGalley and Penguin Random House in exchange for a review.
This is an essay collection loosely masquerading as memoir and following a rough chronology of Parker’s life. She returns to a few regular motifs throughout: her next therapist, the slave ship as a metaphor for living under white supremacy in the US, the impossibility of survival for so many Black people as a result of police brutality. Many of the essays engage with seminal moments of the American zeitgeist in the past couple decades: the ascension of Serena and Venus Williams, Ye’s infamous remark about George W. Bush in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the trial of Bill Cosby.
Parker acknowledges the complexity of her subject while writing with an appealing simplicity. Some of her discussions of her therapists reminded me of It’s Always Been Ours, by Jessica Wilson. Both books were illuminating. We white women often fail to consider race as a factor in our professional interactions, whether it’s therapy, treatment for eating disorders, or in my case, teaching. Which is not to say that race is the only factor in finding a good fit with a professional. But as Parker makes clear in this book, it wasn’t until she found a Black female therapist that she was finally able to connect in a way that was authentic and useful for her. Her white therapists prior lacked the experience and ancestors required to see all of Parker.
That’s what we are talking about here. Seeing. Seeing the weight of intergenerational trauma. Seeing resilience not as a buzzword (“oh, you are so strong”) but as a rebellion against being put into a box. Seeing and understanding that racism isn’t simply, “Oh, people are mean to you because of your skin colour?”—racism is a kaleoidoscope of Rubik’s cubes of dominoes that fall every single day. It’s a behemoth, visible and invisible at the same time.
You Get What You Pay For is dolorous at times. It lacks the rah-rah inspirational tone that we have come to demand from racialized writers. This is my first time reading anything by Parker that I can recall, so my point of comparison is to Roxane Gay, who is likewise unapologetic in her take-it-or-leave-it attitude towards her opinions. This is something we unthinkingly praise in white writers but often see as too adversarial or cynical in Black writers. While Parker has obviously met with a fair amount of success, she opens up and discusses how that hasn’t always translated into better mental health. This reminds me of Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey’s Harvard Business Review article, “Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome”. Before I read that article, I probably would have labelled Parker’s description of her experiences as imposter syndrome. Now I know better. Now I know that the driving force is systemic, misogynoir.
At the same time, I think it’s important to emphasize that this collection is not hopeless. It’s just honest. You won’t exit it with a warm, fuzzy feeling, and you aren’t meant to. Now, that might not be what you want on your reading schedule right now—and I don’t blame you; I won’t pretend that I revelled in reading this. At the same time, I did fly through it, for as bleak as this book feels sometimes, Parker’s writing is also compelling.
Intergenerational trauma is no joke. White supremacy is alive and well in the US, as well as here in Canada. You Get What You Pay For brings a powerful voice to the conversation. Above all else, Parker insists that survival is not enough. She wants her life to be hers, as she should. Freedom on paper is not freedom in reality. Not yet.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
This is an essay collection loosely masquerading as memoir and following a rough chronology of Parker’s life. She returns to a few regular motifs throughout: her next therapist, the slave ship as a metaphor for living under white supremacy in the US, the impossibility of survival for so many Black people as a result of police brutality. Many of the essays engage with seminal moments of the American zeitgeist in the past couple decades: the ascension of Serena and Venus Williams, Ye’s infamous remark about George W. Bush in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the trial of Bill Cosby.
Parker acknowledges the complexity of her subject while writing with an appealing simplicity. Some of her discussions of her therapists reminded me of It’s Always Been Ours, by Jessica Wilson. Both books were illuminating. We white women often fail to consider race as a factor in our professional interactions, whether it’s therapy, treatment for eating disorders, or in my case, teaching. Which is not to say that race is the only factor in finding a good fit with a professional. But as Parker makes clear in this book, it wasn’t until she found a Black female therapist that she was finally able to connect in a way that was authentic and useful for her. Her white therapists prior lacked the experience and ancestors required to see all of Parker.
That’s what we are talking about here. Seeing. Seeing the weight of intergenerational trauma. Seeing resilience not as a buzzword (“oh, you are so strong”) but as a rebellion against being put into a box. Seeing and understanding that racism isn’t simply, “Oh, people are mean to you because of your skin colour?”—racism is a kaleoidoscope of Rubik’s cubes of dominoes that fall every single day. It’s a behemoth, visible and invisible at the same time.
You Get What You Pay For is dolorous at times. It lacks the rah-rah inspirational tone that we have come to demand from racialized writers. This is my first time reading anything by Parker that I can recall, so my point of comparison is to Roxane Gay, who is likewise unapologetic in her take-it-or-leave-it attitude towards her opinions. This is something we unthinkingly praise in white writers but often see as too adversarial or cynical in Black writers. While Parker has obviously met with a fair amount of success, she opens up and discusses how that hasn’t always translated into better mental health. This reminds me of Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey’s Harvard Business Review article, “Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome”. Before I read that article, I probably would have labelled Parker’s description of her experiences as imposter syndrome. Now I know better. Now I know that the driving force is systemic, misogynoir.
At the same time, I think it’s important to emphasize that this collection is not hopeless. It’s just honest. You won’t exit it with a warm, fuzzy feeling, and you aren’t meant to. Now, that might not be what you want on your reading schedule right now—and I don’t blame you; I won’t pretend that I revelled in reading this. At the same time, I did fly through it, for as bleak as this book feels sometimes, Parker’s writing is also compelling.
Intergenerational trauma is no joke. White supremacy is alive and well in the US, as well as here in Canada. You Get What You Pay For brings a powerful voice to the conversation. Above all else, Parker insists that survival is not enough. She wants her life to be hers, as she should. Freedom on paper is not freedom in reality. Not yet.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart by Izzy Wasserstein
dark
emotional
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Sometimes we get stuck in a loop, too stubborn for our own good. Sometimes we have good reason to be stubborn. I was thinking a lot about trauma as I read These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart, by Izzy Wasserstein. This is a novella that knows exactly what it’s about and does exactly what it’s meant to do. Although it didn’t end up wowing me, I still thoroughly enjoyed its premise and execution. I received an eARC in exchange for a review.
If Dora knows one thing, it’s op sec. She left a commune over a disagreement about security: as anarchists, they wanted their commune to be as open as possible, whereas Dora believed more stringent checks and balances were required to keep out people who might have nefarious, ulterior motives. When she is called back to the commune to investigate the murder of her ex-girlfriend, Kay, Dora’s worst fears seem to have been proved well-founded. Her investigation will take her into neighbourhoods even more destitute than the one where the commune crouches and pit her against enemies who wear her face from before her transition.
Much of my criticism of These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart might be waved away by simply saying, “It’s a novella, Kara.” The other characters are paper thin. The villain is predictable, and his overarching motives are shrouded in convenient shorthands. The setting is something ripped straight out of Verhoven, Robocop tinted for modern storytelling. These criticisms levelled at a novel-length work might stick. Applied to a novella, however, they actually become strengths. Because this is not really a mystery.
No, this is a story about identity. The brilliance of this story lies in how Dora deals with one of her clones, whose life she spares.
Here come the spoilers.
Dora deals with her rescued clone’s emergence into individuality quite gracefully. I appreciate how much she respects Theo’s agency, to the point that she carefully avoids using pronouns until Theo, at the very end, settles on they/them. This is a potent reminder of the fluidity of gender: Theo might be genetically identical to Dora, but their experiences and memories are distinct. I suppose that should mitigate my discomfort over the idea of Theo and Dora having sex … still.
I appreciate that Wasserstein acknowledges in the afterword that this development is hella weird, that she simply couldn’t find a way to tell the story without it happening because Theo insisted. The consent thing isn’t as much an issue for me—I understand Theo’s perspective there—but … yeah … hmm. As an asexual and sex-averse person, I’ve never much thought about sex with a partner—would partnered sex with myself be … better? Even if that self is me through a funhouse mirror, as Dora describes her pre-transition clones? See, this ese are the important questions science fiction is here to ask!
Gonzo sexuality subplots aside, Dora and Theo’s nascent friendship is the heart of this story. The way that Theo goes from enemy to lover to friend is very endearing. Set against a backdrop of post-apocalyptic, capitalist purgatory, these connections become all the more significant. Dora, now that she has left the commune, is very alone and lonely. Although her being alone hasn’t changed by the end of the story, I think her loneliness has started to unravel. She starts to see that in order to protect, one has to have something worth protecting.
These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart is as cute as a semi-noir, grim dystopian science-fiction novella can be. Wasserstein effectively pulls from established tropes, particularly around cloning, to tell a story of choosing found family over blood and staying true to one’s ideals while still learning to bend and grow. It’s worth an afternoon of your time.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
If Dora knows one thing, it’s op sec. She left a commune over a disagreement about security: as anarchists, they wanted their commune to be as open as possible, whereas Dora believed more stringent checks and balances were required to keep out people who might have nefarious, ulterior motives. When she is called back to the commune to investigate the murder of her ex-girlfriend, Kay, Dora’s worst fears seem to have been proved well-founded. Her investigation will take her into neighbourhoods even more destitute than the one where the commune crouches and pit her against enemies who wear her face from before her transition.
Much of my criticism of These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart might be waved away by simply saying, “It’s a novella, Kara.” The other characters are paper thin. The villain is predictable, and his overarching motives are shrouded in convenient shorthands. The setting is something ripped straight out of Verhoven, Robocop tinted for modern storytelling. These criticisms levelled at a novel-length work might stick. Applied to a novella, however, they actually become strengths. Because this is not really a mystery.
No, this is a story about identity. The brilliance of this story lies in how Dora deals with one of her clones, whose life she spares.
Here come the spoilers.
I appreciate that Wasserstein acknowledges in the afterword that this development is hella weird, that she simply couldn’t find a way to tell the story without it happening because Theo insisted. The consent thing isn’t as much an issue for me—I understand Theo’s perspective there—but … yeah … hmm. As an asexual and sex-averse person, I’ve never much thought about sex with a partner—would partnered sex with myself be … better? Even if that self is me through a funhouse mirror, as Dora describes her pre-transition clones? See, this ese are the important questions science fiction is here to ask!
Gonzo sexuality subplots aside, Dora and Theo’s nascent friendship is the heart of this story. The way that Theo goes from enemy to lover to friend is very endearing. Set against a backdrop of post-apocalyptic, capitalist purgatory, these connections become all the more significant. Dora, now that she has left the commune, is very alone and lonely. Although her being alone hasn’t changed by the end of the story, I think her loneliness has started to unravel. She starts to see that in order to protect, one has to have something worth protecting.
These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart is as cute as a semi-noir, grim dystopian science-fiction novella can be. Wasserstein effectively pulls from established tropes, particularly around cloning, to tell a story of choosing found family over blood and staying true to one’s ideals while still learning to bend and grow. It’s worth an afternoon of your time.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Be the Sea by Clara Ward
challenging
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
I touched the ocean only once. In 2014, flying back home from England for the first time, I stopped in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to attend the wedding of two Canadian teachers who had been colleagues in England. The timing was perfect, and it also allowed me to visit an old friend who lived there. The two of us took a trip out to Peggy’s Cove, and I touched the Atlantic. Beyond that, I have barely ever been on boats. Water is not for me! So when I received a request to review Be the Sea, I was intrigued. So much of science fiction focuses on space, yet we know more about deep space than we do our deepest oceans. While this book is not a deep dive into our oceans, Clara Ward nevertheless gets you thinking about how ocean life is connected to life on the rest of this planet, including humanity. While there were parts of this book that didn’t work for me, I overall appreciate a lot of the ideas shared here.
Marine biologist Wend Taylor invites themself aboard photographer Viola Yang’s zero-emissions sailboat as she crosses the Pacific, bound for Hawai‘i. Viola’s family member and self-appointed cook, Aljon, rounds out the crew. After talking their way aboard, Wend settles in and shares stories with Viola and Aljon as the three slowly bond. When the boat arrives in Hawai‘i, rather than going their separate ways, the three of them remain connected by business and by a mystery that has something to do with their birthdays. As Wend and the others dream of flying, of being attuned to the sea life around them, Wend also reconnects with people from their past—some friendly, some not so much.
Be the Sea is set in 2039, which is scary to say only fifteen years into the future. Ward envisions a world that has taken dramatic steps towards mitigating climate change—or at least, islands like Hawai‘i has; we don’t see much of the rest of the world, which is fine. Most of the characters in this story are eco-conscious and very concerned with reducing emissions, and many of their conversations and actions revolve around how to be more energy efficient, environmentally friendly, etc. Ward mixes contemporary technology and best practices (such as reducing meat consumption in favour of plant-based proteins) with logical, near-term extrapolations of technology and ideas (such as the Seward generators that make up one of the subplots). Wend and their cohort are presented as being on the cutting edge, yet at the same time, they clearly live in a world where addressing climate change has acquired a more tragic urgency than we seem to feel here in 2024.
If you are into marine biology, then this is a book for you. Told from a limited third-person perspective following Wend, Be the Sea has plenty of discussions of marine ecosystems, from the effect of warming oceans on coral reefs to the way that ocean currents distribute bacteria widely around the world. It’s fascinating, and I appreciate a good dose of science in my science fiction.
Without going into spoilers, the science-fictional aspect of the plot comes into play late in the book (though Ward lays the groundwork early on, in the form of people’s flying dreams). Suffice it to say, it’s of the Gaia-hypothesis-we-are-all-connected flavour. Ward’s attempt to provide a scientific basis for this experience is enchanting. I like how several characters raise different philosophical questions that logically follow from what happens, demonstrating how easily scientific discoveries provoke new lines of thinking about not only what we believe but what we are capable of believing.
I found myself, as I was reaching the end of the book, wishing that all of this had been more prominent up front. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Be the Sea is slow and feels, at times, interminable. I almost set it aside while Wend, Viola, and Aljon were still at sea; their arrival at Hawai‘i came just in time to prevent this. Once they get there, the plot does pick up—but it also turns into a peculiar genre mash-up. At various points the book is intimate and cozy before quickly turning into a thriller, and there’s a fair amount of tonal whiplash as a result.
Wend is a neat main character. They’re seventeen years older than me, yet I could still relate to and appreciate the portrayal of a progressive person in their sixties, grappling with how much the world has changed while still trying to hold on to ideals that have been bent and stretched by the passage of the decades. It made me think a lot about who I will be in 2039. I also enjoyed, to various degrees, Viola and Aljon. However, as the cast of characters expands, some of the interpersonal conflict feels very contrived, and the book fails to establish a clear and convincing antagonist. Shelley is somewhat one-dimensional in her extreme, hot-tempered perceptions of everything Wend does as a misstep. Mira, similarly a tempest-in-a-teapot, comes in out of nowhere in this brief vignette of indignation before being defused and set to one side. The two characters who seem like they are the primary antagonists have fuzzy motivations, and likewise their actions feel over the top. After spending a third of its length doing almost nothing but character-building among its core trio, the book suddenly springs into action yet cannot seem to decide what kind of story it wants to be. The result is very muddled.
I have similar, albeit more mixed, comments on the characterization and dialogue. There’s a lot to like but also a lot that didn’t work for me. First, I really appreciate how hard Ward works to build an inclusive, respectful, and open environment among this cast. There’s a lot of explicit discussion of labels, of boundaries, of the distinctions between kink and sex and the fluidity of gender and attraction. As a trans and aroace woman, all of that is as energizing to me as the pacing of this book was enervating. Not only is Wend a great nonbinary, autistic, demisexual protagonist (whose pronouns everyone respects!), but they are surrounded by a diverse group of people of various ages, shapes, abilities, races, and genders, all of whose needs are discussed, accommodated, and respected. There is often a complaint (sometimes even justified) that, in our effort to improve representation in fiction, sometimes diversity becomes tokenistic, or conversations about a character’s identity become soapboxes that detract from the plot. That never happens in Be the Sea, and this is one of its strongest and most endearing qualities.
On the other hand, some of the mechanisms of how we get to know all these wonderful people feel clunky. There’s a distinct dearth of guile among most of these characters. Everyone very plainly says how they feel, and so the conversations become very overt and lack much in the way of subtlety or messiness. Don’t get me wrong—I think there is a time and a place to model healthier communication, so I don’t want to be too harsh. However, conversations in real life are never as cut-and-dry and clean in their process as the ones depicted here. When every conversation goes smoothly and it feels like every character got a chance to say exactly what they wanted, it shatters the illusion. I want dialogue to feel like the conversation got away from the author because the characters picked it up and took it off in their own direction.
To summarize: Be the Sea is messy in its plot and not messy enough in its dialogue—maybe I am just too picky. There’s a lot to recommend this book in terms of creativity, diversity, and general ideas. The actual style and execution left much to be desired. I’m glad I read it, and I hope it resonates better with others than it did for me.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Marine biologist Wend Taylor invites themself aboard photographer Viola Yang’s zero-emissions sailboat as she crosses the Pacific, bound for Hawai‘i. Viola’s family member and self-appointed cook, Aljon, rounds out the crew. After talking their way aboard, Wend settles in and shares stories with Viola and Aljon as the three slowly bond. When the boat arrives in Hawai‘i, rather than going their separate ways, the three of them remain connected by business and by a mystery that has something to do with their birthdays. As Wend and the others dream of flying, of being attuned to the sea life around them, Wend also reconnects with people from their past—some friendly, some not so much.
Be the Sea is set in 2039, which is scary to say only fifteen years into the future. Ward envisions a world that has taken dramatic steps towards mitigating climate change—or at least, islands like Hawai‘i has; we don’t see much of the rest of the world, which is fine. Most of the characters in this story are eco-conscious and very concerned with reducing emissions, and many of their conversations and actions revolve around how to be more energy efficient, environmentally friendly, etc. Ward mixes contemporary technology and best practices (such as reducing meat consumption in favour of plant-based proteins) with logical, near-term extrapolations of technology and ideas (such as the Seward generators that make up one of the subplots). Wend and their cohort are presented as being on the cutting edge, yet at the same time, they clearly live in a world where addressing climate change has acquired a more tragic urgency than we seem to feel here in 2024.
If you are into marine biology, then this is a book for you. Told from a limited third-person perspective following Wend, Be the Sea has plenty of discussions of marine ecosystems, from the effect of warming oceans on coral reefs to the way that ocean currents distribute bacteria widely around the world. It’s fascinating, and I appreciate a good dose of science in my science fiction.
Without going into spoilers, the science-fictional aspect of the plot comes into play late in the book (though Ward lays the groundwork early on, in the form of people’s flying dreams). Suffice it to say, it’s of the Gaia-hypothesis-we-are-all-connected flavour. Ward’s attempt to provide a scientific basis for this experience is enchanting. I like how several characters raise different philosophical questions that logically follow from what happens, demonstrating how easily scientific discoveries provoke new lines of thinking about not only what we believe but what we are capable of believing.
I found myself, as I was reaching the end of the book, wishing that all of this had been more prominent up front. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Be the Sea is slow and feels, at times, interminable. I almost set it aside while Wend, Viola, and Aljon were still at sea; their arrival at Hawai‘i came just in time to prevent this. Once they get there, the plot does pick up—but it also turns into a peculiar genre mash-up. At various points the book is intimate and cozy before quickly turning into a thriller, and there’s a fair amount of tonal whiplash as a result.
Wend is a neat main character. They’re seventeen years older than me, yet I could still relate to and appreciate the portrayal of a progressive person in their sixties, grappling with how much the world has changed while still trying to hold on to ideals that have been bent and stretched by the passage of the decades. It made me think a lot about who I will be in 2039. I also enjoyed, to various degrees, Viola and Aljon. However, as the cast of characters expands, some of the interpersonal conflict feels very contrived, and the book fails to establish a clear and convincing antagonist. Shelley is somewhat one-dimensional in her extreme, hot-tempered perceptions of everything Wend does as a misstep. Mira, similarly a tempest-in-a-teapot, comes in out of nowhere in this brief vignette of indignation before being defused and set to one side. The two characters who seem like they are the primary antagonists have fuzzy motivations, and likewise their actions feel over the top. After spending a third of its length doing almost nothing but character-building among its core trio, the book suddenly springs into action yet cannot seem to decide what kind of story it wants to be. The result is very muddled.
I have similar, albeit more mixed, comments on the characterization and dialogue. There’s a lot to like but also a lot that didn’t work for me. First, I really appreciate how hard Ward works to build an inclusive, respectful, and open environment among this cast. There’s a lot of explicit discussion of labels, of boundaries, of the distinctions between kink and sex and the fluidity of gender and attraction. As a trans and aroace woman, all of that is as energizing to me as the pacing of this book was enervating. Not only is Wend a great nonbinary, autistic, demisexual protagonist (whose pronouns everyone respects!), but they are surrounded by a diverse group of people of various ages, shapes, abilities, races, and genders, all of whose needs are discussed, accommodated, and respected. There is often a complaint (sometimes even justified) that, in our effort to improve representation in fiction, sometimes diversity becomes tokenistic, or conversations about a character’s identity become soapboxes that detract from the plot. That never happens in Be the Sea, and this is one of its strongest and most endearing qualities.
On the other hand, some of the mechanisms of how we get to know all these wonderful people feel clunky. There’s a distinct dearth of guile among most of these characters. Everyone very plainly says how they feel, and so the conversations become very overt and lack much in the way of subtlety or messiness. Don’t get me wrong—I think there is a time and a place to model healthier communication, so I don’t want to be too harsh. However, conversations in real life are never as cut-and-dry and clean in their process as the ones depicted here. When every conversation goes smoothly and it feels like every character got a chance to say exactly what they wanted, it shatters the illusion. I want dialogue to feel like the conversation got away from the author because the characters picked it up and took it off in their own direction.
To summarize: Be the Sea is messy in its plot and not messy enough in its dialogue—maybe I am just too picky. There’s a lot to recommend this book in terms of creativity, diversity, and general ideas. The actual style and execution left much to be desired. I’m glad I read it, and I hope it resonates better with others than it did for me.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The Poppy War might be the first novel by R.F. Kuang that I added to my to-read list, yet it has taken me this long to get to it. Oops. Shout-out to the colleague who lent me her copy. I’m excited that I was finally able to read this and see that, once again, the hype around a Kuang novel is justified. This is a war novel dressed up in fantasy clothes—and I’m not mad about it.
Rin Fang is a war orphan, adopted reluctantly by drug dealers in the south of the empire. Desperate to escape her life, she sets her mind at acing the nation-wide standardized tests that will land her a spot at Nikan’s elite military academy. When she succeeds, she finds herself in a totally alien society on the eve of an invasion by Nikan’s oldest enemy. More than that, Rin discovers she is connected to an ancient and vengeful power—some might call it a god—that is eager for her to use her pent-up rage to lash out against her and Nikan’s enemies.
The fantasy aspect of The Poppy War is a slow burn indeed. When the book starts off, Rin herself is very skeptical of magic. She wants to distance herself from what she considers to be pastoral ideas and superstitions from her origins in a remote province. So the first part of the book is much more a fish-out-of-water, underdog story, wherein Kuang has us sympathize with Rin as she perseveres against discrimination and alienation. Sometimes Rin’s actions feel shocking, deliberately so I would imagine, and at points her decisions verge on making her unlikeable. I loved following Rin’s descent towards being a villain rather than a hero.
However, the secondary characters in this story are truly what makes it. They are important foils to Rin, whether it’s the innocent and well-meaning Kitay, the venomous and self-assured Nezha, or the deprecating and damaged Jiang—each of them offers her a shattered-glass reflection of a shard of herself. One of the tragedies of this story is that Rin never has a chance to ask herself who she wants to be for her. In her childhood, she was the Fangs’ servant and shopgirl. In her young adulthood, she is forging herself into a weapon for the empire—and as her magical abilities become apparent, she loses agency, at least at first, because she demonstrates her potential usefulness to the Empress.
Speaking of which—I wish we had learned more about her. Nearly the entire book is told from Rin’s limited third-person perspective except for a narrow chapter where we follow the ill-fated commander of the Cike and briefly meet the Empress in person. She’s an intriguing character both because of the legends repeated about her rise to power and her role during the previous Poppy War and also because of her personal connection to Altan and the Speerlies. It’s implied the Empress is every bit as cunning as the viper totem she has adopted, willing to do whatever it takes to hold on to power. In a way, she might be a prototypical Rin, but I wish Kuang had made that comparison more explicit.
As it is, the plot settles into a kind of predictable cycle in which Rin says, “I’m going to do a thing,” and someone else says, “Don’t do the thing, Rin. Don’t do it” and then Rin goes and does the thing. And the consequences of the thing turn out to be varying combinations of awesome/terrifying/unforeseen. At one point, Rin and Altan travel to a remote prison and kind-of-but-not-quite intentionally unleash an ancient evil upon the land—you know, pretty standard fantasy fare. I appreciate how Kuang basically hands Rin a ton of raw power but then says, “She’s not a Mary Sue: she is going to fuck up and it’s going to be real bad.” While this makes aspects of the plot predictable, it also adds a layer of entertaining characterization to a story that is otherwise quite heavy.
Indeed, although The Poppy War has many themes, its meditation on the limits of individual power is probably my favourite. Kuang quite handily subverts the trope that a single, incredibly powerful hero can turn the tide of a war. It’s not only arguable but probably certain that everything Rin does in this story makes the situation worse. She lashes out with her power, acts without thinking of anything except wanting to harm and revenge. The decision-makers in this book who don’t have access to magic repeatedly admonish Rin and hesitate to use her and others like her in battle, and it turns out they are right to do so. This is a fun departure from how most other fantasy novels portray the protagonist as an overpowered and superior alternative to, you know, the entire country’s army.
Others far more qualified than me have written about The Poppy War’s parallels to Chinese history, particularly the Nanjing Massacre. All I can say is that I found this aspect of the novel intriguing, and it certainly made me more curious about a part of history that simply isn’t taught in Canadian schools. Unlike Babel, which is recognizably counterfactual history with a layer of fantasy, The Poppy War is closer to something like the Kushiel novels in terms of how it’s a secondary world closely modelled after our own. I hope we get to see more of this in the second and third books of the trilogy.
The copy I borrowed from a friend has a stamp on the front cover proclaiming The Poppy War as one of the “Time magazine 100 greatest fantasy books.” I don’t know if I would go that far. It’s captivating, to be sure—although it took me a while to get around to reviewing, I read this book basically over a weekend. It’s a great fantasy novel. But I don’t know if I would call it one of the 100 greatest. For all her storytelling prowess, Kuang hasn’t actually built something original or daring when it comes to the fantastical elements of this book. Rin’s magical abilities, how she accesses them, her struggle to control them—it’s all done well, but it’s also very standard. No, The Poppy War’s greatness lies not in its fantasy but in its ability to mirror reality. To get us to question the heroics and glorifying of war that we see all too often in our own history and historical fiction. To remind us that a single person can seldom set things right, but given enough power and trauma, a single person can often make things go very wrong.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Rin Fang is a war orphan, adopted reluctantly by drug dealers in the south of the empire. Desperate to escape her life, she sets her mind at acing the nation-wide standardized tests that will land her a spot at Nikan’s elite military academy. When she succeeds, she finds herself in a totally alien society on the eve of an invasion by Nikan’s oldest enemy. More than that, Rin discovers she is connected to an ancient and vengeful power—some might call it a god—that is eager for her to use her pent-up rage to lash out against her and Nikan’s enemies.
The fantasy aspect of The Poppy War is a slow burn indeed. When the book starts off, Rin herself is very skeptical of magic. She wants to distance herself from what she considers to be pastoral ideas and superstitions from her origins in a remote province. So the first part of the book is much more a fish-out-of-water, underdog story, wherein Kuang has us sympathize with Rin as she perseveres against discrimination and alienation. Sometimes Rin’s actions feel shocking, deliberately so I would imagine, and at points her decisions verge on making her unlikeable. I loved following Rin’s descent towards being a villain rather than a hero.
However, the secondary characters in this story are truly what makes it. They are important foils to Rin, whether it’s the innocent and well-meaning Kitay, the venomous and self-assured Nezha, or the deprecating and damaged Jiang—each of them offers her a shattered-glass reflection of a shard of herself. One of the tragedies of this story is that Rin never has a chance to ask herself who she wants to be for her. In her childhood, she was the Fangs’ servant and shopgirl. In her young adulthood, she is forging herself into a weapon for the empire—and as her magical abilities become apparent, she loses agency, at least at first, because she demonstrates her potential usefulness to the Empress.
Speaking of which—I wish we had learned more about her. Nearly the entire book is told from Rin’s limited third-person perspective except for a narrow chapter where we follow the ill-fated commander of the Cike and briefly meet the Empress in person. She’s an intriguing character both because of the legends repeated about her rise to power and her role during the previous Poppy War and also because of her personal connection to Altan and the Speerlies. It’s implied the Empress is every bit as cunning as the viper totem she has adopted, willing to do whatever it takes to hold on to power. In a way, she might be a prototypical Rin, but I wish Kuang had made that comparison more explicit.
As it is, the plot settles into a kind of predictable cycle in which Rin says, “I’m going to do a thing,” and someone else says, “Don’t do the thing, Rin. Don’t do it” and then Rin goes and does the thing. And the consequences of the thing turn out to be varying combinations of awesome/terrifying/unforeseen. At one point, Rin and Altan travel to a remote prison and kind-of-but-not-quite intentionally unleash an ancient evil upon the land—you know, pretty standard fantasy fare. I appreciate how Kuang basically hands Rin a ton of raw power but then says, “She’s not a Mary Sue: she is going to fuck up and it’s going to be real bad.” While this makes aspects of the plot predictable, it also adds a layer of entertaining characterization to a story that is otherwise quite heavy.
Indeed, although The Poppy War has many themes, its meditation on the limits of individual power is probably my favourite. Kuang quite handily subverts the trope that a single, incredibly powerful hero can turn the tide of a war. It’s not only arguable but probably certain that everything Rin does in this story makes the situation worse. She lashes out with her power, acts without thinking of anything except wanting to harm and revenge. The decision-makers in this book who don’t have access to magic repeatedly admonish Rin and hesitate to use her and others like her in battle, and it turns out they are right to do so. This is a fun departure from how most other fantasy novels portray the protagonist as an overpowered and superior alternative to, you know, the entire country’s army.
Others far more qualified than me have written about The Poppy War’s parallels to Chinese history, particularly the Nanjing Massacre. All I can say is that I found this aspect of the novel intriguing, and it certainly made me more curious about a part of history that simply isn’t taught in Canadian schools. Unlike Babel, which is recognizably counterfactual history with a layer of fantasy, The Poppy War is closer to something like the Kushiel novels in terms of how it’s a secondary world closely modelled after our own. I hope we get to see more of this in the second and third books of the trilogy.
The copy I borrowed from a friend has a stamp on the front cover proclaiming The Poppy War as one of the “Time magazine 100 greatest fantasy books.” I don’t know if I would go that far. It’s captivating, to be sure—although it took me a while to get around to reviewing, I read this book basically over a weekend. It’s a great fantasy novel. But I don’t know if I would call it one of the 100 greatest. For all her storytelling prowess, Kuang hasn’t actually built something original or daring when it comes to the fantastical elements of this book. Rin’s magical abilities, how she accesses them, her struggle to control them—it’s all done well, but it’s also very standard. No, The Poppy War’s greatness lies not in its fantasy but in its ability to mirror reality. To get us to question the heroics and glorifying of war that we see all too often in our own history and historical fiction. To remind us that a single person can seldom set things right, but given enough power and trauma, a single person can often make things go very wrong.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Weapons of the Mind by Owen Greenwald, Paul Kivelson
adventurous
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
How far will you go to save everything you hold dear? Will you betray your values? Fight your friends? Become the very thing that you are fighting against? These are questions eternally asked in fiction, especially in science fiction, where the things we imagine we could become can be frightening indeed. Weapons of the Mind continues a long tradition of fugitive arc stories in which a scrupulous protagonist has no choice but to enter the underworld and team up with lowlifes and thieves. However, Owen Greenwald and Paul Kivelson make this trope their own through an intense, thoughtful cosmology that reminds me of David Brin and Iain M. Banks. I received a copy in exchange for a review.
Tala is an Enhancer, someone who has the ability to amplify the properties of substances—whether that’s her own strength or resilience, her support team, or even just inanimate objects and materials around her. Enhancers follow the Tenets, an ancient code of conduct that ensures they use these abilities for the greater good of the Galactic Coalition. Enhancers who forswear the Tenets become Renegades, and Tala has been trained to hunt those. However, a mission gone awry soon has the Coalition, Tala’s mentor, and every authority everywhere thinking she is a Renegade. If she can’t find a way to clear her name and stop the real Renegade, long presumed dead by the galaxy, then not only is her livelihood and career at stake but so is the stability of everything she knows.
The book opens with an extensive prologue that follows Arcus, the main antagonist—we don’t know that at first, but it’s pretty clear by the end that he is Not a Good Dude. From there, Greenwald and Kivelson jump to a day in the life of Tala, introducing us to her and her support team before they embark on what should be a routine mission. The resulting events leave Tala raw, traumatized, and feeling utterly alone.
The action sequences in this book, and the emotional weight that their results engender, are intense. Greenwald and Kivelson seem to have assembled a grab bag of their favourite science-fiction and fantasy goodies: power armour, mentalist and telekinetic abilities, genetic mutation/resequencing, and more. It should be a hot mess; I should be criticizing them for not wanting to put some of their toys back in the toy box. So it’s a testament to their craft that they somehow make it all work.
I think what helps is that the book is intensely devoted to following people. The political and social setup of this universe is right out of space opera, yet this book is not space opera. There are no big space battles, no massive starships crewed by hundreds. The action sequences are almost exclusively one-on-one duels or close-quarters combat against individual hostiles. (An appendix provides an in-universe explanation for this bias, but it doesn’t really matter.) As a result, Greenwald and Kivelson seldom allow themselves to be dragged down into the morass of math and technobabble that, let’s face it, even the best SF authors wade into once in a while. Space battles are hard enough to visualize as it is, let alone describe on a page. Weapons of the Mind neatly sidesteps the issue. Instead, the battles are lavish, individualized action sequences, and they make use of all the fascinating consequences that arise as a result of the novum of Enhancement.
This focus on individuals somewhat carries over to characterization, though in an uneven way. Tala is quite three-dimensional, as she should be, and by the end of the book I had taken quite the liking to Quarack. However, most of the other cast members are somewhat flat and forgettable. Their motives are understandable, yet we don’t really get to know them as people. The two biggest missed opportunities in this area are in Tala’s relationships with Ferric and Scratch, respectively. Ferric is her colleague and part of her support system. The friction between Tala and Ferric is realistic and believable after what they go through, and I like that it takes a while for their relationship to start to mend. However, we get so little from Ferric that he feels like a cipher. Now, in contrast, Scratch is meant to be a cipher. As Tala’s mentor, he is allowed to be old and inscrutable. I just wish we had seen a little more of him hunting her down, or maybe some flashbacks to when they were training. As it is, he never quite escapes being a stock mentor figure who believes he has been betrayed.
The villains suffer from similar issues. Greenwald and Kivelson lampshade this later in the book: Arcus talks a lot. He’s like a competent version of a Bond villain, and it’s equal parts funny and frustrating, because he doesn’t actually give much away. We never really understand why he or his allies are doing what they do, unless you accept the premise that they really are just mad. I’m willing to cut a little slack here given that this is the first book in a series literally called the Renegades trilogy, implying that there is a deeper mystery to be explored. Indeed, Greenwald and Kivelson drop tantalizing clues about this throughout the book. Nevertheless, this all means that we have to endure Tala going up against what is essentially “Thanos, but he mugs at the camera a bunch,” and it does puncture the otherwise intense, actually kind of scary atmosphere of these encounters.
Finally, for a novel on the shorter side, Weapons of the Mind feels a little too long. Some of the scenes go on and on, and there are times when the story feels like it can’t quite make up its mind what it wants to be. An action-adventure? A heist? A train abduction plot? A political intrigue thriller? Unlike Greenwald and Kivelson’s masterful mixing of disparate tropes, the frenetic number of set pieces and subgenres never quite settles into something unified and fun.
Before I wrap up, however, and without getting into spoilers, I need to praise one last thing: the climax and Tala’s breaking point. This is, of course, the moral and emotional fulcrum of the story. This whole time we’re asking ourselves, “Will she do it? Will she go past bending the Tenets and actively break them, break the most sacred ones even? Will she become what she hates?” I won’t tell you what happens, but I will tell you that I couldn’t stop reading at that point in the book. In her final confrontation with Arcus, Tala faces a tough battle not just because he outclasses her in combat skills but because he has nothing to lose; she still does. And the moment where that breaks her, where you realize she knows how deeply she is outmatched by this bad guy yet has no choice but to keep fighting—that’s intense. It’s a weight that the novel initially attempted to settle on us much earlier in the story, with mixed success, yet when the weight returns during the climax, I’m ready for it.
There’s a lot to like about this book. The whole idea of Enhancement is neat, and I appreciate how much Greenwald and Kivelson commit to exploring what it means and implies for Tala and other Enhancers, right down to the whole thing about “don’t Enhance your brain; don’t do it; don’t you do it!” Similarly, the galactic society that they’ve created and the way the characters fit into it is very impressive. And I did enjoy the action sequences (which is not something, as a reader who is largely aphantasic, I often find myself exclaiming). There is a great novel somewhere in here, weighed down by some clunky elements. But I’ve said it before and will say it again: I prefer novels that take big swings, even if they don’t one hundred percent land, and that’s entirely the case here. Weapons of the Mind doesn’t completely satisfy, yet it does tantalize, and it betokens more good things to come from this writing team in the future.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Tala is an Enhancer, someone who has the ability to amplify the properties of substances—whether that’s her own strength or resilience, her support team, or even just inanimate objects and materials around her. Enhancers follow the Tenets, an ancient code of conduct that ensures they use these abilities for the greater good of the Galactic Coalition. Enhancers who forswear the Tenets become Renegades, and Tala has been trained to hunt those. However, a mission gone awry soon has the Coalition, Tala’s mentor, and every authority everywhere thinking she is a Renegade. If she can’t find a way to clear her name and stop the real Renegade, long presumed dead by the galaxy, then not only is her livelihood and career at stake but so is the stability of everything she knows.
The book opens with an extensive prologue that follows Arcus, the main antagonist—we don’t know that at first, but it’s pretty clear by the end that he is Not a Good Dude. From there, Greenwald and Kivelson jump to a day in the life of Tala, introducing us to her and her support team before they embark on what should be a routine mission. The resulting events leave Tala raw, traumatized, and feeling utterly alone.
The action sequences in this book, and the emotional weight that their results engender, are intense. Greenwald and Kivelson seem to have assembled a grab bag of their favourite science-fiction and fantasy goodies: power armour, mentalist and telekinetic abilities, genetic mutation/resequencing, and more. It should be a hot mess; I should be criticizing them for not wanting to put some of their toys back in the toy box. So it’s a testament to their craft that they somehow make it all work.
I think what helps is that the book is intensely devoted to following people. The political and social setup of this universe is right out of space opera, yet this book is not space opera. There are no big space battles, no massive starships crewed by hundreds. The action sequences are almost exclusively one-on-one duels or close-quarters combat against individual hostiles. (An appendix provides an in-universe explanation for this bias, but it doesn’t really matter.) As a result, Greenwald and Kivelson seldom allow themselves to be dragged down into the morass of math and technobabble that, let’s face it, even the best SF authors wade into once in a while. Space battles are hard enough to visualize as it is, let alone describe on a page. Weapons of the Mind neatly sidesteps the issue. Instead, the battles are lavish, individualized action sequences, and they make use of all the fascinating consequences that arise as a result of the novum of Enhancement.
This focus on individuals somewhat carries over to characterization, though in an uneven way. Tala is quite three-dimensional, as she should be, and by the end of the book I had taken quite the liking to Quarack. However, most of the other cast members are somewhat flat and forgettable. Their motives are understandable, yet we don’t really get to know them as people. The two biggest missed opportunities in this area are in Tala’s relationships with Ferric and Scratch, respectively. Ferric is her colleague and part of her support system. The friction between Tala and Ferric is realistic and believable after what they go through, and I like that it takes a while for their relationship to start to mend. However, we get so little from Ferric that he feels like a cipher. Now, in contrast, Scratch is meant to be a cipher. As Tala’s mentor, he is allowed to be old and inscrutable. I just wish we had seen a little more of him hunting her down, or maybe some flashbacks to when they were training. As it is, he never quite escapes being a stock mentor figure who believes he has been betrayed.
The villains suffer from similar issues. Greenwald and Kivelson lampshade this later in the book: Arcus talks a lot. He’s like a competent version of a Bond villain, and it’s equal parts funny and frustrating, because he doesn’t actually give much away. We never really understand why he or his allies are doing what they do, unless you accept the premise that they really are just mad. I’m willing to cut a little slack here given that this is the first book in a series literally called the Renegades trilogy, implying that there is a deeper mystery to be explored. Indeed, Greenwald and Kivelson drop tantalizing clues about this throughout the book. Nevertheless, this all means that we have to endure Tala going up against what is essentially “Thanos, but he mugs at the camera a bunch,” and it does puncture the otherwise intense, actually kind of scary atmosphere of these encounters.
Finally, for a novel on the shorter side, Weapons of the Mind feels a little too long. Some of the scenes go on and on, and there are times when the story feels like it can’t quite make up its mind what it wants to be. An action-adventure? A heist? A train abduction plot? A political intrigue thriller? Unlike Greenwald and Kivelson’s masterful mixing of disparate tropes, the frenetic number of set pieces and subgenres never quite settles into something unified and fun.
Before I wrap up, however, and without getting into spoilers, I need to praise one last thing: the climax and Tala’s breaking point. This is, of course, the moral and emotional fulcrum of the story. This whole time we’re asking ourselves, “Will she do it? Will she go past bending the Tenets and actively break them, break the most sacred ones even? Will she become what she hates?” I won’t tell you what happens, but I will tell you that I couldn’t stop reading at that point in the book. In her final confrontation with Arcus, Tala faces a tough battle not just because he outclasses her in combat skills but because he has nothing to lose; she still does. And the moment where that breaks her, where you realize she knows how deeply she is outmatched by this bad guy yet has no choice but to keep fighting—that’s intense. It’s a weight that the novel initially attempted to settle on us much earlier in the story, with mixed success, yet when the weight returns during the climax, I’m ready for it.
There’s a lot to like about this book. The whole idea of Enhancement is neat, and I appreciate how much Greenwald and Kivelson commit to exploring what it means and implies for Tala and other Enhancers, right down to the whole thing about “don’t Enhance your brain; don’t do it; don’t you do it!” Similarly, the galactic society that they’ve created and the way the characters fit into it is very impressive. And I did enjoy the action sequences (which is not something, as a reader who is largely aphantasic, I often find myself exclaiming). There is a great novel somewhere in here, weighed down by some clunky elements. But I’ve said it before and will say it again: I prefer novels that take big swings, even if they don’t one hundred percent land, and that’s entirely the case here. Weapons of the Mind doesn’t completely satisfy, yet it does tantalize, and it betokens more good things to come from this writing team in the future.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Our Violent Ends by Chloe Gong
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Finally got around to picking up Our Violent Ends, the sequel to These Violent Delights. These books are a close-knit duology—although the main plot of the first book is resolved, Juliette and Roma’s story is not. Chloe Gong wraps it up here in a poignant, melodramatic way that remains true to the source material while also elevating it in complexity and scope.
Spoilers for the first book but not for this one.
The monster is dead, and so is its maker. Shanghai can breathe a little easier. The Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers can go back to killing each other. Or can they? The monsters return, blackmail ensues, and the Nationalist army is marching on the city. The only way out seems to be for Juliette Cai and Roma Montagov to work together. Yet Roma believes Juliette has betrayed their forbidden love, believes her to be heartless, to be his enemy now. Juliette has no plans to disabuse him of her deceit. It’s star-crossed love indeed.
Romeo and Juliet is not in my top Shakespeare plays, though I gather from Gong’s bio that she thinks it gets a bad rap—certainly enough that she wrote this two-book reimagining of it! Yet what makes Our Violent Ends so good is that Gong has worked around the original play’s key weakness, which is its shallowness. Through her setting of Shanghai, 1927, and the depth with which she portrays the two main characters, Gong takes the themes and major beats of Shakespeare’s most famous tragic romance and makes them her own.
She wastes no time throwing us into the thick of things. Juliette and Roma are independently investigating the resurgence of the monsters, but it isn’t long before they are thrown together. In addition to switching between limited third-person perspectives of these two, Gong also gives us a glimpse into the mind of Tyler (Tybalt). We don’t get as much perspective from them, but we still learn a lot about the motivations of Lord and Lady Cai, as well as Lord Montagov. And it all comes down to power.
The first two thirds of the book are fine. But that last act, when all hell breaks loose? Oh my. As Roma and Juliette plot their next moves and struggle even to survive, Gong’s themes crystallize. It’s about power. Who has it. Who wants it. Should you even want it? Both lovers were born into power, shaped to wield power, yet their survival might lie in rejecting that power.
Juliette and Roma—as well as Marshall, Rosalind, and Kathleen/Celia—endure many temptations towards power. How they respond to these temptations, the courses of action that these characters take, is the principal focus of Our Violent Ends. Gong sets out to remind us that individuals are fickle, complicated beings. We are all capable of good, of evil, of selfish or selfless acts. What is truly monstrous are the systems we set up.
While at times uneven, when this book hits, it hits. Think what you will of Romeo and Juliet. Regardless, Gong demonstrates a remarkable facility for adapting Shakespeare’s tragedy into a tale all her own: one full of history, romance, combat, loss, and renewal. This duology, both volumes, is well worth your time.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Spoilers for the first book but not for this one.
The monster is dead, and so is its maker. Shanghai can breathe a little easier. The Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers can go back to killing each other. Or can they? The monsters return, blackmail ensues, and the Nationalist army is marching on the city. The only way out seems to be for Juliette Cai and Roma Montagov to work together. Yet Roma believes Juliette has betrayed their forbidden love, believes her to be heartless, to be his enemy now. Juliette has no plans to disabuse him of her deceit. It’s star-crossed love indeed.
Romeo and Juliet is not in my top Shakespeare plays, though I gather from Gong’s bio that she thinks it gets a bad rap—certainly enough that she wrote this two-book reimagining of it! Yet what makes Our Violent Ends so good is that Gong has worked around the original play’s key weakness, which is its shallowness. Through her setting of Shanghai, 1927, and the depth with which she portrays the two main characters, Gong takes the themes and major beats of Shakespeare’s most famous tragic romance and makes them her own.
She wastes no time throwing us into the thick of things. Juliette and Roma are independently investigating the resurgence of the monsters, but it isn’t long before they are thrown together. In addition to switching between limited third-person perspectives of these two, Gong also gives us a glimpse into the mind of Tyler (Tybalt). We don’t get as much perspective from them, but we still learn a lot about the motivations of Lord and Lady Cai, as well as Lord Montagov. And it all comes down to power.
The first two thirds of the book are fine. But that last act, when all hell breaks loose? Oh my. As Roma and Juliette plot their next moves and struggle even to survive, Gong’s themes crystallize. It’s about power. Who has it. Who wants it. Should you even want it? Both lovers were born into power, shaped to wield power, yet their survival might lie in rejecting that power.
Juliette and Roma—as well as Marshall, Rosalind, and Kathleen/Celia—endure many temptations towards power. How they respond to these temptations, the courses of action that these characters take, is the principal focus of Our Violent Ends. Gong sets out to remind us that individuals are fickle, complicated beings. We are all capable of good, of evil, of selfish or selfless acts. What is truly monstrous are the systems we set up.
While at times uneven, when this book hits, it hits. Think what you will of Romeo and Juliet. Regardless, Gong demonstrates a remarkable facility for adapting Shakespeare’s tragedy into a tale all her own: one full of history, romance, combat, loss, and renewal. This duology, both volumes, is well worth your time.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Honey and Spice by Bolu Babalola
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Most of my IRL friends don’t read the same genres as me. There’s overlap but not that much. I don’t mind this, though, because it means that when they recommend a book to me and say, “I think you will really like this,” as my bestie Rebecca did when she gave me Honey and Spice for my birthday last year, I receive an incredible gift. I love when people push me to read outside my comfort zone. Sometimes I don’t enjoy it. Other times, like with this first novel from Bolu Babalola, I have the pleasure of a breathtaking ride that has left me with a better understanding of romance than ever before.
Kikiola Banjo, or Kiki, attends Whitewell College in southern England, where she hosts Brown Sugar, a campus radio show about relationships and situationships. Respected yet somewhat inaccessible, Kiki finds herself the centre of more attention and scrutiny than she desires when she ends up kissing Malakai Korede, whom she had recently met and then excoriated on her show (albeit not by name). Seeking to use this attention to her benefit for a summer internship application, Kiki persuades Malakai to enter into a fake relationship with her.
You know how it goes from there. Or do you? One of the best things about Honey and Spice is how Babalola expertly wields foreshadowing that consistently satisfies yet also subverts expectations.
I don’t often read romance, but when I do, I want it to be new adult. I want it to be set in a college in the UK. I want it to be diverse, queernorm, and more. Honey and Spice has all that (the central romance is not itself queer, to be clear, but there are numerous queer characters having queer romances all around, and it’s lovely).
Kiki and Malakai are both, like Babalola herself, British-born of Nigerian descent, and the story is steeped with references to Nigerian cuisine and dress, lots of unapologetically unitalicized Yoruba, and more. Did I, a white woman from Canada, know what the hell was going on every moment of this story? No, and that is wonderful. Just go with it. Because that part of the book isn’t for me (let’s face it, a whole heck of a lot of this book isn’t for me), and that’s fine. I can only imagine other readers are going to finally see themselves represented in this book, and I am here for that joy. Maybe one of the best yet most understated moments of the book happens when Kiki watches Malakai’s short film, which is about the Black barbershop he practically grew up in as a kid, and how that connects to his ideas of masculinity as a young Black man. It’s raw and powerful and it’s just this moment that underpins, uplifts the beauty of Malakai’s character overall.
Alas, such Black joy exists against a backdrop of discrimination. Rather than erase that in favour of fluff, Babalola deftly negotiates the tension between romance/sexytimes and commentary on anti-Black racism in UK society, and it is so good. From the internecine power struggle within “Blackwell” to the wider questions of how to just exist as a minority on campus, Honey and Spice doesn’t shy away from the hard moments. And I want my romance to have some teeth to it. Look, I understand entirely the desire for fluffy beach reads and am in no way dismissing their value. But for me, as an aromantic gal, a little social commentary in my romance is very fulfilling.
On that note, let’s get to the part of the review you’re all waiting for. Look, as an aromantic person, romance as a genre is a tough sell for me. Knowing this, Rebecca tried to sell me on Honey and Spice by noting that “it also involves how complicated family can be, female friendships, motivation, creativity, and the importance of vulnerability”—all of which is true, some of which I’ll discuss in a bit. Yet this is also a romance novel, so how did I feel about it?
This is one of the best romance novels I have ever read, with some of the best sex/makeout scenes I have ever read. I don’t say that lightly.
Bolu Babalola has actually maybe helped me better understand why some of y’all are so obsessed with kissing (ew).
I want to give you a little taste of this spice (or is this the honey?):
Kikiola Banjo, or Kiki, attends Whitewell College in southern England, where she hosts Brown Sugar, a campus radio show about relationships and situationships. Respected yet somewhat inaccessible, Kiki finds herself the centre of more attention and scrutiny than she desires when she ends up kissing Malakai Korede, whom she had recently met and then excoriated on her show (albeit not by name). Seeking to use this attention to her benefit for a summer internship application, Kiki persuades Malakai to enter into a fake relationship with her.
You know how it goes from there. Or do you? One of the best things about Honey and Spice is how Babalola expertly wields foreshadowing that consistently satisfies yet also subverts expectations.
I don’t often read romance, but when I do, I want it to be new adult. I want it to be set in a college in the UK. I want it to be diverse, queernorm, and more. Honey and Spice has all that (the central romance is not itself queer, to be clear, but there are numerous queer characters having queer romances all around, and it’s lovely).
Kiki and Malakai are both, like Babalola herself, British-born of Nigerian descent, and the story is steeped with references to Nigerian cuisine and dress, lots of unapologetically unitalicized Yoruba, and more. Did I, a white woman from Canada, know what the hell was going on every moment of this story? No, and that is wonderful. Just go with it. Because that part of the book isn’t for me (let’s face it, a whole heck of a lot of this book isn’t for me), and that’s fine. I can only imagine other readers are going to finally see themselves represented in this book, and I am here for that joy. Maybe one of the best yet most understated moments of the book happens when Kiki watches Malakai’s short film, which is about the Black barbershop he practically grew up in as a kid, and how that connects to his ideas of masculinity as a young Black man. It’s raw and powerful and it’s just this moment that underpins, uplifts the beauty of Malakai’s character overall.
Alas, such Black joy exists against a backdrop of discrimination. Rather than erase that in favour of fluff, Babalola deftly negotiates the tension between romance/sexytimes and commentary on anti-Black racism in UK society, and it is so good. From the internecine power struggle within “Blackwell” to the wider questions of how to just exist as a minority on campus, Honey and Spice doesn’t shy away from the hard moments. And I want my romance to have some teeth to it. Look, I understand entirely the desire for fluffy beach reads and am in no way dismissing their value. But for me, as an aromantic gal, a little social commentary in my romance is very fulfilling.
On that note, let’s get to the part of the review you’re all waiting for. Look, as an aromantic person, romance as a genre is a tough sell for me. Knowing this, Rebecca tried to sell me on Honey and Spice by noting that “it also involves how complicated family can be, female friendships, motivation, creativity, and the importance of vulnerability”—all of which is true, some of which I’ll discuss in a bit. Yet this is also a romance novel, so how did I feel about it?
This is one of the best romance novels I have ever read, with some of the best sex/makeout scenes I have ever read. I don’t say that lightly.
Bolu Babalola has actually maybe helped me better understand why some of y’all are so obsessed with kissing (ew).
I want to give you a little taste of this spice (or is this the honey?):
He was good. And not just a One Size Fits All good, but good enough to match me. He was feeling me out, taking the lead gently when it was clear I was ceding power. I could taste that he was having fun with it, deepening the kiss before lightening up, making the increasingly frantic heat gathering inside my stomach rise and then simmer. I could feel a new brand of adrenaline kick up inside of me. He was challenging me. This was a duel. Fine.
Wowwwwwww. Is that what kissing is like for some of you? I get it. I still don’t want to do it, but I get it now.
Babalola has put such thought into how she describes her characters, their actions, and yes, their making out. It’s my favourite approach to eroticism: descriptive yet not purple prose, full of movement and metaphor. Her mastery of language extends beyond those moments, however, encompassing the book as a whole. Honey and Spice is beautifully written, beautifully told.
That beauty is apparent in the characterization, which is so dense on the page. Kiki and Malakai are incredibly round, three-dimensional main characters. They are both likeable and sympathetic, yet at the same time, they mess up. Kiki has baggage, and it makes her refuse to see what’s right in front of her. (Thankfully, her bestie, Aminah, calls her on that bullshit.) Malakai is so kind and gentle and the opposite of the toxic dude Kiki initially believes him to be, yet he is also stubborn and proud. Even the side characters, like Aminah, get some development, and I love it.
I love the friendship between Kiki and Aminah, as Rebecca predicted for me. The subplot around Kiki and her former best friend from high school intrigued me. This part of the story gets dangled in front of us a few times, only to be resolved in a weirdly contrived, coincidental way, and then it just … never really comes up again? Like, I love this whole angle to Kiki’s backstory and motivation. However, this subplot is perhaps the only area of the book that I would call less than perfectly polished.
Everything else? Amazing. Seriously. If you love romance, then walk, don’t run, to read Honey and Spice. If, like me, it’s not your usual genre, but you still enjoy new adult or intense novels about coming-of-age, dealing with relationships, etc., then you should still give this a try. It’s probably cliché to say this nowadays, but this deserves to be a movie. Babalola does not miss.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Babalola has put such thought into how she describes her characters, their actions, and yes, their making out. It’s my favourite approach to eroticism: descriptive yet not purple prose, full of movement and metaphor. Her mastery of language extends beyond those moments, however, encompassing the book as a whole. Honey and Spice is beautifully written, beautifully told.
That beauty is apparent in the characterization, which is so dense on the page. Kiki and Malakai are incredibly round, three-dimensional main characters. They are both likeable and sympathetic, yet at the same time, they mess up. Kiki has baggage, and it makes her refuse to see what’s right in front of her. (Thankfully, her bestie, Aminah, calls her on that bullshit.) Malakai is so kind and gentle and the opposite of the toxic dude Kiki initially believes him to be, yet he is also stubborn and proud. Even the side characters, like Aminah, get some development, and I love it.
I love the friendship between Kiki and Aminah, as Rebecca predicted for me. The subplot around Kiki and her former best friend from high school intrigued me. This part of the story gets dangled in front of us a few times, only to be resolved in a weirdly contrived, coincidental way, and then it just … never really comes up again? Like, I love this whole angle to Kiki’s backstory and motivation. However, this subplot is perhaps the only area of the book that I would call less than perfectly polished.
Everything else? Amazing. Seriously. If you love romance, then walk, don’t run, to read Honey and Spice. If, like me, it’s not your usual genre, but you still enjoy new adult or intense novels about coming-of-age, dealing with relationships, etc., then you should still give this a try. It’s probably cliché to say this nowadays, but this deserves to be a movie. Babalola does not miss.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Awakenings by Claudie Arseneault
emotional
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Sometimes you just want to find your place in the world. But what if that place proves to be a quest to help someone regain their memories? And that someone can also turn into a tree? Such is the dilemma of the protagonist of Awakenings, the first novella in a new series by Claudie Arseneault. I received a copy in exchange for a review.
Horace, described in the dramatis personae as an “embo extraordinaire,” has had several apprenticeships in the city of Trenaze—and e has failed all of them. Desperate to find eir calling, e is settling into eir first day as a market guard when disaster strikes. The shield dome around Trenaze flickers, just for a second, just long enough for several of the mysterious Fragments to enter and terrorize the population. Horace witnesses a stranger somehow stop the Fragments, and e later befriends this person and joins them as they leave Trenaze behind in a quest for their home and their memories. Rounding out this gang is Rumi, trader and proprietor of a semi-sentient wooden wagon. The three (four?) of them head out across Nerezia, searching for Aliyah’s home, for their memories. But, as is often the case, they run into trouble along the way….
From the start, Awakenings is a delight. Arseneault plunges us into the action, introducing us to Horace and then wasting no time in having disaster strike. It’s predictable, actually, what happens—which makes it all the more satisfying. As Horace wins over first Aliyah and then Rumi with eir guileless sincerity and charisma, e wins over the reader too. I haven’t read a ton of so obviously telegraphed embo/himbo/bimbo characters—Kronk from The Emperor’s New Groove is probably my generation’s gold standard, and Horace is an earnest nonbinary equivalent.
Indeed, let’s take a moment to marvel at Arseneault’s choice of protagonist. Most authors, especially for adventure-fantasy stories such as this, these days tend to go for the wisecracking, slightly world-weary rogue. Maybe it’s the writer’s own biases for a clever, word-wise narrator. Maybe it’s to avoid the gee-gosh atmosphere of one-too-many young, farmboy Chosen Ones from the eighties and nineties. Suffice it to say, writing a protagonist who lacks much in the way of life experience, who is so uncertain of eir place in the world, is challenging. Arseneault makes it work, however, mostly by committing to the bit.
I particularly love the slow-burn nature of the worldbuilding. The Fragments are a devious concept, full of potential. Horace casually mentions them early in the book because, from eir point of view, they are simply a part of life in Nerezia. Slowly, Arseneault divulges a little more—but not much—exposition. Given the length of Awakenings and the number of titles listed in the front matter of this book, it’s safe to say that the overarching mystery of this world will unfold gradually indeed.
So what of the plot here and now, Aliyah’s quest and Horace’s companionship and Rumi’s reluctant involvement? If you are expecting a full-throated, epic fantasy, then you will likely be disappointed. This is a novella, and the set pieces are limited in scope and number. That made it the perfect first read for me of 2024, something easy and bite-sized to start my year right. There is plenty of action and combat in Awakenings, but there is also a lot that is cozy about this book in a way that feels like a necessary and powerful antidote to the grimdark stories that inundated the past decade of the genre. Two of the most memorable scenes in this book are not combat sequences but rather when Horace teaches Aliyah how to play a game. Both scenes are masterful examples of characterization and how to write relationships.
It should go without saying but, because we live in the world we live in, doesn’t: this is a queernormative book with characters of diverse genders and sexualities, and the conflict does not in any way involve around them struggling with those things. The focus on platonic relationships instead of romantic ones is also something I, as an aromantic reader, appreciate—but to be clear, readers of any background can enjoy the friendships forged here.
Awakenings ends with the main quest unresolved. This leaves the reader wanting more—yet it does not leave one unsatisfied! That’s the true magic happening here; Arseneault manages to tell a cozy tale replete with mysterious memory loss, identity crises, and combat against husks driven by eldritch objects. It’s wonderful and wild and maybe shouldn’t work, yet it does.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Horace, described in the dramatis personae as an “embo extraordinaire,” has had several apprenticeships in the city of Trenaze—and e has failed all of them. Desperate to find eir calling, e is settling into eir first day as a market guard when disaster strikes. The shield dome around Trenaze flickers, just for a second, just long enough for several of the mysterious Fragments to enter and terrorize the population. Horace witnesses a stranger somehow stop the Fragments, and e later befriends this person and joins them as they leave Trenaze behind in a quest for their home and their memories. Rounding out this gang is Rumi, trader and proprietor of a semi-sentient wooden wagon. The three (four?) of them head out across Nerezia, searching for Aliyah’s home, for their memories. But, as is often the case, they run into trouble along the way….
From the start, Awakenings is a delight. Arseneault plunges us into the action, introducing us to Horace and then wasting no time in having disaster strike. It’s predictable, actually, what happens—which makes it all the more satisfying. As Horace wins over first Aliyah and then Rumi with eir guileless sincerity and charisma, e wins over the reader too. I haven’t read a ton of so obviously telegraphed embo/himbo/bimbo characters—Kronk from The Emperor’s New Groove is probably my generation’s gold standard, and Horace is an earnest nonbinary equivalent.
Indeed, let’s take a moment to marvel at Arseneault’s choice of protagonist. Most authors, especially for adventure-fantasy stories such as this, these days tend to go for the wisecracking, slightly world-weary rogue. Maybe it’s the writer’s own biases for a clever, word-wise narrator. Maybe it’s to avoid the gee-gosh atmosphere of one-too-many young, farmboy Chosen Ones from the eighties and nineties. Suffice it to say, writing a protagonist who lacks much in the way of life experience, who is so uncertain of eir place in the world, is challenging. Arseneault makes it work, however, mostly by committing to the bit.
I particularly love the slow-burn nature of the worldbuilding. The Fragments are a devious concept, full of potential. Horace casually mentions them early in the book because, from eir point of view, they are simply a part of life in Nerezia. Slowly, Arseneault divulges a little more—but not much—exposition. Given the length of Awakenings and the number of titles listed in the front matter of this book, it’s safe to say that the overarching mystery of this world will unfold gradually indeed.
So what of the plot here and now, Aliyah’s quest and Horace’s companionship and Rumi’s reluctant involvement? If you are expecting a full-throated, epic fantasy, then you will likely be disappointed. This is a novella, and the set pieces are limited in scope and number. That made it the perfect first read for me of 2024, something easy and bite-sized to start my year right. There is plenty of action and combat in Awakenings, but there is also a lot that is cozy about this book in a way that feels like a necessary and powerful antidote to the grimdark stories that inundated the past decade of the genre. Two of the most memorable scenes in this book are not combat sequences but rather when Horace teaches Aliyah how to play a game. Both scenes are masterful examples of characterization and how to write relationships.
It should go without saying but, because we live in the world we live in, doesn’t: this is a queernormative book with characters of diverse genders and sexualities, and the conflict does not in any way involve around them struggling with those things. The focus on platonic relationships instead of romantic ones is also something I, as an aromantic reader, appreciate—but to be clear, readers of any background can enjoy the friendships forged here.
Awakenings ends with the main quest unresolved. This leaves the reader wanting more—yet it does not leave one unsatisfied! That’s the true magic happening here; Arseneault manages to tell a cozy tale replete with mysterious memory loss, identity crises, and combat against husks driven by eldritch objects. It’s wonderful and wild and maybe shouldn’t work, yet it does.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Witch King by Martha Wells
adventurous
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
How did I not know Martha Wells has written a bunch of fantasy novels? Who has been concealing this from me? Sure, Murderbot has been fun and all, but hello? I cut my teeth on high fantasy. Put this directly in my veins, please.
Was my reaction, when I picked up Witch King and realized that, while it is a standalone fantasy novel, it is far from Wells’s first.
Kai is a demon from the underearth, trapped above when an enemy invasion cuts him off from his homeland. Decades have passed since Kai and a coalition defeated that enemy, and some among the new generation are hungry for power. Kai awakes, entombed in stone, murdered—and now he has to find out who wanted him dead, even temporarily, and what this might mean for the people he cares about the most.
I really love how Wells dumps us into the thick of it without too much exposition. Gradually we learn more of the lore behind demons and some of the other strange folx in this land. Other things—like exactly how the Immortal Blessed became immortal (or even blessed)—remain ambiguous for now. Although Kai and Ziede are joined by a couple of minor characters who could use some explanation, those characters never become significant enough to be audience stand-ins. Instead, Wells alternates between the present day and the past. In this way, two compelling narratives unfold in parallel, and it’s very satisfying.
Kai and Ziede are an iconic duo. They already have an easy, friendly partnership from the beginning. Wells has done something I have contemplated doing myself if I ever finally write a fantasy novel: start after the protagonist has defeated the Big Bad, and look at what happens from there. When Witch King begins, Kai’s brief moments of heroism are long behind him. Most of the people he knew from back then are dead. The others, like Ziede and Tahren, have moved on to other things. Kai is a relic, and he doesn’t crave power or influence (in fact, Wells is remarkably unforthcoming about how he spends his time these days). It isn’t until someone gets it into their heads to “get him out of the way” that he decides he has to be involved. I love this dynamic.
Additionally, there’s some great queernormativity in this world. Ziede and Tahren, of course—we don’t get to know Tahren as well, but she shines especially in the flashback chapters, with a dry sense of humour that reminds me a lot of Teal'c from Stargate SG-1. In Kai, much like with Murderbot, Wells gives us a protagonist whose gender is … complicated. Whereas Murderbot is agender, Kai is male (a Prince of the Fourth House, by the way), but he can possess human bodies of any gender. Indeed, his first vessel above ground was a young woman. Wells doesn’t fully explore the consequences of this incongruence for either Kai or those close to him, unfortunately.
Perhaps she simply couldn’t fit it in—this book is already packed to the brim! Nevertheless, that is something I would have liked to see more of, along with a better sense of the underearth and its connection to the human world. Kai mentions at one point that his true body in the underearth is no more, but it’s unclear how that happened, whether it’s a consequence of the Hierarchs severing the connection to the underearth while Kai was still above or something more nefarious. Finally, who are the Hierarchs? Where did they come from? Were they just the vanguard, or were they something else? They reminded me a bit of the Archons from the Far Kingdoms, or the Mein or Numrek from Acacia. So many questions!
It’s a testament to Wells’s skills as a storyteller that I don’t mind being left with so many questions. The Witch King is a deep novel and occasionally heavy—Kai carries with him the kind of trauma one only gets from living through and surviving a horrific war. Yet it is also a lot of fun. There is something roguish and likeable about Kai, Ziede, and their allies. Reading this book, going on this adventure with them, is a good time.
If I have any criticism, it’s simply that I wish the minor characters were developed a bit more. Sanja and Tenes are just sort of there for most of the book; I wish Wells had given them a little more to do. Likewise, the whole “oooh, is Ramad going to betray Kai?” subplot felt a bit tired and predictable, right up to the reveal of what Ramad is really doing there. The same goes for the Immortal and Lesser Blessed characters, their underlings, etc., who crop up to offer opposition to Kai and company. In the end, I know that Kai being on the periphery of world events is the point of the plot of the novel, so I can understand why we don’t spend as much time getting to know the bad guys and their evil scheme (without going into spoilers, suffice it to say that the problem Kai is investigating turns out to be more of a personal diversion than one with imperial consequences, and that is by design). Nevertheless, the fact remains that Wells introduces a great many named characters who never quite become more than one- or two-dimensional stock players in an otherwise very enjoyable play.
Witch King is weirder than you might expect yet also somehow exactly what it promises to be, and that’s cool. If you have enjoyed other books by Martha Wells, as I have, you’ll like this one. It has definitely made me want to pick up some of her other fantasy novels.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Was my reaction, when I picked up Witch King and realized that, while it is a standalone fantasy novel, it is far from Wells’s first.
Kai is a demon from the underearth, trapped above when an enemy invasion cuts him off from his homeland. Decades have passed since Kai and a coalition defeated that enemy, and some among the new generation are hungry for power. Kai awakes, entombed in stone, murdered—and now he has to find out who wanted him dead, even temporarily, and what this might mean for the people he cares about the most.
I really love how Wells dumps us into the thick of it without too much exposition. Gradually we learn more of the lore behind demons and some of the other strange folx in this land. Other things—like exactly how the Immortal Blessed became immortal (or even blessed)—remain ambiguous for now. Although Kai and Ziede are joined by a couple of minor characters who could use some explanation, those characters never become significant enough to be audience stand-ins. Instead, Wells alternates between the present day and the past. In this way, two compelling narratives unfold in parallel, and it’s very satisfying.
Kai and Ziede are an iconic duo. They already have an easy, friendly partnership from the beginning. Wells has done something I have contemplated doing myself if I ever finally write a fantasy novel: start after the protagonist has defeated the Big Bad, and look at what happens from there. When Witch King begins, Kai’s brief moments of heroism are long behind him. Most of the people he knew from back then are dead. The others, like Ziede and Tahren, have moved on to other things. Kai is a relic, and he doesn’t crave power or influence (in fact, Wells is remarkably unforthcoming about how he spends his time these days). It isn’t until someone gets it into their heads to “get him out of the way” that he decides he has to be involved. I love this dynamic.
Additionally, there’s some great queernormativity in this world. Ziede and Tahren, of course—we don’t get to know Tahren as well, but she shines especially in the flashback chapters, with a dry sense of humour that reminds me a lot of Teal'c from Stargate SG-1. In Kai, much like with Murderbot, Wells gives us a protagonist whose gender is … complicated. Whereas Murderbot is agender, Kai is male (a Prince of the Fourth House, by the way), but he can possess human bodies of any gender. Indeed, his first vessel above ground was a young woman. Wells doesn’t fully explore the consequences of this incongruence for either Kai or those close to him, unfortunately.
Perhaps she simply couldn’t fit it in—this book is already packed to the brim! Nevertheless, that is something I would have liked to see more of, along with a better sense of the underearth and its connection to the human world. Kai mentions at one point that his true body in the underearth is no more, but it’s unclear how that happened, whether it’s a consequence of the Hierarchs severing the connection to the underearth while Kai was still above or something more nefarious. Finally, who are the Hierarchs? Where did they come from? Were they just the vanguard, or were they something else? They reminded me a bit of the Archons from the Far Kingdoms, or the Mein or Numrek from Acacia. So many questions!
It’s a testament to Wells’s skills as a storyteller that I don’t mind being left with so many questions. The Witch King is a deep novel and occasionally heavy—Kai carries with him the kind of trauma one only gets from living through and surviving a horrific war. Yet it is also a lot of fun. There is something roguish and likeable about Kai, Ziede, and their allies. Reading this book, going on this adventure with them, is a good time.
If I have any criticism, it’s simply that I wish the minor characters were developed a bit more. Sanja and Tenes are just sort of there for most of the book; I wish Wells had given them a little more to do. Likewise, the whole “oooh, is Ramad going to betray Kai?” subplot felt a bit tired and predictable, right up to the reveal of what Ramad is really doing there. The same goes for the Immortal and Lesser Blessed characters, their underlings, etc., who crop up to offer opposition to Kai and company. In the end, I know that Kai being on the periphery of world events is the point of the plot of the novel, so I can understand why we don’t spend as much time getting to know the bad guys and their evil scheme (without going into spoilers, suffice it to say that the problem Kai is investigating turns out to be more of a personal diversion than one with imperial consequences, and that is by design). Nevertheless, the fact remains that Wells introduces a great many named characters who never quite become more than one- or two-dimensional stock players in an otherwise very enjoyable play.
Witch King is weirder than you might expect yet also somehow exactly what it promises to be, and that’s cool. If you have enjoyed other books by Martha Wells, as I have, you’ll like this one. It has definitely made me want to pick up some of her other fantasy novels.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Gender Without Identity by Avgi Saketopoulou, Ann Pellegrini
informative
slow-paced
3.0
When you really think about it, the idea of gender is such a fraught concept. How can we ever really know our gender? What even is gender, anyway? It shouldn’t be surprising I have spent a great deal of time in recent years thinking about this, yet I don’t know that I am any closer to an answer. So I was very intrigued by Gender Without Identity, by Avgi Saketopoulou and Ann Pellegrini. This discussion of gender formation from a psychoanalytical perspective, along with thoughts on practical application to the field of analysis, seeks to challenge a lot of ideas about what’s “normal” for gender. I received a review copy.
I went into this book hoping to be challenged. It has been almost four years now since I transitioned. Much of that time has been spent rebuilding my identity around my new understanding of my gender. It isn’t easy. I know, and am confirmed in this knowledge with each passing day, that I am much, much happier living as a woman in this world (despite all the challenges attendant in our misogynistic, patriarchal, transphobic society). Transition has not only been a joyful experience for me; it has provided me with perspective and courage to grow in ways beyond or in addition to gender. At the same time, four years in, I’m not sure I have any better grasp on what gender actually means to me. Am I a woman because the label of “woman” enables me to feel more comfortable expressing myself in the ways I want to express myself? Am I a woman because there is, deep down within me, something intrinsically and ineffably feminine? I just don’t know.
Gender Without Identity takes the perhaps unsettling position that this uncertainty is irrelevant, because gender itself is process rather than permanence. Key to this book is Saketopoulou and Pellegrini approach to gender, which rejects what they call “core gender identity” in favour of
I went into this book hoping to be challenged. It has been almost four years now since I transitioned. Much of that time has been spent rebuilding my identity around my new understanding of my gender. It isn’t easy. I know, and am confirmed in this knowledge with each passing day, that I am much, much happier living as a woman in this world (despite all the challenges attendant in our misogynistic, patriarchal, transphobic society). Transition has not only been a joyful experience for me; it has provided me with perspective and courage to grow in ways beyond or in addition to gender. At the same time, four years in, I’m not sure I have any better grasp on what gender actually means to me. Am I a woman because the label of “woman” enables me to feel more comfortable expressing myself in the ways I want to express myself? Am I a woman because there is, deep down within me, something intrinsically and ineffably feminine? I just don’t know.
Gender Without Identity takes the perhaps unsettling position that this uncertainty is irrelevant, because gender itself is process rather than permanence. Key to this book is Saketopoulou and Pellegrini approach to gender, which rejects what they call “core gender identity” in favour of
gender as a wildly improvisational process, which is not rooted in any “observable” or “objective” fact (e.g., body morphology or chromosomes), nor in any imaginary interiorized idea (e.g., core gender identity).
They are quick to establish, however, that they are not seeking to invalidate how queer and trans people express the “story of their own origin” even if it includes “born this way” or other such core narratives. Rather, their approach to gender without identity is one of psychoanalytical praxis: it is most useful, they argue, for analysts to look at gender in this way, whether the subject they are working with identifies as cis or trans.
Reading this made me think of Julia Serano and her theory of intrinsic inclination as outlined in Whipping Girl. Serano, a biologist, was unsatisfied with the idea that trans people’s identities are purely social construct yet also thought that locating transness within a purely biological cause was insufficient as well. At first glance, one might think this is incompatible with Saketopoulou and Pellegrini’s conception of gender as experience rather than identity. I’m not so sure. I think that both interpretations have value. Certainly, I recognize now in hindsight that I have always had inclinations towards the feminine long before I understood that being transgender was an option for how to label myself. On the other hand, Saketopoulou and Pellegrini’s framework helps elucidate why so many trans people, myself included, only come to realize ourselves later in life. It isn’t just that I didn’t know that being trans was an option; additionally, I hadn’t yet reached a point where I was ready to improvise in that way.
So I appreciate that this book did indeed challenge me to think carefully about what I even mean when I say “gender.” I also appreciate Saketopoulou and Pellegrini’s unequivocal affirmation of the validity of trans and nonbinary identities:
Reading this made me think of Julia Serano and her theory of intrinsic inclination as outlined in Whipping Girl. Serano, a biologist, was unsatisfied with the idea that trans people’s identities are purely social construct yet also thought that locating transness within a purely biological cause was insufficient as well. At first glance, one might think this is incompatible with Saketopoulou and Pellegrini’s conception of gender as experience rather than identity. I’m not so sure. I think that both interpretations have value. Certainly, I recognize now in hindsight that I have always had inclinations towards the feminine long before I understood that being transgender was an option for how to label myself. On the other hand, Saketopoulou and Pellegrini’s framework helps elucidate why so many trans people, myself included, only come to realize ourselves later in life. It isn’t just that I didn’t know that being trans was an option; additionally, I hadn’t yet reached a point where I was ready to improvise in that way.
So I appreciate that this book did indeed challenge me to think carefully about what I even mean when I say “gender.” I also appreciate Saketopoulou and Pellegrini’s unequivocal affirmation of the validity of trans and nonbinary identities:
It is time for analysts and therapists to stop debating trans people’s right to exist, which is what we actually do when we question whether or gender nonconformity is but a manifestation of something else.
I am not at all familiar with psychoanalysis and am perhaps wary of it (or maybe just wary of Freud, let’s be honest). My experiences with psychotherapy have been positive. Nevertheless, I know I am an outlier among trans people in that regard, and it doesn’t surprise me to learn that psychoanalysis as a field needs to grow. Hopefully books like Gender Without Identity have the desired effect in that regard.
For those of us outside the field, this book can still be useful (as my earlier musings demonstrate). However, be forewarned that the writing is clinical, full of jargon and vocabulary that, quite honestly, challenged even me. Saketopoulou and Pellegrini are not writing for a general audience—which is fine, not a criticism of the book but definitely a caution for the general reader. I won’t pretend I understood fully everything that they discuss in the book. But I did enjoy this glimpse into how analysts and therapists approach these concepts, as well as the challenges of dragging the field kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century.
So from this position, I found Gender Without Identity to be what I expected: challenging, occasionally inscrutable, yet altogether quite clever and thought-provoking. While I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it to just anyone, for someone who is curious about the intersections of psychology and gender, I think this is an important and powerful read.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
For those of us outside the field, this book can still be useful (as my earlier musings demonstrate). However, be forewarned that the writing is clinical, full of jargon and vocabulary that, quite honestly, challenged even me. Saketopoulou and Pellegrini are not writing for a general audience—which is fine, not a criticism of the book but definitely a caution for the general reader. I won’t pretend I understood fully everything that they discuss in the book. But I did enjoy this glimpse into how analysts and therapists approach these concepts, as well as the challenges of dragging the field kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century.
So from this position, I found Gender Without Identity to be what I expected: challenging, occasionally inscrutable, yet altogether quite clever and thought-provoking. While I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it to just anyone, for someone who is curious about the intersections of psychology and gender, I think this is an important and powerful read.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.