sabotabby | Wednesday reading

Just finished: Starlight by Richard Wagamese. I enjoyed this, despite the unfinished ending. It was a calming read. It hinges entirely on the likability of the characters, but it works. It was like a Hallmark movie but good.

Gave up on: The Night Wanderer by Drew Hayden Taylor. I normally love his books and this was called a "Native Gothic" and was about vampires, but the introduction was that two wolves story, which many Indigenous authors (including Taylor IIRC) have pointed out is...not a "traditional Anishanaabe—or Cherokee, or Inuit, or whatever Indigenous group whose wisdom you wish to appropriate in your story" legend, but some Billy Graham evangelical bullshit dressed up in cultural appropriation. Sorry Drew!

Currently reading: Pet by Akwaeke Emezi. This one is brilliant. Emezi is shaping up to be one of my favourite new authors. This is their YA debut and it's every bit as good as their adult debut but in a totally different way. It's about Jam, a girl living in a city called Lucille, where the "angels" have staged a revolution and rid the world of "monsters." Jam has grown up in a loving, liberated society and has never known oppression of any kind. But then her artist mother paints a painting that comes to life, thanks to Jam accidentally bleeding on it, and the creature that emerges, named Pet, tells her that it's here to hunt a monster, specifically one living in her best friend's house. But Jam has no idea what a monster looks like, and all of the adults in the city insist that monsters are gone forever.

I cannot stress how incredible this book is. YA utopian fiction. I want to crawl through the pages and live in Lucille. The worldbuilding, though seen through a child's eyes, is beautifully rendered. The prose is lyrical and in no way condescending to young readers (my biggest problem with YA). Jam—Black and mostly non-verbal—is trans and the way this is revealed and dealt with in a way that doesn't diminish the centrality of gender to her identity but is also just no big deal to the people in her life. I wanted to cry, thinking of all the trans and enby kids who will read this book and see themselves in the protagonist. Emezi has talked about writing a book about trans people where no one gets hurt—which is not entirely the case here; Jam goes through a lot, but it's because she's a character in a fantasy novel, not because she's trans. But it's not just about representation; everything about the book is just beautifully written.

Anyway unless the last 30 pages are somehow terrible, highly recommended.