Reading Wednesday

[sabotabby]

Just finished: Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson. I wrote about it last week but anyway, it's phenomenal. The disjointed structure that lends itself perfectly to the psyche of a character whose life has fallen apart and is then reconstructed, the grounded details about the land and culture of the Haisla, the incursions of supernatural beings into the gritty realism of the setting. Many, many trigger warnings: This is not a happy book. But it is, I think, a hopeful one.

Dreadnought by April Daniels. After that I wanted to read something fun, and multiple people have recommended this one to me. It's a YA novel about a closeted trans girl who inherits the powers of a dying superhero. Said transformation also makes her visibly a girl and unable to be closeted anymore. I binge-read it in two days and immediately put a hold on the sequel. It's got the YA tropes that I'm not a fan of (flat prose, pauses to explain concepts to the reader) but the appealing characters and cool concept make up for a multitude of sins. I enjoyed the shit out of it. TW: The depiction of Danielle's home life and coming out experiences (multiple, continuous throughout the novel) are, unfortunately, quite realistic. I found it hard to take from the perspective of a cis adult who would lose her shit if anyone treated the trans kids in her life that way; if you're trans, I imagine it's substantially harder.

Currently reading: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. It's about lesbian space necromancers. There are two types of people in this world: people who hear "lesbian space necromancers" and go "OMG I MUST READ THIS IMMEDIATELY eEEEE" and those who go "wtf?" If you don't know which one I am, do you really know me at all?

Comments

[conuly]

Dreadnought wasn't too bad, but the sequel... while I can handle dystopian fiction I can't handle it overlapping too much with our dystopian reality.

[sabotabby]

I know it's about the TERF, who would read as irritatingly OTT if I hadn't actually met people like that.

[conuly]

There is also a neofeudalist supervillain which, just fyi, those have to be the biggest dipshits you will ever encounter on the internet.

[sabotabby]

Admittedly that makes me want to read it more, because that's semi what the Big Bads in my story are.

[conuly]

Then we have quite different tastes and this was well recommended to you.

[kingtycoon]

Gideon is great & really gets you... somewhere. I have high hopes that the (spoilery titled sequel) delivers on the setup.

[sabotabby]

I didn't look but I'm just going to assume the sequel is entitled Lesbian Space Necromancers Get Lost In Another Dimension and Then There's a Musical Number or something.

Anyway it's awesome so far but even if it sucked I'd probably enjoy it on the concept alone.

[contrarywise]

I really enjoyed Dreadnought and the sequel, enough that I bought copies for the Intrepid Arachnid and I after reading library copies. I'm looking forward to Book 3 whenever it comes out.

[sabotabby]

I'm looking forward to the sequel, which I have on hold.

[dancingdragon3]

OMG, those last two sound amaze balls! I worry that the Dreadnought might be upsetting for me (the transwoman's family forcing hospitalization on her is why I had to quit Sense8), so I'll look for lesbian space necromancers first. Thanks for the heads up!

[sabotabby]

It's about that level of awful but easier to take because it's prose, but worse because it's a kid who lacks a support system?

I'm a third of the way through and nothing particularly bad has happened to the lesbian space necromancers other than they have to deal with each other and are teenagers. I don't think it's the kind of book where bad things happen on account of them being lesbians but presumably bad things happen on account of them being space necromancers (or not; I'm not unconvinced that this isn't just going to be a straight-up romance).

[dancingdragon3]

Cool, thanks for letting me know!

[dagibbs]

I enjoyed Dreadnought, too. The sequel was on my to-buy list, but not available yet when I first went looking... I'm guessing it is available now. It shall need to be in my next purchase pile!

I've got Gideon the Ninth in my most recently bought pile of books, so it is relatively high on my to-read list. Perhaps I'll pack it for my trip to Germany and read it next week.

[sabotabby]

It's out!

[wolby]

I too enjoyed Dreadnought, tho I haven't gotten the second one yet, and Gideon the 9th is also on my to-do list. Almost all I know about it is that there's a lot of fanart of the two main characters fighting in a pool.

[sabotabby]

I haven't gotten there yet but pretty much the plot is "they fight because deep down they love each other." It's pure id.

[ginger_rude]

Oh, I was just looking at Dreadnought in my recs list. Thanks for the summary. Will order.

[sabotabby]

Hope you enjoy it!