(no subject)

[usuallyhats]

The Pomegranate Gate - Ariel Kaplan
Inda - Sherwood Smith
The Satapur Moonstone - Sujata Massey
I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World - Kai Cheng Thom
Flight and Anchor - Nicole Kornher-Stace
Neon Roses - Rachel Dawson
Blood on the Tracks: Railway Mysteries ed Martin Edwards
The Lies of the Ajungo - Moses Ose Utomi
Labyrinth's Heart - MA Carrick
Practical Witching - Tansy Rayner Roberts

The Pomegranate Gate (five stars), Inda (four stars), Neon Roses (four stars), Labyrinth's Heart (five stars)

The Pomegranate Gate
I absolutely loved this - portal fantasy in a slightly AU Inquisition era Spain, centring on two Jewish characters. It took a while to get going, but once I was through the setup chapters and the plot was up and running, it really sang (and I specifically really enjoyed its sense of humour). It's very definitely book one in a series, but it does wrap up plenty of elements while also setting up for the next volume. Highly recommended.

Inda
I wasn't expecting to love this secondary world fantasy* as much as I did, but the character work really made it - the characters and their relationships just drew me in more and more as it developed. It was published in 2006 and feels really dated in some ways, but it's also really nice to read a really good example of the kind of epic fantasy that isn't as popular now, especially one that knows that queer people exist. I loved it and would have gone straight into the next one if it had been available as an ebook in this country.

*the glossary at the end casually drops the fact that actually all the people arrived through a portal from our world many generations ago, I looked it up and apparently there's a whole multiverse thing going on?

Neon Roses
So this definitely feels like it might be Pride fanfic, but for me that was absolutely a selling point - it's about a young woman in Wales in the 1980s who figures out she's queer when LGSM comes to town. I didn't always love its stylistic choices, but I did love how rooted in its specific time and place it was, and also how many of the people in Eluned's immediate circle were kind and supportive.

Labyrinth's Heart
Absolutely loved this. I feel like this trilogy has definitely had its issues, especially around pacing, but I'm just so happy with all the choices the authors made and all the things they considered important in this final volume.

relationship spoilers

I did spend a fair bit of time OT3ing Ren, Grey and Vargo, but as soon as Carrick was like "hear me out: what if FRIENDSHIP was as important as romance?" I was ride or die for Vargo's relationships with Ren and Grey remaining platonic. Also I don't know if this was the intention, but I am 100% reading Vargo as aromantic allosexual and I'm very into it)

Didn't finish:

The Light at the Bottom of the World - London Shah

This had a great premise and a great opening (underwater London!), but I'm just not really that into YA - the things I want to read are not the ways YA wants to write, and that's not a flaw in either of us, it's just a mismatch of expectations.

Comments

[muccamukk]

I think I didn't stick with Inda for long enough. I remember trying to read it a few years back, failing to get into it, and letting it drop after that. But I'm told it picked up later.

[usuallyhats]

That was definitely my experience! It took me a while to get into it (I nearly noped out several times during the "boys at soldier school" section at the beginning), but it really grew on me - there was a moment about halfway through when I suddenly realised I was SO much more invested than I thought I was.

[muccamukk]

Yeah, I think that was what finished me off. It's funny, because I'm reading (off your rec) To Shape a Dragon's Breath right now, and am loving the school aspect, but it didn't hit with me in Inda for some reason. I'll hopefully give it another go at some point, as I know people who'd die for that series.