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Servant Sovereign - Review

Title: Servant Sovereign

Author: Michael G. Williams

Genre: Fantasy

Audience: Adult

Format: Novella Collection

Representation: Genderqueer POV character

Summary: With real estate speculators and exploitative startups, consuming and gentrifying increasingly more of San Francisco, Madge and Iria find their home and community in danger of being taken from them. But as they discover this threat is not only from human avarice but is driven by Mammon, the demon of greed, himself, the witches devise a plan to strike back against him. They summon, from the moment of his death, Joshua Norton, self-declared Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, and bind him to do their bidding. Up against devastating fires, gang warfare, and police violence, along with the demon and his servants, Emperor Norton travels through time to collect four keys to the city, symbolic items with significance to San Francisco’s history that will give Madge and Iria the power to wrest the city from Mammon’s grasp. 

Reflections: Told in four novellas, Servant Sovereign is half urban fantasy and half a love letter to San Francisco. The structure is more the sort of thing you see in kids' media where the plot is as much a vehicle for learning something (in this case, San Franciscan history) as an adventure story in its own right. I found it charming, especially since it’s written with obvious love for these parts of history, and because I don’t know much about San Francisco and did learn something from it. It does leave the main plot feeling sparse at times to make room for the historical details. 

What took me out, though, was the execution of some of its messages/themes and the shallowness of certain characters that was related to this. There’s a lot of "both-sides" waffling on most social issues that are brought up, which is very discordant with the extremely blatant anti-capitalist message that underpins the entire story. The protagonists are queer witches who literally fight off a manifestation of capitalist greed who goes out of his way to almost cartoonishly show off gentrification, exploitation, corruption, and valuation of wealth over human life under this system. But mixed in with all that the queer trans witch who gets dropped into a historic instance of police brutality against the queer community doesn't get to express a stronger opinion of the police force in America than ‘there's some problems with it, but we should try to have sympathy for them too.’ There's a historical missionary brought into the story who 'rescued' Chinese women from human trafficking but then held them captive till they learned English, converted to Presbyterianism, and married men of her choosing. The author's note addresses this somewhat, but the story itself very much tiptoes around this side of things to keep her in a heroic role and settles on the idea that she was just fighting back the best she knew how. (The Chinese American protagonist doesn't get a voice in this, just the white guy.) In general, the author seemed unwilling to engage with the unsavory aspects of most historical figures he writes into the story, particularly ones who ally with the protagonists, even when these aspects would be relevant to the story and its themes. It felt noncommital, like trying not to be too radical and not to speak ill of the dead by fully characterizing them. But then why tell an anti-capitalist story? Why make a large portion of the cast real, imperfect historical figures? I just felt some disconnect here.

Warnings: Depictions of misgendering, transphobia.

Notes on Rep: Iria identifies on-page as genderqueer.

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The Hades Calculus - Review

Title: The Hades Calculus

Series: Gunmetal Olympus #1

Author: Maria Yang

Genre: Fantasy

Audience: Adult

Format: Novel

Representation: Trans woman POV character

  Trans and nonbinary supporting characters and love interests

Summary: On an unforgiving planet, twelve gods preside over the only bastion of civilization, the walled city of Elysium, as it’s inexorably ground down by assaults from the monstrous colossi roving the lands beyond its gates. 

Hades, the reclusive Lord of the Machine Dead, and her allies, Ares and Hephestus, track disturbing new developments in the colossi’s behavior, growing signs of organization, intelligence, and unnaturally rapid adaptation. With the other gods dismissive and fractious and the threat outside the walls growing unchecked, Hades seeks her own solution. She finds it in the graceful living weapon that is Demeter’s most prized creation.

From the day she sprang from the vat that grew her, the cyborg Persephone has carved out her place from blood and viscera. Fighting her way out from under her godly mother’s control to the unlikely sanctuary of the Underworld is only another step to seize a life for herself. Her agreement to pilot the flagship mech of Hades’ arsenal is not to save Elysium but to make herself indispensable and quell the bloodlust that fills her. Yet Persephone is drawn closer to Hades and Hephestus as she explores who she is outside of her mother’s creature. A fierce loyalty to both settles in, even as their devotion to the city remains inscrutable to her. 

Taking up each other’s causes, they face not only the colossi, but the web of politics within the city and Demeter’s inscrutable and cruel designs for her daughter. 

Reflections: Persephone is a fun protagonist. She’s deeply unempathetic and thinks nothing of human lives despite her position as an eidolon pilot making her a protector and champion of the citizenry. (Her hunger for violence and disregard for the lives she protects are contrasted even with the inhuman and oft uncaring gods.) She’s an abused child who has eschewed any compassion even for (most) of her siblings suffering the same abuse and found strength in embracing and excelling at her role as a weapon. This fundamental aspect of her character is allowed to persist without being “fixed” by the lovers or friends who are at odds with her mindset. But she still grows as a character, the simplicity of her worldview beginning to show as childish and born of isolation and abuse as she has a chance to grow beyond her mother's control.

As strong as she is as a character, many of the relationships and side characters on her side of things didn't feel developed nearly enough. The lack of depth to Persephone’s relationship to Khrysothemis, which stuck out to me any time her sister was brought up, got an explanation in the end at least. But her quick and intense attachment to her godly suitors also wasn't as fleshed out or enmeshed with the rest of her character as I hoped would be and that got no further explanation.

On the other hand, Hades' relationship to her sister was rich with (often kind of fucked up) detail and had the history to support it all.

The world of Olympus was a fascinating place. Elysium, huddled behind its defensive walls, ruled over by capricious, inhuman gods, and still feeling the reverberations of the Titans' rule and overthrow, creates a strange, tenuous society equal parts ancient and futuristic. Seeing how these adaptations of the gods straddle that line, in many ways becoming unrecognizable, but still carrying enough of the original myths to make them who they are was one of the pleasures of this book. I enjoyed even the hint of the gods that did not feature prominently.

I don’t have a clear understanding of the limitations of the gods’ powers, though. In fighting the colossi, they are nearly powerless except to give life to their eidolons. But otherwise, they demonstrate abilities that seem like they could turn the tides of these fights with ease, or if nothing else, at least save their pilots. Their teleportation and ability to exist in multiple places, as well as the ability to create their own little realities around themselves, especially stand out as underutilized. The colossi interfere with the functioning of the eidolon and other technology, but did they restrict the gods themselves as well? I was always being surprised when the gods showed off a powerful ability because much of the time they seemed less actually divine and more superpowered humans only venerated as gods.

Notes on Rep: Hades is described as having been assumed a boy and now identifying as a woman.

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Galaxy: The Prettiest Star - Review

Title: Galaxy: The Prettiest Star

Author: Jadzia Axelrod

Genre: Science Fiction

Audience: Young Adult

Format: Graphic Novel

Representation: Trans girl POV character

Summary: Fleeing war on their home planet, the princess of the planet Cyandii and a handful of other survivors settled on Earth. To keep the princess safe from the enemies who still hunted her, they disguised themselves as humans and the Galaxy Crowned, Princess Taelyr became Taylor Barzelay, average human boy. 

Six years later, Taylor is cracking under the pressure of living in a body not her own, always at a distance from her classmates and friends to keep her secret. When she starts to fall for a new girl in town, one who she desperately wants to be herself around, she can’t resist the desire to change back to her original body any longer, even if it puts her and her ‘family’ of fellow survivors at risk. 

Reflections: The further the story progressed, the worse it seemed to balance the story it was telling literally (fugitive alien princess breaking cover) and the allegory (trans girl coming out and facing transphobia). For example, it can’t give much ground for the people disguised as Taylor’s brother and father to have their fear and anger legitimized because metaphorically they are being transphobic (in universe they are scared of being hunted down and slaughtered by their enemy and angry that they are permanently stuck in bodies not their own). This left the resolution of the conflict between them feeling incomplete. The story only really wants to be a trans coming-of-age story, and it’s good at that. It's pretty solid, if occasionally heavy-handed, in its depictions of gender dysphoria, euphoria, transphobia, and the experience of coming out within the confines of the allegory it set up. It’s just muddled by the sci-fi/superhero elements that go undeveloped and the fact that the character isn’t just actually a trans woman.

Warnings: Depictions of misgendering, dehumanizing language, allegory for transphobia.

Notes on Rep: The main character is written not as literally a trans woman, but as an intentional allegory for being trans. 

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Werecockroach - Review

Title: Werecockroach

Author: Polenta Blake

Genre: Fantasy, Science Fiction

Audience: Adult

Format: Novella

Representation: Agender POV character

  Trans woman supporting character

Summary: An alien ship appears in the sky over London on the day Rin moves into their new flat. As the ship lingers there, silently, the aliens making no other move, Rin tries to settle in with their odd new roommates, Pete, a conspiracy theorist, and Sanjay, who seems almost normal if not for his tendency to fill his room with hoarded cardboard. When the ship suddenly makes it move, Rin and their roommates are left behind as the rest of London's residents disappear. As they try to flee the city together, Rin discovers a secret about them that might hold the key to opening communications with the aliens. 

Reflections: It puts me off a story when it's making a point of being inclusive and realistic in portraying certain forms of neurodivergence, mental illness, disabilities, etc., but then throws in the same old shallow cliches for others.  Here, Pete and Rin's interactions with and thoughts about him triggered that feeling for me. Pete's the crazy conspiracy theorist, believing what reads very much as paranoid delusions about being monitored and targeted. That's most of his character, and its ridiculousness serves as comedic relief.  Rin frequently sarcastically or jokingly feeds his beliefs or laughs at them. I don't know how I'm meant to take that versus the casual, but respectful acknowledgements of his sensory processing disorder or Rin's dyslexia. Some neurodivergence and disorders can be named and spoken of realistically and seriously; other times, behaviors that track to real disorders are thoroughly relegated to being unexamined jokes.

Setting that aside, I enjoyed the initial sense of daily life uneasily continuing after the aliens’ appearance because nobody knows what else to do. The whole story is throwing some wacky premises together. That beginning grounded it a bit in these ordinary, uncertain people who just have to keep living and working. It had early pandemic energy despite being written pre-pandemic, but with a more whimsical, less horrifying inciting event. It could have used some more excitement when that ordinary life peeled away. Everything stayed very easy and low energy.

Notes on Rep: MC identifies on page as agender.

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Herculine -Review

Title: Herculine

Author: Grace Byron

Genre: Horror

Audience: Adult

Format: Novel

Representation: Trans woman POV character

  Trans women love interests and side characters

Summary: Visions of demonic beings stalk the narrator of Herculine, growing from bouts of sleep paralysis to monsters appearing in the waking world. She wards them away with superstitions she’s revived from her childhood in evangelical Christianity, but as they feed into her traumas and fears it becomes too much. 

Her ex-girlfriend offers a way out – run away from life in New York City to her trans girl commune tucked into the backwoods of rural Indiana. Drawn by the lure of community and support, the narrator hopes this can be the escape she needs, not only from the demons but from the isolation and cruelties of the wider world. However, even as she falls into her lover’s arms, even as she tries to slot herself into the commune, she can’t ignore the signs of something malevolent beneath the surface. And instead of escaping her demons, she may have fed herself right to them. 

Reflections: The horror works best first before the demonic deals the commune members make are revealed, when it’s just the mounting unease, then in moments like rituals with Dagon where the demons’ capricious and cruelty alongside the gifts they offer to create the sense of a horrible balancing act, but one someone could convince themselves they can benefit from if they are careful. Later when everything goes off the rails and people start dying left and right, demons are running rampant, it feels like too much happening without substance.

Some pieces of life on the commune, the relationships between the inhabitants, mixing support and toxicity, and the cult behavior the leader, Ash, had cultivated even disregarding the demons, could also be enjoyable, but weren’t explored much. The narrator's introspection on her experiences as a trans woman raised by a fundamentalist Christian mother, her past experiences with cults and conversion therapy gave her an interesting view on the commune -- half cutting through the idyllic portrait of trans community, self-sufficiency, and pure T4T love with a practiced eye for the darker side of things and half an increased vulnerability and longing to believe in Ash's vision.

Warnings: Depictions of transphobia, conversion therapy, use of slurs, dysphoria.

Notes on Rep: Character identifies on-page as a trans woman.

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Notes From a Regicide - Review

Title: Notes from a Regicide

Author: Isaac Fellman

Genre: Science Fiction

Audience: Adult

Format: Novel

Representation: Trans men POV characters

  Trans woman and trans man love interests; trans women side characters

Summary: A thousand years in the future, from a flooded New York City, Griffon Keming reckons with his adoptive parents’ death by endeavoring to tell the story of who they were. Working from the journal his father wrote while awaiting execution, the fragmented stories they told him, and interviews with others who fled their homeland, Griffon traces Etoine and Zaffre’s stumbling path from artists to revolutionaries to refugees, the traumas that hounded them, their desperate love, the pain and joy of self-discovery. 

Griffon weaves his own story through with an impression of his parents achingly, lovingly familiar, and yet held at a distance from the life they had together. From the moment he recognized himself in Etoine, the first other trans man he’d met, to the uncertain early days after he found refuge from an abusive home with them, up to his care for his father in his last days, Griffon reveals the healing and the hurt they found in becoming a family, a love deep but troubled. 

Reflections: Despite the strange, futuristic setting and the slowly revealed backstory to the titular regicide, this was much more a literary character study than a sci-fi or an epic story of revolution. All three of the central characters — Griffon, Etoine, and Zaffre— were pulled apart to expose their flaws, their rage, arrogance, and indifference, their struggles with addiction, mental illness, trauma, and repression, their strain and fumbling but earnest attempts to be a family, their tragedy and how they kept living through it.

The two aspects that grabbed me the most were the reflection of Griffon as an adult on Etoine and Zaffre’s parenting of him -- the difficulty and in some ways failure to fit a certain idea of family, and the complexities of all three’s experiences/journeys with gender and transition. As Griffon grew from a teenager to an adult, his understanding of his parents and himself deepened, becoming more empathetic, but also unforgiving in a way. There was no doubt to the love within their family. Still, their relationships were also so much them desperately clinging to each other to stay upright, a necessity as much as a choice. And there was no shying away from the difficulty of parenting just because they chose to be a family, especially with all of them fighting so hard with their own struggles and trauma.

Then with their transitions and understanding of being trans -- I enjoy the way they navigate societies with different norms for trans people. Stephensport's "acceptance" for trans people that allows for social transition but not medical transition touched on some interesting commentary around policing how people can be trans. Zaffre's and Etoine's different responses to this edict and the effects it had on their journeys were integrated into their characters so well.

I wish Zaffre’s perspective could have been incorporated somehow. She’s fascinating through others' eyes, but I longed for her story through her own. There must have been so much unseen.

Warnings: Depictions of misgendering, transphobia, deadnaming, dysphoria

Notes on Rep: Characters identify on-page as trans men.

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Corrupted Vessels - Review

Title: Corrupted Vessels

Author: Briar Ripley Page

Genre: Horror

Audience: Adult

Format: Novella

Representation: Trans boy POV character, nonbinary POV characters

Summary: In an abandoned house deep in the woods, Ash and River wait for the end of the world. 

Angels swim across Ash’s vision. They guide them to unite the other four elemental vessels, the fragmented soul of God, and bring on the end of days. As the vessel of Fire, they have become the spiritual guide, tasked with awakening the others from their human lives. 

River wants to believe. He takes the name Ash christened him with and the role of the vessel of Water. He studies their words and sits at their altar, entranced by Ash and the promise that he is more than a homeless trans runaway. He’ll believe to have his place, always, at Ash’s side.

Linden is a restless college student with a habit of tromping through the woods that draws them into Ash’s and River’s world. What they are not is the “vessel of Earth”. But they might be willing to play along for a while to keep their hot and fast romance with the ethereal beauty that is Ash going. 

When Linden’s skepticism, Ash’s fanatical faith, and River’s jealousy clash, it ends in tragedy that leaves none unscathed. 

Reflections: Linden’s death is horrifying. The dissociated, casual way River watches them die and the imagery of their body failing from the poison was disturbing. What bits we see of Ash’s manipulation of River also brought in some subtler horror, but could have been delved into more. Ash’s renaming of River along with controlling how he dresses had an extra layer of insidiousness from their trans identities. There’s the general cultishness of it, with the sense that Ash, who is also trans, must know on some level exactly what they’re doing co-opting and manipulating River’s trans self-discovery and defining of their identity to suit their vision. 

While there was definitely some solid horror to be found, I was left feeling like there could have been more to the story. I don’t know what I would need for it to feel more complete, but it didn’t to me. More to Ash’s character? More moments between River and Linden before Linden died? Resolution with Linden’s friend? Just more time with these people and their world?

Warnings: Depictions of misgendering, dysphoria.

Notes on Rep: Characters don’t describe themselves as transgender on-page, but are written intentionally as transgender and depicted as afab and medically and socially transition.

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The Duke Steals Hearts & Other Body Parts - Review

Title: The Duke Steals Hearts & Other Body Parts

Author: Elias Cold

Genre: Fantasy

Audience: Young Adult

Format: Novel

Representation: Trans boy POV character

Summary: With the magic ability to pull off and reattach body parts from other people with just a touch, Phyllis is sure he will always live in the margins, feared by even the people he considers family. Only Lucent, Phyllis’s partner in stealing and ransoming body parts, looks at him without fear and all Phyllis has to do to keep this love is keep stealing for them.

Wycliff is nothing but another mark for Phyllis and Lucent – rich enough off his sister’s earnings to pay the ransom. But when Phyllis learns Wycliff cannot pay the ransom because his sister, Adeline, has disappeared and he sees the misery his theft has caused, his guilt catches up with him.

Despite his partner’s urging to forget about it, Phyllis starts poking around for clues to the mystery of Adeline’s disappearance. His investigations lead him in the direction of nobility which he infiltrates in the guise of Lord Philip, Duke of Rabbiton. When he finds Adeline and another missing girl, dead but reanimated by a magic not unlike his own, Philip is drawn into a web of secrets and crimes greater than he could have known. Even as the danger grows Philip can’t convince himself to escape back to his life with Lucent. The longer he keeps up the act the more ‘Philip’ and the life he’s creating feel more right and real than ‘Phyllis’, the isolated, guilt-ridden girl he used to be ever did.

Reflections: The ending brought down what had been an enjoyable book for me. Around 80% through the book, I realized how few pages were left and how much story there seemed to be left to tell, and I wondered how it would all fit. And then it didn't. The ending was abrupt. Many of the plot threads felt hastily resolved and some of the characters fell away. First Wycliff, then Adeline and Nyx, started with strong presences in the narrative in terms of their personalities and goals -- Wycliff and Adeline even being point-of-view characters -- before dwindling away. Lucent had a lot of set-up as a complex, tragic villain, but not a lot and not consistent development of those ideas. His main motivation ended up not really seeming to matter to him or anyone else. He drops it with very little prompting considering he's been pursuing this one goal for 400 years, killing for it and ruining his own happiness for it the whole time. **spoilers** (Also, if he cared so much about resurrecting his sister or at least tells himself he does, why kill the one man who's been shown to have resurrection powers? At least pretend a bit to consistent goals, you killed your lover for this.) **spoilers** Also, the tragedy of him living so long, but by his nature always falling into the same miserable and inescapable patterns is a compelling concept, but not shown off all that well.

What I liked:

Phillip's coming into himself as a trans man. Despite the fantastical setting and his unusual past, he reads true and relatably as a young trans person figuring it all out, both in his insecurities and fears and in this bright new self-assurance and comfort he starts to find as Phillip.

The trio of Phillip and the two undead girls. They had a sweet friendship developing even if, like many things in this book, I think it could have used more time to keep developing. Their support of each other and attempts to be honest and open with each other (a work in progress but something) were a nice contrast to the unhealthy relationship Phillip had been trapped in.

Lucent's love. Lucent's worst actions are done out of love and to people he genuinely loves. He's not just pretending to manipulate Phillip or Weevil. I think it adds something to the book's discussion of unhealthy relationships to acknowledge that there can be real love, care, and affection mixed with or driving the cruelty. And where other attempts to add complexity to Lucent's character fall flat, this one does work for me.

Warnings: Depictions of misgendering, deadnaming.

Notes on Rep: Character does not identify on-page as transgender, but is written as such, assigned female but identifying as a boy. 

[solreads]

Lily

Title: Lily

Series: Pass Me By #3

Author: Kat Simmers, Ryan Danny Owen

Genre: Contemporary

Audience: Young Adult

Format: Graphic Novel

Representation: Trans girl POV character

Summary: Struggling to accept Lily’s transition, Lily’s mother sends her away for the summer to stay with her grandfather Ed, who hasn’t been in her life since she was a baby. What neither of them knew was that Ed was stricken with rapidly progressing Alzheimer's. 

Ed finds himself increasingly unmoored in time, losing himself in memories of his past in a glam rock band, confusing Lily for his daughter, and becoming disoriented and forgetful. Lily struggles to help care for her grandfather while hurting from her mother’s rejection. 

Reflections: This is very much a snippet of a larger story which reads more as a glancing look into the lives of the characters rather than a story arc. What I read left me wanting more. I definitely need to go back and read the first two installments and I hope the next two bring Ed’s and Lily’s stories to a strong conclusion. Ed, as an elderly queer man facing the onset of dementia, was a unique character to read. His past reveals itself in bits and pieces through flashbacks and hints about his relationship with his daughter. There’s a persistent and well-captured melancholy in the way his past returns to him as he’s losing bits of himself to his illness. I also appreciate the complexity and sympathy afforded to his character even when his dementia makes him irrational, angry, or difficult. Lily’s connection with him was interesting to watch develop. She’s clearly to some degree throwing herself into life with him and contemplating staying past the summer as a way to keep avoiding her mother and facing her problems back home. (I also see living with Ed who only knows her as his granddaughter and mistakes her for his own daughter as being affirming for her as a trans girl in a way she doesn’t get where she grew up.) But she also builds a genuinely sweet bond with him, helping care for Ed and connecting with him through music. 

I had mixed feelings about the art. At first, I found the pink and turquoise palette striking, but as the story went on I cooled to it somewhat. It adds to the majesty of some scenery. The illustrator also uses the hues well to accentuate emotions or the atmosphere of scenes when Ed is getting lost in his memories. But for stretches in the present day, it was flatter and dull. I also found the faces, particularly the eyes to look strange to me.

Warnings: Depictions of transphobia, denial of transition related medical care.

Notes on Rep: Character identifies on-page as a trans woman.

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Let Them Stare - Review

Title: Let Them Stare

Author: Jonathan Van Ness, Julie Murphy

Genre: Fantasy, Contemporary

Audience: Young Adult

Format: Novel

Representation: Nonbinary POV character

Summary: Sully is all but out of their small town of Hearst, Pennsylvania. An internship with a fashion influencer secured in New York City, they’ve sold their car, quit their thrift store job, and are ready to ditch the isolation of being one of the only openly queer people in a conservative town for the glitz, glam, and freedom of the big city. Then, day of, their flight is canceled and they’re told, actually, they will not be needed. Sully is crushed, furious, and, worst of all, confronted with their lack of a plan B. Crawling back to the thrift store they love to beg for a job back while they reassess their whole future, Sully finds first that their job has already been filled, then that a vintage, luxury handbag worth enough to set them up in New York City for months is just sitting there, going for seventy bucks. 

They take it, of course, but nothing so perfect comes without a catch. When examining the bag to authenticate it, out pops the ghost of Rufus, an amnesiac drag performer from the fifties. With that Sully finds a new purpose for their summer – uncover the secrets of Rufus’ past and untimely death so he can move on and Sully can make bank selling his purse. Joining with Brad, the only other out queer kid in Hearst and the new owner of Sully’s car, (who’s looking less bland and more enticing by the day), Sully and Rufus uncover the hidden side of Hearst’s history. 

Reflections: There’s so much campy fun here in Sully’s narration and this whole situation, but it gets real as well, making room for discussions of the dark parts of queer history, the weight of always sticking out and always feeling like even close friends don’t understand your identity, the judgments about who’s the “right” kind of queer.

The main throughline was about recognizing the queer community and history that exists and has existed everywhere even when hidden, divided, or suppressed. It came through most prominently in the investigation of Rufus' past which neither shied away from the horrors enacted against queer people in the recent past nor presented those times as unerringly bleak -- showing a vision of queer joy and community tucked away in unexpected places. But it also showed up in Sully's relationship with Brad. Where they had dismissed him as bland, boring "Bread" and underneath that, resented him for the traits that made him easier to digest for cishet society (masculinity, a simple binary gender, "acceptable" interests in sports and politics, etc.), they came to see him more as a person who shares their struggles than a measuring stick for acceptability.

Throughout all this, Sully's humor, wit, and occasional pettiness keeps the tone light and fun, which helps support the overall optimism of the story even in its darker moments.

Warnings: Depictions of transphobia, misgendering.

Notes on Rep: MC identifies on-page as nonbinary and gender non-conforming.

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Stag Dance - Review

Title: Stag Dance

Author: Torrey Peters

Genre: Science Fiction, Contemporary

Audience: Adult

Format: Novel, Novellas

Representation: Trans women POV characters

  Trans side characters

Summary: 

Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones: A disease sweeps the world, eliminating the human body’s ability to produce sex hormones. A trans woman travels the remains of civilization trying to survive and keep access to synthetic hormones while hiding her identity as trans people are blamed for the disease. In flashbacks to pre-contagion times, her tumultuous relationship with the disease’s architect unfolds. 

The Chaser: Two roommates at a Quaker boarding school start a secret and toxic relationship. Shame, desire, and rejection dissolve their relationship into bullying and lies. 

Stag Dance: Isolated on a mountain for months, the woodsmen of an illegal logging operation entertain themselves with a stag dance in which some loggers volunteer to attend and be courted as women. Driven by a repressed desire, the narrator – rough, broad, and renowned for oxlike strength – volunteers. The choice draws the narrator into a strange rivalry, cut through by moments of solidarity, with Lisen, a beautiful young man who had already captured the covetous attentions of the loggers. As the dance grows nearer, the narrator’s desire grows to fully embrace the womanhood the other volunteers only play at. 

The Masker: Attending a Las Vegas party for trans women and crossdressers, a young crossdresser finds herself pursued by an alluring man who plays into all her fantasies of force fem domination and objectification. She’s warned away by an older trans woman who instead offers her sisterhood and support in pursuing the unsexy realities of transition. Caught in the two’s feud and between her own conflicting desires, the main character must choose who to betray. 

Reflections: You have to be in the mood for people doing nasty things to people they should care for as an outlet for their issues that they won’t acknowledge when you start reading this collection. It explores a lot of the dirty edges of transitioning and the love-hate, support and cannibalism, in queer connections/relationships/community. 

The Masker might be my favorite of the collection. It’s kind of vile in a wonderful way. All of these stories feature betrayals of like individuals — girls turning on their sisters, lovers trying to ruin each other — usually born of a perverse, seductive desire for out-group validation, but this one felt the most bitter. Maybe it’s because the betrayal feels more grounded and pedestrian, the way it could traumatize or ruin the victim’s life is something that happens frequently; maybe it’s because this betrayal of all of them, feels the most bleakly pointless and against everyone’s interests or because it’s the one where the victim reciprocates the cruelty the least (towards the main character at least). 

Stag Dance, the main novel of the collection, was the hardest to get into because of some combination of the slow pace (especially compared to the short stories surrounding it) and the style which leans into a historical, western vibe and incorporates a lot of unfamiliar technical and slang terms. But I did get attached to the main character and feel so much sympathy for her. The way she’s inherently forced/assumed to be hyper-masculine by dint of being ugly and large. She can’t even access the conditional tolerance of her femininity and desire to fill a ‘female’ role in the way Lisen does not necessarily just by being more attractive (because men are attracted to the main character too) but by being closer to what they are willing to accept their attraction to. It was heartbreaking, the moments when she is longing so intensely for an expression of her womanhood that she also felt was impossible.

Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones felt like it needed more time if it was going to play out the sci-fi post-apocalyptic survival plot side of things, but it still hit with the emotional journey. Lexi’s “revenge” against cis society/for the suffering caused by transmisogyny starting by violating a fellow trans woman was such a frustrating choice (not narratively, just to witness). 

The teen drama of The Chaser brought in the naivete and youthful uncertainty that felt different than the adult drama of the other stories, although much of the conflict and toxic feelings relating to gender and sexuality were similar. Robbie, despite the social warfare he’s waging, had this odd innocence in thinking things would really be easy and beautiful if the main character would just admit their love. The main character is obtuse and avoidant in a way that also feels so teenage.

Warnings: Depictions of transmisogyny (including from other trans women), internalized transmisogyny, misgendering, dehumanizing language, transphobic slurs, fetishization of trans women, dysphoria. 

Notes on Rep: In Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones the main character identifies on-page as a trans woman. In The Masker and Stag Dance, the characters don’t claim the label of trans women but their experiences read as such.

[solreads]

Murder in the Dressing Room - Review

Title: Murder in the Dressing Room

Series: Misty Divine Mystery #1

Author: Holly Star

Genre: Mystery

Audience: Adult

Format: Novel

Representation: Nonbinary POV character

Summary: Meek accountant by day, Joe Brown revels in shedding their inhibitions and taking to the stage by night as the bold and glamorous drag queen, Misty Divine. But when Misty finds her drag mother, the renowned Lady Lady, dead in her dressing room after a performance – poisoned chocolate in hand – the drag scene she loves becomes haunted by the presence of a killer. 

Joe and their fellow performers top the police suspect list, but the police hardly seem interested in the murder. With the outfit Lady Lady was found in revealed to be a famous, stolen dress, all attention turns to catching its thief, with no mind for the drag queen who died in it. Infuriated and grief-stricken, Joe realizes if they want justice for their mentor they will have to take the investigation into their own hands and they’ll need Misty’s confidence to do it. Investigating her own friends and uncovering the seedy secrets behind the scenes of Lady’s Bar, even the unflappable Misty may find herself in too deep. 

Reflections: I was fascinated by the characterization of Misty and Joe -- they almost become two separate characters rather than personas of the same individual, both because of their differences in confidence, outgoingness, and sensitivity and the way they thought about the two halves of their lives so separately. Misty was irreverent, sassy, and confident, unbothered and unafraid even as the danger grew, everything Joe couldn't manage to be in their everyday life where they were quieter, more introspective, and easier to rattle. I listened to the audiobook narrated by the author who really brought Misty to life. Misty/Joe had more depth than I was honestly expecting from the tone of the book at the start, which leaned towards a campy, lighthearted cozy mystery style. I wish the story got at the idea of Joe using Misty's investigation to put off grieving a little more. It's brought up a few times in passing and it makes sense with how they approach everything, but it's never really shown in any detail and we don't get to see that coping mechanism breakdown, which I think could have added to the character. Although maybe it would have taken things too far from the fun of the sleuthing (though that ending kind of did that anyway). 

The mystery itself wasn't any high suspense intrigue. It was entertaining, if straightforward.

Warnings: Depictions of misgendering.

Notes on Rep: MC identifies on-page as nonbinary.

[solreads]

Fractured Dreamer - Review

Title: Fractured Dreamer

Author: A.K. Adler

Genre: Fantasy

Audience: Young Adult

Format: Novel

Representation: Trans boy POV character

  Nonbinary and trans side characters

Summary: In a country that hates both the power in his blood and his feelings for other boys, Bassim has hidden his magic and attraction all his life, only able to open up to Lief, the earth element bound to him. But he’s forced from his life of hiding when a desperate wish and a splash of his blood in water brings forth first a boy from another world who sees Bassim for who he is, then a magical plague that draws out the hidden parts of the people around them as shades and leaves their bodies in trapped in sleep. Fleeing his country with Alec in tow, Bassim searches for a way to control his power as a shaman and begins to open his eyes to the possibilities for someone like him to live free of fear. 

In London, Alexa moves through life feeling like a robot, keeping up appearances as the perfect student, the perfect – if distant – daughter, logical and in control. Until a vibrant world of magic and curses – a world where he’s a boy called Alec and his body feels right in a way it never had in the waking world – begins to fill his dreams every night. The more Alec and the connection he shares with Bassim start to feel real, the harder it becomes for him to return to the waking world and to keep repressing who he is. As both the sleeping curse and Alec’s powers as a dreamwalker grow stronger, the fate of Bassim’s whole world might lie in Alec reconciling the fractured pieces of himself. 

Reflections: Alec and Bassim’s relationship was written fairly well I would say and I tend to dislike a lot of YA romantic side plots. They fell for each other pretty quickly, but it felt understandable for where they were in life and what they were going for given that they are each the first person the other can safely share their identity with. It balanced how meaningful that was for both of them with the stumbling and flailing nature of a first teenage relationship between two kids with little else in common but their queerness and a lot of other shit to deal with at the same time. Spoilers, but honestly, I think I enjoyed it more because it didn't last. Trying to push a brief, messy teenage relationship into an easy, perfect happy ending rarely works well for me.

The familial relationships were a little weak compared to the roles or impact they theoretically had. I wish Bassim's family and home life had gotten a little more focus before the plot kicked into gear. Other than Bassim's father (who also doesn't appear as the father Bassim knew after the curse hit him), none of them had a presence even though they seemed like they should given the importance of Bassim's lack of roots. Then when it came to Alec and his father, I didn't think the way Alec's repression of his gender identity was tied back to his father was written as well as it could have been. It made a kind of sense, I don't have a real problem with the concept, but it felt like it was brought into the story awkwardly and abruptly considering how little Alec's dad mattered to the story or to Alec up to that point.

Warnings: Depictions of dysphoria, misgendering, deadnaming, internalized transphobia

Notes on Rep: Character identifies on-page as a trans boy.

[solreads]

In Case You Read This - Review

Title: In Case You Read This

Author: Edward Underhill

Genre: Romance

Audience: Young Adult

Format: Novel

Representation: Trans boy POV characters

Summary: After his mother loses her job, Arden’s life in Los Angeles is uprooted as they move across the country to his grandmother’s house in the small town of Winifred, Michigan. Torn away from his friends and the easy acceptance of his trans- and queerness than he found in Los Angeles, Arden is sullen and uneasy about his future. 

At the same time, Gabe’s family crosses the country from Shelby, Illinois to Pasadena, California. After feeling constricted and isolated in a small town where he never knew quite how to belong as the only out trans kid around, Gabe is thrilled to be moving somewhere he can find his community and let himself loose. 

In a motel lobby in Nebraska, the two boys cross paths for just one night. Two trans kids, two major fanboys of the band Damaged Pixie Dream Boi, both with their lives upturned by moving, it feels like fate. They connect in a way neither expected as they talk through the night, but in an attempt to lock that one perfect moment in time, they leave without exchanging phone numbers or sharing their last names… 

Which both regret before the motel is out of sight. 

As Arden is caught up in his mother and grandmother’s strained relationship and faces uncomfortable reactions around town to him being trans, and as Gabe finds it harder than he expected to be out and proud and build new relationships, they both keep thinking about the other, the one person who would understand. They're each stuck hoping the messages they throw out across social media will eventually find the other. 

Reflections: In Case You Read This was overall a cute story and a quick, fun read.

Arden and Gabe’s romantic chemistry wasn't that strong considering it’s a driving force and focus for much of the story. Their one night hanging out together was nice; they were starting to connect, but I didn’t see the instant connection and spark. That said, I can see their bond and desire to reconnect from the non-romantic side of things — caught up in the serendipity of finding someone so like themselves so randomly and projecting all that desire to be understood and have their problems recognized onto that person. 

I lost track of who's who and how they mattered to the story with some of the side characters, especially towards the end when a bunch of friends of the main characters act as the impetus to bring the two of them together when they'd not had much page time or characterization to distinguish them beforehand. More could have been done to focus their roles in the story and keep all the various conflicts and connections tied together.

Warnings: Mentions of deadnaming, transphobia.

Notes on Rep: Characters identify on-page as trans boys.

[solreads]

One Verse Multi - Review

Title: One Verse Multi

Author: Sander Santiago

Genre: Science Fiction

Audience: Adult

Format: Novel

Representation: Trans man POV character

  Trans and nonbinary side characters

Summary: At the Multi-verse Protection Corporation (MVP), prodigy rift repair technician Martin (Logan not Luther) King takes a break from sealing the openings between universes to join a special research team digging into the cause of one of the most explosive cross-verse events the multiverse had ever seen. As the investigation gets off to a slow start, Martin bonds with his team over late-night monitoring subjects and brainstorming possible connections. He finds himself falling for both Luca, the team’s data manager, and Tidus, one of the research subjects, unaware of the multiverse, who Martin met briefly as a repair tech and now is tasked with spying on from afar. As Martin reimagines what he might want from relationships with both men (and questions the ethics of having one with Tidus), the investigation picks up steam. The researchers uncover hints of a dangerous secret about the MVP’s founders that might herald the destruction of the multiverse. The situation only becomes more dire as another verse-hopping group reveals itself and kidnaps Martin in a bid to take down the MVP. Caught between two equally shady factions, Martin and the other researchers, along with the newly recruited Tidus must unravel both groups’ secrets in time to save the whole multiverse from collapse. 

Reflections: I’m a little disappointed by this one. Not that it was bad, but that it sounded like something I'd really enjoy then I didn’t end up connecting strongly with any part of it. 

I’m always interested in multiverse stories both for the deeper questions they explore about self, nature/nurture, choice or the illusion of, etc. and for the fun, creative what-ifs and sci-fi elements. Neither of those were stand-out here — the existential questions were kept shallow and to the side and while there were hints at interesting alt-histories, potential intrigue with the rifts and crossovers between universes, and lots of questions regarding how the verses develop and separate into their classifications none of it really captured my imagination much.

The pacing and plot were a little rough. When it’s slow it’s really slow, when it gets moving it’s choppy. I'm fine with the plot dragging its heels if it makes room for compelling character-building or exploring the book's universe(s) in an interesting way and there was some of that for sure, but I don't think it fully filled that space, so it still felt too slow.

(Also, honestly, Martin makes the dumbest choices sometimes and I never really understood why he, a theoretically quite intelligent guy, thought what he was doing was a good idea or why anyone else let him do it (except that it would put him plot-advancing predicaments).)

Another element I was excited for was the polyamory rep. I like narratives where people move past their ingrained normative ideas about how relationships "have" to work, whether it's discovering polyamory, nonamory, or nonstandard types of relationships like QPRs. And I'm not unhappy with how it played out here. Martin, Luca, and Tidus fell into their polyamory without much fuss, like this is just what we're doing now. On the one hand, I kind of like that it could be a casual thing. Trying out polyamory doesn't need to be an Issue. But on the other hand, the blurb for the book had me expecting the overturning of relationship norms and Martin's previous conceptions about being single and being monogamous to be much more prominent. There wasn't much discussion of these topics outside of deciding not to choose between love interests. And neither romantic relationship made much impression in general, bad or good.

Notes on Rep: Character identifies on-page as a trans man.

[solreads]

Through Verdant Mirrors - Review

Title: Through Verdant Mirrors

Series: The Verdant Trilogy #1

Author: Ela Bambust

Genre: Fantasy

Audience: Adult

Format: Novel

Representation: Trans woman POV character

Summary: At the close of a brutal war, the prince of the Kingdom was lost. Mysterious magic wrapped the keep he defended in vines and vegetation, destroying the demonic invading force but sealing the prince inside. 

A decade later Cinero – an orphan of the war – and the three mercenaries who raised him are tasked to breach the enchanted ruins and return whatever remains of the prince to his father. Believing they’ve succeeded beyond anyone’s hopes, they bring back not an aged corpse, but the still-breathing prince trapped in sleep, only to quickly learn that the prince’s sleep was not a curse but a sacrifice. As the prince wakes, so too wake the spirits he held within him. An ancient evil roars to life with a hunger for vengeance and destruction. Cinero is narrowly saved from its wrath by another spirit leaving the prince in hopes of finding a more suitable host. Sensing a truth Cinero had long repressed, the dryad Aesling offers both healing and a chance to reshape Cinero’s body. 

As both Aesling and the newly renamed Vera settle into a new, shared body, they join the awakened prince on the hunt to recapture freed evil. On their journey, Vera struggles to face her old companions with her new identity and to navigate a growing love for the prince who is already in a relationship with Aesling. 

Reflections: This could have used another once over for editing/proofreading for the typos and little instances of dissonance like characters realizing something they were written as already knowing a paragraph ago and the like. Ignoring that though…

I enjoyed the beginning a lot. The characters shone through well in their banter and they were likable. They played off each other well in their rescue mission, but also in the slower moments as they made their way to meet the king. After that though, the plot flies by and relationships are forged or reestablished in such brief moments. I lost the connection I was starting to form to the characters before it developed into real care for them. And the plot wasn’t too interesting on its own, it needed the characters to pull weight.

Also, unfortunately, I am eternally an insta-love hater. If you’ve known someone for less than a week and only in unprecedented circumstances, your relationship is not marriage-ready. The prince seems nice, he really does, so that’s something, but come on girl, you barely know yourself at this point much less him. (I know, it’s doing some fairytale-esque stuff with the gender swap sleeping beauty set-up, so maybe it’s in line with that, but what can I say, I like development, I like breathing room, courtship.)

Worse, I'm reading way too many implications into the dynamic of this polyam V they’ve formed.

Vera’s the new third to a much more established, richer relationship between Aesling and Clarus. She’s just allowed herself to admit to herself that she’s trans and cracked through years of repression that she knows has quashed her personality and left her basically perpetually dissociating. She’s in a new body she’s just getting to know and uncovering a new well of feelings she’s not used to. Now here’s the woman who gave her this body, who renamed her, the woman she owes her whole transition to, there’s her first puppy-love crush, the only person to unquestioningly accept her as a woman and the only way they can be together, be happy, is using her body. Even if they’re nice about it and try to care about consent, does that not add some implications to this whole speedrun to love and marriage that is Vera and Clarus’s relationship? Some interesting power dynamics?

I wish. My side eye is the only acknowledgment that gets, sadly. Just me making it weird for myself. 

Warnings: Depictions of deadnaming, misgendering, dysphoria. 

Notes on Rep: MC is AMAB but identifies as a woman and magically transitions. 

[solreads]

One of the Boys - Review

Title: One of the Boys

Author: Victoria Zeller

Genre: Contemporary

Audience: Young Adult

Format: Novel

Representation: Trans girl POV character

  Trans and nonbinary side characters

Summary: At the start of her senior year, newly out trans girl Grace Woodhouse returns to the high school football team she quit the previous year before starting her transition. She deals with her shifting place within the culture of machismo and brotherhood that comes with the sport while reforging the friendships with her teammates and balancing them with the new friendships she’s made while coming into herself. At the same time, just playing the sport she loves and considering making a career of it forces her into the spotlight as the only openly trans woman in the game. It exposes her to all the bigotry, cruelty, and prying the internet and the media has to offer. She must question who she wants to be and what she’s willing to take to stay in the game. 

Reflections: I know exactly nothing about football; whatever small inklings I’d gleaned in high school were washed from my mind immediately after. So it says something about the writing of this book that I was able to feel the tension and the hype as the characters were making some of their plays.

The mix of the camaraderie and the pettiness, maturity and teenage buffoonery between Grace and her friends was written so well it got me nostalgic. Significant care clearly went into all the major characters to make them feel like full people. Of course Grace most of all got to show a lot of messiness and a lot of growth. (Her pre-coming out behavior where everything in her life was starting to be touched by that deep misery and self-hatred and the inability to look the cause of it in the eyes was leading her to lash out irrationally was painfully realistic. That pain does make everything about itself. Contrast that with the ending where her future was still imperfect but she could take the bittersweetness as it was and still be joyful.) But all the characters had their depth. Even when some of the conflicts skewed into the stereotypes of teen drama they were handled in a way that treated the characters as people with meaningful motivations and the ability to self-reflect.

I really liked the ending between Zoe and Grace. It’s not the kind of ending to a romantic subplot I can think of seeing in many books I read as a teen — two people who were compatible and did have love between them realizing that they didn’t come together in the right way and aren’t who they need to be in that moment to do right by each other in a relationship — and it feels kind of meaningful to see. It felt like the right conclusion to their development throughout the story and it was a satisfying place to leave them despite being open-ended and a little sad.

Warnings: Depictions of misgendering, deadnaming, transphobia, dysphoria, internalized transphobia/transmisogyny, transphobic slur use

Notes on Rep: MC identifies on-page as a transgirl