representation: queerness – Page 2

BOOK REVIEW: The Brilliant Death by Amy Rose Capetta (3.5 Stars)

Rating: (3.5 out of 5)

For Teodora DiSangro, a mafia don’s daughter, family is fate.

All her life, Teodora has hidden the fact that she secretly turns her family’s enemies into music boxes, mirrors, and other decorative objects. After all, everyone in Vinalia knows that stregas—wielders of magic—are figures out of fairytales. Nobody believes they’re real.

Then the Capo, the land’s new ruler, sends poisoned letters to the heads of the Five Families that have long controlled Vinalia. Four lie dead and Teo’s beloved father is gravely ill. To save him, Teo must travel to the capital as a DiSangro son—not merely disguised as a boy, but transformed into one.

Enter Cielo, a strega who can switch back and forth between male and female as effortlessly as turning a page in a book. Teo and Cielo journey together to the capital, and Teo struggles to master her powers and to keep her growing feelings for Cielo locked in her heart. As she falls in love with witty, irascible Cielo, Teo realizes how much of life she’s missed by hiding her true nature. But she can’t forget her mission, and the closer they get to the palace, the more sinister secrets they uncover about what’s really going on in their beloved country—and the more determined Teo becomes to save her family at any cost.

I’ve been yearning to read this book ever since I first heard about it a couple of months ago. Non-binary representation is still few and far between, and being agender myself, discovering a book has non-binary characters is like having my birthday and Christmas on the same day.

The Brilliant Death follows Teodora, who uses her carefully hidden magic powers to rid her family of their enemies. She’s her father’s eldest daughter, but being a girl, she can never inherit the title of family head, and her most fervent wish is to be a di Sangro son. She finally gets her wish when she has to transform herself into a boy and journey to Amalia as her family’s representative in the wake of her father’s poisoning, accompanied by another strega, Cielo.

I occasionally thought that the writing was a little bumpy, and especially in the beginning, the pacing was slightly off. The writing is still engaging though, and the further I got into the book, the less I wanted to put it down.

I really enjoyed Teo’s character development. She grows so much over the course of the book. Growing up as a mafia don’s child has left her with a warped sense of morality, but in her pursuit of power, she re-evaluates right and wrong. At the end of the book, she makes a pivotal decision that I didn’t see coming but cheered for nonetheless.

It felt like I had spent my entire life speaking a secret language and then stumbled on someone else who was perfectly fluent.

I also loved the relationship between Teo and Cielo. As they journey across the mountains and navigate court, they teach each other about magic and power, family and gender. They slowly fall in love, and while they often tease and bicker, they share some deep moments as well. Their attraction to each other is palpable, no matter which form either Cielo or Teo take, and there are a couple of really hot scenes between the two characters. Hoo boy, does this author know how to cook up some sexual tension.

“It’s true that I contain more than one thing,” Cielo said. “And sometimes the balance shifts.”

I do have some critical thoughts on the non-binary representation. I loved Cielo as a character, but the binarism and biological essentialism in the exploration of gender bothered me.

“I can’t figure out if I should be using the word he or she or something else entirely.” (…)

“Either will do,” Cielo said. (…) “Though all of those words feel a bit like coats that are too tight in the elbows.”

I feel like this was a missed opportunity to introduce either they pronouns or maybe even neo-pronouns, instead of pushing the narrative that there are two ill-fitting options to choose from. Cielo is genderfluid, and it rankles that Teo always uses she when Cielo is in their “girlish body” and he when Cielo is in their “boyish body”, reinforcing the idea that certain pronouns match certain bodies.

A true non-binary exploration of gender should challenge the idea that any one type of body has a certain gender, or that certain biological traits mark you as a boy or a girl. Considering the author is non-binary herself, I was expecting a lot better.

The queer representation was great. Neither Teo’s nor Cielo’s sexuality is ever stated outright, but it’s safe to assume from the text that they’re both some flavour of queer, and Teo makes her attraction to women quite clear more than once. Overall, I would have appreciated some more diverse representation, especially with regards to race and disability.

Even though it’s not perfect, I really enjoyed The Brilliant Death, and I’m glad that this book has put Amy Rose Capetta on my radar. I will definitely be checking out some of her other books, first and foremost Once & Future, since I received an eARC for that one. I’m excited!

Have you read The Brilliant Death or any of the author’s other books? Let’s chat in the comments below!

BOOK REVIEW: Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo (2 Stars)

Rating: (2 out of 5)

Welcome to the world of the Grisha.

Kaz Brekker and his crew of deadly outcasts have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn’t think they’d survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they’re right back to fighting for their lives.

Double-crossed and badly weakened, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as jurda parem, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz’s cunning and test the team’s fragile loyalties.

A war will be waged on the city’s dark and twisting streets – a battle for revenge and redemption that will decide the fate of the Grisha world. (Goodreads)

Oof. I was hoping that Crooked Kingdom would redeem the series in my eyes, but instead it was a major letdown. Truth be told, I almost DNF’ed this, but I ended up pushing through because I wanted to see how the author would handle some of the things I was taking issue with.

I mentioned in my review of Six of Crows that I struggled with the amount of POV characters, though the frequent shifts ultimately made sense to me. The sequel, however, felt cluttered and incoherent with all of the different point of views. Kaz kept coming up with more and more convoluted plans in order for the crew to get their due, and things stopped making sense to me very early on. The eventual execution of the plan was brilliant, but I had to muddle through confusion for too long to be excited about the pay-off.

The author also repeats lines they deem important way too much in this book. It felt like I was repeatedly being hit over the head with a mallet that says “meaningful!”, while the constant repetition actually reduced the impact those lines and conversations had on me.

I was hoping for more explicit queer rep in Crooked Kingdom, and there was some, but I was pretty disappointed that it was all M/M. I’d heard there was queer lady rep in this duology, and there was at best the barest hint of that.

In my review of Six of Crows I said I hated the trope of a bigot being redeemed by falling in love with a member of the persecuted group. For that reason, I was hoping there would be less Matthias/Nina in the sequel, but instead the pairing became more prominent. Personally, this trope makes me a little nauseous, and it didn’t help that Matthias’s chapters were so woe is me. Being a bigot was really hard for him, y’all! But the real kicker was when the author compared unlearning bigotry to overcoming addiction, and finally Matthias saddling Nina with the task of reforming his fellow bigots.

There is also a white character who is tailored to look like a character with East Asian features. He stays that way for a good long while before he is finally changed back, but before his change, the author makes him experience racism on several occasions. I don’t even know what to say here, except: white authors, if you want to explore the racism people of colour experience, maybe don’t do it with a character who is, in essence, wearing yellowface. Especially not when your Big Bad is a Chinese-inspired country.

Overall, Crooked Kingdom left me feeling disappointed and icky. I wish I had been made aware of at least some of these issues prior to reading the duology myself, which is why I felt it important to write this review for other people who prefer to be forewarned. I understand that many people love the Grishaverse books, and while I don’t begrudge anyone their enjoyment, I will be steering clear of this author from now on.

Have you read the Six of Crows duology? (You probably have; I’m pretty late to the party.) What were your thoughts? Let’s chat in the comments below!

MINI REVIEWS: Ash and Huntress by Malinda Lo, Marriage of Unconvenience by Chelsea Cameron #FFFebruaryReads

Rating: (4 out of 5)

Ash by Malinda Lo is a (sort of) Asian and lesbian retelling of Cinderella. I’ve read the book before, many years ago, and I remember being disappointed, but I wanted to give the it another chance for F/F February.

The book roughly follows the basic pattern of the original fairytale; Ash is orphaned and forced to live with her abusive stepmother and perform menial tasks around the house, wishing for a better life. During my first read, I was bothered by the lack of any sort of romance between Ash and the Prince, and I thought the romance developing between Ash and the king’s huntress instead was predictable. I didn’t feel this way at all this time around, and I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s because I knew what to expect and went in very much wanting to read about Ash and Kaisa falling in love?

Either way, I loved their slowly blossoming romance. It was so cute and I really found myself rooting for them. The relationship between Ash and the fairy Sidhean felt somewhat superfluous and ended quite anticlimactically, but other than that, I was absolutely entranced. The book is slow-paced, but the writing flows so easily that it pulls you in and leaves you wanting to turn the page. I’m glad I gave Ash a second chance.

DNF @ 27%

Huntress by Malinda Lo was also on my F/F February TBR. It is set in the same world as Ash, though several hundred years earlier, but both books can be read as stand-alones. After enjoying Ash, I was really looking forward to delving into this book, but it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. The story itself sounded interesting, and this book is again focussed on an F/F romance, but the writing threw me off. The point of view kept shifting without rhyme or reason, sometimes every couple of sentences, and it was driving me nuts. It’s bewildering, since Ash had none of these same issues. I wonder what happened here.

DNF @ 30%

I’m sorry to say that Marriage of Unconvenience by Chelsea Cameron was another disappointment. I’d been excited to read it ever since I first read the summary of trope-y goodness, but I couldn’t force myself to keep wasting time on it after the first few chapters.

The writing is in desperate need of editing. It just drags on and on, and the author keeps contradicting herself. The most egregious example is the main character’s need to marry for money, while she is also spending money left and right seemingly without a second thought. She splurges on not one, but two engagement rings (both for herself and her prospective wife) while at the same time worrying that she won’t be making rent. It was confounding.

I had also been expecting this to be white, but not quite so painfully white. There is of course queer / wlw representation, and one of the side characters is a trans man, but unfortunately that didn’t make up for the lackluster writing.

What have you been reading lately? Have you read any books mentioned in this post? Are you participating in F/F February? Let’s chat in the comments below!

BOOK REVIEW: Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand (4 Stars) #FFFebruaryReads

Rating: (4 out of 5)

Who are the Sawkill Girls?

Marion: the new girl. Awkward and plain, steady and dependable. Weighed down by tragedy and hungry for love she’s sure she’ll never find.

Zoey: the pariah. Luckless and lonely, hurting but hiding it. Aching with grief and dreaming of vanished girls. Maybe she’s broken—or maybe everyone else is.

Val: the queen bee. Gorgeous and privileged, ruthless and regal. Words like silk and eyes like knives, a heart made of secrets and a mouth full of lies.

Their stories come together on the island of Sawkill Rock, where gleaming horses graze in rolling pastures and cold waves crash against black cliffs. Where kids whisper the legend of an insidious monster at parties and around campfires.

Where girls have been disappearing for decades, stolen away by a ravenous evil no one has dared to fight… until now.

I’m not usually a horror reader because I don’t enjoy gore, violence, or even just being scared. I mainly picked up Sawkill Girls because of the promise of queer girl representation to read as part of my F/F February Reading Challenge, which I’m also using as motivation to read outside my usual confines. The promise of queer girls was more than fulfilled, and I ended up enjoying this for what it was as well, so this was a definite success.

However, this book does contain some pretty dark and heavy stuff. I’m putting all of the trigger warnings I can think of after this paragraph in transparent text. If you want or need more detail, feel free to hit me up on Twitter. SPOILERS TW parental death, sibling death, suicidality (parent and other), abduction and brutal murder of teenage girls, gore, sexual abuse (implied), emotional and physical abuse (parental and other) END SPOILERS

Sawkill Girls treads the line between horror and magical realism, and especially at the beginning, it is sometimes hard to tell what is real and what isn’t. Marion’s visions and dreams are confusing and unsettling, but they are consolidated into a terrifying reality. I do think that the mystery would have been more compelling if it had been more contained, both in terms of POV and location. I feel that including Val’s POV took away some of the mystery, and the reveal of a world-spanning battle against evil, complete with a secret organisation, was a bit much.

I did love the girls and their relationships though. I found it really refreshing that Zoey immediately believed Marion when she shared her experiences with her, and that the girls didn’t invalidate each other even when confronted with the unbelievable.

All three girls were wonderful, strong and interesting in their own ways. The book accompanies all three of them on a journey of finding their strength and standing up for themselves, while navigating friendship and love. The romance between Marion and Val was really sweet. Their attraction to girls is quite clear in the text, and there’s a lovely sex scene between the two of them. They are both explicitly WLW, although neither of their sexualities is spelled out. I believe that Marion, at least, is bisexual, and the author actually mentions the word, and not in a derogatory manner! I wish that wasn’t still so exceptional, but since it is, I felt it important to mention.

And speaking of spelling out queer orientations: Zoey is explicitly asexual, and it’s great. There is some acephobia in the book, and even though it is thoroughly called out, I couldn’t help but feel a bit upset by it. I’m ready for more asexual acceptance rep! We can be just as happy with and proud of our orientations as everybody else is, and I’d like to see more of that. I would also have loved to see some more ethnic diversity because even though Zoey is black, she and her father are the only people of colour in Sawkill Girls as far as I am aware.

Nevertheless, this was really enjoyable and I was surprised by how much I didn’t want to put it down! It was also upsetting for my sensitive little self, so please heed the content warnings! Overall, this was an amazing story about female friendship, wlw romance, and finding and combining strengths.

Hope, she thought, breathing with the tide, was a choice that only those with resolute hearts dared to make.

BOOK SERIES REVIEW: The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

Series Rating: (5 out of 5)

Nix has spent her entire life aboard her father’s ship, sailing across the centuries, across the world, across myth and imagination.
As long as her father has a map for it, he can sail to any time, any place, real or imagined: nineteenth-century China, the land from One Thousand and One Nights, a mythic version of Africa. Along the way they have found crewmates and friends, and even a disarming thief who could come to mean much more to Nix.

But the end to it all looms closer every day.

Her father is obsessed with obtaining the one map, 1868 Honolulu, that could take him back to his lost love, Nix’s mother. Even though getting it—and going there—could erase Nix’s very existence.

For the first time, Nix is entering unknown waters.

She could find herself, find her family, find her own fantastical ability, her own epic love.

Or she could disappear.

I loved this book so, so much. The premise is promising and the author delivers a riveting adventure. I loved the unique take on time travel, a ship not only sailing through space but also through time. The pacing was exactly right for me, diving straight into the action. The plot moves along quickly, but leaves room for world-building and introspection.

The Temptation is crewed by a diverse cast of characters that I immediately fell in love with. The crew consists of half-Chinese Nix, her father Slate, Kashmir, a boy rescued from a mythical place, ex-buddhist monk Rotgut, Bee, a black African gay woman, and arguably her ghost wife Ayen. They are such a wonderful found family and I was so invested in every single one of them.

But the character I loved most of all was, of course, the main character Nix. Her narrative voice is clear and strong, even when she goes through patches of doubt or existential angst. She has encyclopedic knowledge of history and mythology, and is mostly in charge of picking where they will Navigate to next. Her dream is to learn to Navigate through space and time herself and to set out on her own, but she is struggling with making a decision that would mean leaving behind her father and her home, the Temptation. Nix is a conflicted character, but she has a good heart and wants to do what’s right, even if it means self-sacrifice.

Nix’s conflict also extends into her love life. Kashmir has been her best friend and travelling companion for years, but she toys with the possibility of a relationship with a new arrival in her life. Although I’m not usually a fan of love triangles, this one was actually not that bad, and blessedly mostly void of jealousy. I could even see Nix, Kashmir, and Blake in a poly relationship, but alas, I didn’t get an OT3 ending.

In The Girl From Everywhere, Nix learns to navigate her relationship with her father, blossoming love, and eventually time and space. While this first book in the series is packed with action, it also largely acts as a set-up for the sequel. The ending is very open, so I was glad I was able to delve right into The Ship Beyond Time.

After what seems like a lifetime of following her father across the globe and through the centuries, Nix has finally taken the helm of their time-traveling ship. Her future—and the horizon—is bright.

Until she learns she is destined to lose the one she loves. To end up like her father: alone, heartbroken.

Unable to face losing Kashmir—best friend, thief, charmer extraordinaire—Nix sails her crew to a mythical utopia to meet a man who promises he can teach her how to manipulate time, to change history. But no place is perfect, not even paradise. And everything is constantly changing on this utopian island, including reality itself.

If Nix can read the ever-shifting tides, perhaps she will finally harness her abilities. Perhaps she can control her destiny, too.

Or perhaps her time will finally run out.

Again, I was engrossed in this book from start to finish. Heidi Heilig is an amazing writer, and in The Ship Beyond Time she masterfully interweaves history and myth in a fascinating story.

Pulling on the Breton myth of Ker-Ys, Heilig creates a fantastical setting for the crew of the Temptation. I wasn’t previously aware of this somewhat obscure myth, and finding out more about it was really interesting. I love both history and mythology, and this book asked a lot of questions about what makes something history or myth, and what that means for the characters’ identities.

In her quest to figure out changing history, Nix again grapples with herself and with what’s right. Even though she is originally driven to Ker-Ys by selfish motives, her drive to do the right thing and to help others always wins in the end. I really like characters discovering power and its ensuing possibilities, and grappling not only with whether or not they can, but also with whether or not they should.

In this book, we also got some insight into Kashmir’s thoughts via a few chapters from his POV scattered throughout the book. At first, I wasn’t too thrilled about this because I thought the POV shifts would be regular and I wanted to stay with Nix, but the author managed to intersperse Nix’s narrative with the perfect amount of Kashmir chapters, and I ended up loving them, too.

I only wish that there had been better queer rep because the only queer character having lost their spouse, though remaining married to their ghost, tastes a bit sour with the lack of overall wlw representation. Bee’s and Ayen’s relationship is incredibly sweet, but it would be improved by both of them being alive. It’s also a shame that there wasn’t any disability rep, unless you count Slate’s addiction.

Ultimately, though, this series so well-written and filled with things I love (history! mythology! heists! found family!) and the POC representation was so good that I really can’t envision giving The Girl from Everywhere anything but the full five stars.

Have you read The Girl From Everywhere? Did you like it? Let me know what you think in the comments below!

BOOK REVIEW: Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann

Rating: (3.5 out of 5)

Alice had her whole summer planned. Non-stop all-you-can-eat buffets while marathoning her favorite TV shows (best friends totally included) with the smallest dash of adulting–working at the library to pay her share of the rent. The only thing missing from her perfect plan? Her girlfriend (who ended things when Alice confessed she’s asexual). Alice is done with dating–no thank you, do not pass go, stick a fork in her, done.

But then Alice meets Takumi and she can’t stop thinking about him or the rom com-grade romance feels she did not ask for (uncertainty, butterflies, and swoons, oh my!).

When her blissful summer takes an unexpected turn, and Takumi becomes her knight with a shiny library employee badge (close enough), Alice has to decide if she’s willing to risk their friendship for a love that might not be reciprocated—or understood.

Let’s Talk About Love is Claire Kann’s debut YA novel featuring Alice, a black asexual biromantic girl, as the lead. It’s this promise of amazing representation that made me pick up this novel, even though I don’t usually go for non-speculative YA. It’s not that I don’t like or respect the genre, but I tend to not enjoy it as much as speculative fiction. I just don’t get as easily invested when the stakes are interpersonal relationships rather than, say, the fate of the world, but I don’t feel like that’s a shortcoming of the genre.

However, I did feel like the drama in Let’s Talk About Love was sometimes overly manufactured, to the point where it honestly didn’t make sense to me. This especially goes for the conflict between Alice and her almost life-long best friend Feenie. Feenie’s issues with Alice seemed completely unreasonable to me, but that’s not how they were treated, which was confusing and frustrating.

In addition, the narrative voice tried a tad too hard to be whimsical, while missing the mark on humour for me. I was still able to enjoy it though, and I ended up being very invested in the outcome of Alice’s relationship with Takumi. And most importantly, the asexual representation made me feel so seen and understood.

I’ve never in my life read a book with an asexual main character whose asexuality was spelled out so explicitly. Although it irked me that the author chose to include objects and animals under aesthethic attraction, there were other passages that made me feel so happy. There is some ace-phobia that’s also intertwined with racism and the hypersexualisation of black women, but it is made clear that those attitudes are ace-phobic and racist. That doesn’t mean they might not still be upsetting for some people, hence why I’m including this warning.

Ultimately, though, I found this a heartwarming read. Let’s Talk About Love is going to be so important for so many asexual kids out there, especially asexual black girls, and just for that I’m glad it exists even though it didn’t tick all the boxes for me personally. And now I’m going to leave you with my absolute favourite passage from the book that may or may not have made me tear up a little.

I want someone to give me flowers and take me on dates. I want to fall in love and wear a giant princess dress at my wedding. I want to have a happy ending, too, and all that other magical stuff. I want what books and TV and the world has promised me. It’s not fair that I should have to want sex to have it.

Also, there’s good news for YA lovers: Claire Kann has another YA rom-com featuring a queer fat black girl and a baking competition, If It Makes You Happy, coming out in June 2019. It sounds great, so I’m definitely considering giving it a read.

BOOK REVIEW: They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

My library hold of They Both Die at the End came through right after the author, Adam Silvera, had initiated a Twitter debate by scolding readers for pirating his book. I don’t condone piracy in general, but I disagree with the popular stance that books are luxury items, and I strongly believe that poor marginalised readers, especially kids and teens, should not be blamed for large-scale industry problems. (Some tweets about this issue.)

The solution to writers being systematically undervalued by the publishing industry is not to scold poor people, it’s to change the industry in a way that will allow authors to make a living wage even while broadening access to their works. Poor marginalised readers often have restricted or no access to books they can see themselves in, while at the same time having the greatest need for them, and I do not blame anyone in that situation for accessing these books the only way they can. But I digress.

What I’m getting at is that this situation caused me to pick up They Both Die at the End with some trepidation. I always like to give marginalised authors a fair chance though, so I tried to approach it with an open mind in spite of my reservations.

Rating: (1 out of 5)

On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They’re going to die today.

Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they’re both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news: There’s an app for that. It’s called the Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure—to live a lifetime in a single day.

For a book promising a “great adventure”, They Both Die at the End moves rather slowly. It’s a very short book, and much of it is wasted on boring exposition, but without ever delving into how our world evolved into what it is in the book. To me, that was relevant information, so the lack of explanation was grating.

The main characters are Mateo and Rufus, both queer Latinx boys. Unfortunately, I immediately developed an intense dislike for both of them because they’re insufferably melodramatic and self-important. Mateo, a boilerplate decent human, is repeatedly described as being oh so quirky for being kind. Rufus, on the other hand, is introduced while almost beating another boy to death out of jealousy over a girl. That’s pretty damning behaviour in my book, but the author is adamant about trying to convince the reader that the beating was an out of character transgression, and that Rufus is really a good person.

These characterisations really turned me off the main characters, and it was hard to connect with them or for the emotional stakes to ever get off the ground. I was ecstatic when I found myself rooting for them at one point in the last third of the book, but the emotional connection didn’t last.

The world-building and introduction of seemingly random but in fact interconnected characters kept hinting at a bigger overarching plot that the author never delivered on. The ending was very anticlimactic and the only emotions it left me with were confusion and dissatisfaction. The story consisted entirely of meandering strings that the author refused to wrap up. Silvera may have been aiming for profundity with the open ending, but the execution was floundering and struggled to create any emotional pay-off. In general, the writing was too heavy on pathos and melodrama to be enjoyable for me.

I know a lot of people love this book, and it’s exciting that Silvera is writing own voices books about queer boys of colour, but for me, this really missed the mark. To top it all off, the author included a completely unnecessary jab at homeless people, which re-confirmed that even people coming from poverty can have deeply internalised classist attitudes. Considering these attitudes of Silvera’s and my general dislike of his writing, it’s unlikely that I will be picking up any other books by this author.

BOOK SERIES REVIEW: The Graceling Trilogy by Kristin Cashore

I only really warmed up to the Graceling trilogy by Kristin Cashore with the second book, Fire (haha, get it? warmed up?) I’m so glad I stuck with it after my initial reservations because it just kept getting better and better. This is why all three books ended up with different ratings:

Graceling: (3 out of 5 Ramblebees)

Fire: (4 out of 5 Ramblebees)

Bitterblue: (5 out of 5 Ramblebees)

The overarching theme of the trilogy is young women finding their place in the world in the face of difficult choices, and reclaiming their kindness in adverse circumstances, both of which happen to be some of my favourite tropes.

Graceling is the first book in the trilogy. It tells the story of Lady Katsa, niece and executor to her tyrannical uncle, King Randa of the Midluns in the Seven Kingdoms. Marked as a graceling by her differently coloured eyes and graced with killing, she’s a threat to all who cross King Randa, until she decides to defy her uncle. She builds an underground organisation known as the Council which fights against the many abuses of power in the Seven Kingdoms. In the course of her work with the organisation, Katsa realises King Leck of Monsea is not all that he claims to be. As she races to rescue his ten-year-old daughter from his tyrannical clutches, she not only discovers new truths but new strengths as well.

Fire, the second book in the trilogy, is a prequel to Graceling. Set in a country East of the Seven Kingdoms, it tells the story of the Lady Fire, a so-called monster with colourful hair and the gift of reading and molding people’s thoughts. Her now dead monster father and abuser, once adviser to the king, has plunged the kingdom into upheaval with his taste for chaos. With civil war imminent, Fire has to decide whether or not to use her abilities without becoming like her father.

The third book, Bitterblue, picks up eight years after Graceling left off. The now eighteen-year-old Bitterblue is Queen of Monsea but feels like she has no knowledge about or control over her kingdom. Her advisers’ curious lies and evasions both about her father’s past reign and the present conditions in the kingdom lead her to investigate. With the support of Katsa and her Council friends, Bitterblue sets off in search of the truth and discovers that the wounds from her father’s reign she considered healed are more present than ever, and that it will be a long road towards recovery.

I enjoyed Graceling well enough, but it had a few flaws that nearly made me abandon the trilogy. The world-building was interesting and I liked the characters and their relationships with each other, especially the bond between Katsa and Bitterblue. However, plot-wise the book felt closer to a draft than a finished product. All of the important story elements were there, but they were rather loosely connected and didn’t quite knit together into a satisfying arc. The story could have benefitted from being stretched out a little, which would have made the plot twists less predictable.

I had gone into this book with high expectations because it had been recommended to me as great asexual representation several times, so I was a bit disappointed that the writing let down the great premise and characters. However, a friend assured me that I would enjoy the remaining books in the trilogy which led me to pick up Fire after all.

Fire still had some of the same weaknesses that Graceling did, but less markedly so. I again would have preferred a bit more stringency in pulling all the different story elements together, but the plot was overall coherent and satisfying. In spite of this, I found myself wishing time and time again that Fire had been the first book in the trilogy. I suspect that the author chose to publish the books out of chronological order so that the revelation of Leck’s grace would have more of an impact, but as mentioned above the twists in Graceling were predictable due to its slight incoherency. Only a couple of tweaks would have been necessary to publish the books in chronological order, which in my opinion would have worked in favour of coherency. Looking back while reading Fire, I appreciated Graceling a lot more, and I feel like I would have enjoyed it more if I had read Fire first.

The final book in the trilogy, Bitterblue, unequivocally blew me away. It picked up all the loose ends from the previous two books and combined them masterfully into a nail-biting finale. Cashore’s writing evolves wonderfully throughout the trilogy, and it was fascinating to see her real skills unfold and shine in this third book. The characters’ motivations were more implicit, which held me in suspense waiting for the myriad questions and inconsistencies to be resolved. Being fed the conclusion trickle by trickle was sweet agonising torture and I loved every bit of it. Bitterblue coming into her own as both a woman and a queen was exciting to watch. It was a bit different from both Katsa’s and Fire’s arcs considering that both of them had an inherent physical power that they needed to come to grips with, while Bitterblue had to consolidate and grow into a less tangible power, but the overarching theme was still very much present, tying all three of the books together.

I appreciated the fact that all three of the female main characters were allowed to be emotional and unreasonable at times without being labelled as hysterical. Emotional outbursts were treated as natural, and they didn’t result in the other characters respecting either Katsa, Fire, or Bitterblue any less.

In addition to her great treatment of women, Cashore also had a diverse cast of characters. Characters’ differing looks and complexions were described casually. There were a number of physically disabled characters. One important character and love interest loses his eyesight, another supporting character is without use of his legs and uses a wheelchair, and one of the main characters loses two fingers due to frostbite and has to relearn how to use her hand. Of course, there are also a whole slew of characters who suffer from trauma and related mental illness. A word of warning though: the circumstances that these characters’ trauma results from are brutal and upsetting, including emotional and physical abuse and even rape, so the trilogy might be triggering for some readers.

The queer representation was okay. Katsa can very easily be read as being on the asexual and aromantic spectrum, while Fire explicitly states her attraction to women and men. In spite of two out of three main characters being queer women though, all of the main relationships in the Graceling trilogy are M/F, which I found a bit disappointing. There are however two explicitly queer supporting couples, one of them F/F and one of them M/M.

Overall, I really ended up loving this trilogy, even though it didn’t start out as strong as it could have.