Review: Iron Widow

Title: Iron Widow

Series: Iron Widow #1

Author: Xiran Jay Zhao

Genre: Science Fantasy (it’s clearly and obviously science fiction but it feels like fantasy)

Trigger Warnings: Misogyny (severe), sexism (severe), child abuse, domestic abuse, death, death of parents, child death, blood, injury, torture, body horror (mild), non-consentual being inside someone’s mind/having someone in your mind, alcohol, alcoholism, suicidal ideation, sexual content

Back Cover:

Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid’s Tale in this blend of Chinese history and mecha science fiction for YA readers.

The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.

When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.​

To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed.

Review:

I had some reservations about this book going in that had nothing to do with the book itself. The author is a YouTuber that my husband watches (he’s the one who told me about this book), but I haven’t seen any of their videos. I knew nothing about the book besides its back cover. What had me worried is that I put it on hold at my library, which told me that based on the number of people ahead of me it would be about a 17-week wait. Five weeks later, I got a notification that it was ready to borrow. As I told my husband, either it was so good that people were devouring it and finishing it fast or it was so bad that people were giving up fast.

Luckily, the former was the case. This book is fantastic.

It was also very hard to read at many points. Misogyny is something I find it hard to read about, especially when it gets extreme, and everything in the world of Iron Widow is built on misogyny. There is foot-binding in this world. The only use of daughters is selling them off to be wives or die in battle. Chrysalises are the only defense against the invading aliens, and when a man and a woman get into one, only the man will survive.

Zetian is angry and she has every right to be. Her family only cares about the money she can bring in through either a bride price or a war death payment for dying in a Chrysalis. They are only sad about her older sister’s death because she was murdered outside of a Chrysalis and therefore her family didn’t get the payment. Her father and grandfather are violent and abusive, her mother and grandmother are cowed, and she knows they do not love her. If they want to sell her to her death anyway, the death penalty for killing the male pilot who murdered her sister won’t be anything worse.

This acceptance of death made her absolutely fearless, and I loved it. The perfect girl is beautiful and silent, moving slowly on her bound feet, obeying every order and taking insults and abuse without complaint. None of the men Zetian encounters have any idea what to do with a girl who has accepted she’s going to die and therefore sees no point in trying to avoid the wrath of men. She is an absolute delight of fury, and I love it when books let girls embrace their rage.

I don’t know if Xiran intended this, but Zetian’s bound feet were relatable disability feels. I don’t have bound feet, but I do have a chronic pain condition that especially likes to screw up my hips, knees, and other joints required for walking, and I absolutely related to the frustration and anger and feeling of being limited that comes with every step hurting, needing a mobility aid like a cane to walk longer distances, and knowing that it will never be fixed. I have no idea how much of what’s in the book is accurate to actual footbinding practices, but it was definitely relatable to my experience of mobility- and pain-related disability.

The themes in this book aren’t really subtle, especially the whole thing about a misogynistic society. I absolutely loved the progression of it, though. Zetian knows that there is misogyny in the world and that she and her sister have no worth outside of supporting, serving, and dying for men simply because they’re women. She starts the book blaming individual men, with the goal of murdering the individual man who murdered her sister. But the book takes her along a journey from “individual men are the problem” to “the system is the problem” as she learned more about the individual men and the system.

And if you’re not here for themes – well, I think you’d be missing out on a lot of what makes this book great, but you do get epic mecha battles, magic with a thin veneer of science used to fight invading aliens, psychic fights in a mental realm, good old-fashioned fisticuffs, powerful prisoners with hearts of gold, underdogs teaming up to give the people in charge a gigantic middle finger, a love triangle that ended in the best way possible, and several amazing twists (only one of which I suspected).

This review is already getting long, and I haven’t even mentioned the rich and complex world-building, the amazing twists, the rich atmosphere, the fantastic relationships between Zetian and the two love interests in the triangle, the minor themes about women who participate in their own oppression, and all the other wonderful things in this book. It’s fantastic. Everything about is dark and gorgeous and burning with fury and flame. I adore this book.

I also recommend checking out the author’s website. There’s character profiles, fanart, and even memes (mild spoiler warning for how the love triangle shakes out, though).

The Iron Widow series:

1. Iron Widow
2. Heavenly Tyrant

Review: Empress of Forever

Title: Empress of Forever

Author: Max Gladstone

Genre: Science Fiction

Trigger Warnings: Sexual content, death, genocide, violence, blood, body horror (severe), existential dread, drowning, kidnapping, cisnormative language, confinement, torture, vomit (mentions)

Back Cover:

A wildly successful innovator and Silicon Valley tech billionaire, Vivian Liao is prone to radical thinking, quick decision-making, and reckless action. On the eve of her greatest achievement, she’s trying to outrun those who are trying to steal her success.

In the chilly darkness of a Boston server farm, Viv sets her ultimate plan into motion. A terrifying instant later, Vivian Liao is catapulted through space and time to a far future where she confronts a destiny stranger and more deadly than she could ever imagine.

The end of time is ruled by an ancient, powerful Empress who blesses or blasts entire planets with a single thought. Rebellion is literally impossible to consider–until Vivian arrives. Trapped between the Pride, a ravening horde of sentient machines, and a fanatical sect of warrior monks who call themselves the Mirrorfaith, Viv must rally a strange group of allies to confront the Empress and find a way back to the world and life she left behind.

A magnificent work of vivid imagination and universe-spanning action, Empress of Forever is a feminist Guardians of the Galaxy crossed with Star Wars and spiced with the sensibility and spirit of Iain M. Banks and William Gibson.

Review:

I’ve been in a reading slump for a while (as evidenced by the distinct lack of reviews on this blog). I DNF’ed Warbreaker, I listened to a couple 12-hour lecture series, “read” an entire book of philosophical essays while retaining none of it, DNF’ed another book that I didn’t bother to review, and none of the books I had available to me sounded interesting. Eventually I gave my husband a brief summary of all the books I had available and asked him to pick for me, and he picked this one.

And I’m so glad he did. This book is 20 hours long and I enjoyed every moment of it.

Viv is a fantastic protagonist. She has no idea what’s happening and she desperately wants to get home, but she didn’t become a tech billionaire twice by avoiding action and moaning about the life she left behind, and she absolutely is not going to let a little thing like not understanding how this weird new world works stop her from getting what she wants. She is in many ways the weakest member of the “team” she’s gathered, but she makes up for it in tenacity, being The One In Charge, and some strange powers of her own. She is also very flawed as a human being, but she is forced to address it.

The rest of the “team” are also amazing. There’s a cat-woman with a temper who also happens to be a legendary villain who destroyed whole stars in her heyday; a monk (the martial arts kind) who has sorta-kinda gone rogue from his order but not really; a tribal chieftain’s daughter who is also a spaceship; and a sentient AI whose body is entirely made up of nanobots that take whatever shape he wants. They’re all unique and fantastic and I love how the dynamic develops between them and each other and them and Viv.

I also absolutely love the setting. It’s space, so it’s very sci-fi and high tech, but each place they land is a new culture, a new setting, a new world with its own people and quirks and history. There’s peaceful agrarian socialist planets, tribal warriors developed out of the wreckage of high-tech civilizations, and dead fleets floating in space. Each moment of travel is a brand new adventure and yet every place felt vibrant and fully-realized.

If you want plot twists, this book has plot twists. There were no less than three times where I nearly said “holy shit” out loud because there was a new revelation and suddenly it all made sense. I definitely could have seen them coming, but I didn’t. This book also holds the record for earliest fake-out ending – I thought I must be getting close to the end, then I checked the timestamp and realized I was only 63% in and there was still 7 hours of adventure left.

There’s so many twists and revelations that I don’t feel I can say much about the plot itself without giving something away. But it is absolutely worth experiencing for yourself. “Guardians of the Galaxy” is a fairly apt comparison, although because of the Empress I think “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” is more accurate. If you like found families, awesome high-tech space settings, sci-fi that almost but not quite feels like magic, brilliant characters who have to face their flaws, and/or multiple plot twists, you’ll like this book.

Review: The Library of the Unwritten

Title: The Library of the Unwritten

Series: Hell’s Library #1

Author: A.J. Hackwith

Genre: Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Suicide, blood, death, guns

Back Cover:

Many years ago, Claire was named Head Librarian of the Unwritten Wing—a neutral space in Hell where all the stories unfinished by their authors reside. Her job consists mainly of repairing and organizing books, but also of keeping an eye on restless stories that risk materializing as characters and escaping the library. When a Hero escapes from his book and goes in search of his author, Claire must track and capture him with the help of former muse and current assistant Brevity and nervous demon courier Leto.

But what should have been a simple retrieval goes horrifyingly wrong when the terrifyingly angelic Ramiel attacks them, convinced that they hold the Devil’s Bible. The text of the Devil’s Bible is a powerful weapon in the power struggle between Heaven and Hell, so it falls to the librarians to find a book with the power to reshape the boundaries between Heaven, Hell … and Earth.

Review:

It’s taken me a while to write this review. This was the book I picked up directly after putting down Dune, and I’ve finished and reviewed three books (and finished but not yet reviewed a fourth) before I actually managed to write a review.

Mostly that’s because I’m overall ambivalent about the book. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. But I didn’t sit down to review it immediately, and with a few days’ distance between me and finishing the book, I couldn’t remember what I liked so much about it – or much about it at all, really.

The main selling point of this book is the concept. All creative works that were started (or even thoroughly imagined) by their creators but never completed reside in the Library of the Unwritten, which technically is in Hell but is not actually part of Hell’s domain. Though the Library has all sorts of unfinished creative works, like tapestries, paintings, and swords, the bulk of the Library is unwritten books. Sometimes the books get restless, the characters manifest in the real world, and then Claire has to go find them and put them back in their book.

The main cast of characters are Claire the librarian, her assistant Brevity, demon Leto, escaped book charcter Hero, and angel Ramiel, backed up by a secondary cast of characters that include a demon ex-duke-current-arcanist, an angel very close to having a mental break, and a viking bard from the middle ages. They were fine to read about in the moment and none of them felt like I couldn’t relate or connect, but I really can’t remember much about any of them.

One thing this book does do well, though, is surprises. From Leto’s identity to unexpected traitors to secrets about Claire’s past, there were a lot of plot twists that I didn’t see coming. I like and appreciate that in a book, and I think that’s a large part of why I enjoyed the story despite the whole thing being mostly forgettable – it kept me guessing.

Like I said at the beginning, I completely enjoyed the story while I was reading it and was fully prepared to give a five-star review. But now I can’t remember why. It has a great concept and some solid plot twists, but it wasn’t outstanding. And the ending left enough room for a sequel while still being a complete ending, so I don’t have to continue. I may pick up book two eventually, though, because if it’s anything like this one it will be at least entertaining, if not memorable.

Novels from Hell’s Library:

1. The Library of the Unwritten
2. The Archive of the Forgotten
3. The God of Lost Words

Review: Avi Cantor Has Six Months to Live

Title: Avi Cantor Has Six Months to Live

Author: Sacha Lamb

Genre: Contemporary with Supernatural elements

Trigger Warnings: Misgendering (mention), deadnaming (mention), bullying, depression, suicidal ideation

Back Cover:

Avi Cantor Has Six Months To Live

Avi comes across these foreboding words scrawled on the bathroom mirror, but what do they mean? Is this a curse, a prediction, or a threat from Avi’s emboldened bullies? And how to they know his real name when he hasn’t even told his mother yet?

Then there is Ian—the cool new guy at school, who is suddenly paying attention to Avi. Ian is just like Avi, but he is also all sunshine, optimism, and magic. All the things that Avi doesn’t know how to deal with…yet.

Review:

I know I just posted about a Sacha Lamb story yesterday, but I think I’ve found a new favorite author. I’m not even into contemporary stories that much but everything Sacha Lamb writes is just so good!

This is a novella, so it’s pretty short, but it still manages to draw a wonderful set of dynamic and real characters. Avi is a closeted Jewish trans guy relentlessly bullied at school, depressed, and very much alone. It doesn’t even bother him that he supposedly has only six months to live because he’s not sure how much he wants to keep living anyway. Ian is also a trans guy, but personality-wise the exact opposite of Avi – he’s happy, optimistic, and pulls Avi into his orbit of light and joy and his happy and accepting and magical family. It’s a story about Avi’s relationship with Ian and its ups and downs and it’s affects on his life, and you know, if it takes literal magic to give Avi a happy ending then I’ll accept it.

Despite there being literal magic in this book, it definitely had a more contemporary feel. This is first and foremost a story about Avi healing, and secondly a story about a very sweet relationship. The magic is just icing on the cake. It’s not a story about a relationship fixing someone, but it’s about how much having a support system and people who love and care about and accept you can help.

This is just such a sweet story. Avi is deep in depression but Ian is just so full of hope that it rubs off everywhere. And did I mention the happy ending? It gets dark at times but I love this story so much.

And the whole novella is available online for free here!

Review: The Olive Conspiracy (DNF)

Title: The Olive Conspiracy

Series: Mangoverse #4

Author: Shira Glassman

Genre: High Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Sexual content (heterosexual and homosexual), death, breastfeeding

Spoiler Warning: This book is fourth in a series, so this review might contain spoilers of the previous three Mangoverse books. If spoilers matter to you, proceed with caution!

Back Cover:

A love story between women, between queen and country, and between farmers and their crops.

When Ezra tries to blackmail Chef Yael about her being trans, she throws him out of her restaurant and immediately reports him to the queen. But when police find Ezra stabbed to death, Queen Shulamit realizes he may have also tried to extort someone more dangerous than a feisty old lady.

The royal investigation leads straight to an international terrorist plot to destroy her country’s economy—and worse, her first love, Crown Princess Carolina of Imbrio, may be involved. Since she’s got a dragon-shifting wizard at her disposal, contacts with friendly foreign witches, and the support of her partner Aviva, Shulamit has hope. What she doesn’t have is time.

Read To: 57%

Review:

I really, really hate to not finish this book. I thoroughly enjoyed The Second Mango and Climbing the Date Palm, and A Harvest of Ripe Figs was good. I follow the author on Goodreads, and overall am just very fond of this series. But I found myself avoiding reading this book, so I think it’s time to call it a “did not finish.”

So why didn’t I like this one enough to finish it? Several reasons. First, the parenthood aspect. Such a big part of the story is the fact that Shulamit (and Aviva) is a mother now. I do not have kids, probably won’t ever have kids (by choice), and the most I encounter young kids is occasional video calls with my sister-in-law and her toddler and baby. I think it’s awesome that some people really want kids and more power to them, but I found the whole parenthood aspect in this story profoundly uninteresting.

Second, the awkwardness of the Princess Carolina subplot. When Shulamit was younger, she had a crush on Princess Carolina, and now that she thinks Princess Carolina might be behind this terrorist plot, there’s a bunch of intentionally awkward emotions that come up. Awkwardness is one of the few things I can’t stand in my entertainment, and it made me wince every time it came up.

Third, this is another mystery plot. I established in my review of A Harvest of Ripe Figs that mystery plots aren’t really my thing. Not a fault of the book – that one’s entirely on me.

I am fond of this series, and I’m really disappointed that this book just didn’t do it at all for me. But to the best of my understanding, the fifth book is a short story collection, so I think I’ll just skip over this one and read the next. And who knows, I own this book on Kindle – maybe I’ll come back and finish it someday.

The Mangoverse Series:

1. The Second Mango
2. Climbing the Date Palm: A Labor Rights Love Story
3. A Harvest of Ripe Figs
4. The Olive Conspiracy
5. Tales from Perach

Review: A Harvest of Ripe Figs

Title: A Harvest of Ripe Figs

Series: Mangoverse #3

Author: Shira Glassman

Genre: High Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Emotionally abusive relationships, sexual content (heterosexual and homosexual)

Spoiler Warning: This book is third in a series, so this review probably contains spoilers of the previous two books, The Second Mango and Climbing the Date Palm. Proceed with caution!

Back Cover:

Esther of the Singing Hands is Perach’s Sweetheart, a young and beautiful musician with a Girl Next Door image. When her violin is stolen after a concert in the capital city, she doesn’t expect the queen herself to show up, intent upon solving the mystery.

But Queen Shulamit–lesbian, intellectual, and mother of the six month old crown princess–loves to play detective. With the help of her legendary bodyguard Rivka and her dragon, and with the support of her partner Aviva the Chef, Shulamit turns her mind toward the solution–which she quickly begins to suspect involves the use of illegal magic that could threaten the safety of her citizens.

Review:

Let me say this: I did not enjoy this book as much as the previous Mangoverse books. That’s not really any fault of the book, though. This book is first and foremost a mystery story, and I’m just not a huge fan of mysteries.

The plot focuses on the mystery of Esther’s missing violin, which also leads into the related mystery of “who’s using this illegal magic and where is it coming from.” As far as mysteries go, it wasn’t bad – like I said, I’m just not a huge fan of mysteries. And because this is a mystery, unlike the previous Mangoverse books, you will miss things if you try to read it in bits and pieces.

I also didn’t enjoy Shulamit as much this time around – but again, not really the book’s fault. Shulamit and Aviva are now parents, and most of their characterization in this book focused on their challenges as new parents to a baby. And as someone who has never had a child, that part wasn’t very relatable (or honestly, interesting) to me.

Beyond that, the major characters really haven’t changed much. Which isn’t a bad thing, since they’re all good, solid characters and I like them a lot. (See my review of Climbing the Date Palm for more specifics.)

This book also introduces a lot of new characters, most of whom were there because of the mystery aspects (suspects and/or witnesses) and I doubt they’ll be in future books. In some parts it gets kind of confusing because there’s so many different characters running around, and none of them are particularly interesting.

Okay, from reading this review so far you might get the impression that I don’t like this book at all. Which is not true. I didn’t like this book as much as the previous two, no, but I still enjoyed it. It was a lighthearted read, quick and fun, with solid characters, a good plot, and stakes that never seem super high. It’s a relaxation read, just like the other books in the series, and I definitely enjoyed it for that. And I will be continuing the series.

The Mangoverse Series:

1. The Second Mango
2. Climbing the Date Palm: A Labor Rights Love Story
3. A Harvest of Ripe Figs
4. The Olive Conspiracy
5. Tales from Perach

Review: As I Descended (DNF)

Title: As I Descended

Author: Robin Talley

Genre: Contemporary/Paranormal

Trigger Warnings: Drug use, alcohol use by minors, blood, death

Read to: Page 134 (39%)

Back Cover:

Maria Lyon and Lily Boiten are their school’s ultimate power couple—even if no one knows it but them.

Only one thing stands between them and their perfect future: campus superstar Delilah Dufrey.

Golden child Delilah is a legend at the exclusive Acheron Academy, and the presumptive winner of the distinguished Cawdor Kingsley Prize. She runs the school, and if she chose, she could blow up Maria and Lily’s whole world with a pointed look, or a carefully placed word.

But what Delilah doesn’t know is that Lily and Maria are willing to do anything—absolutely anything—to make their dreams come true. And the first step is unseating Delilah for the Kingsley Prize. The full scholarship, awarded to Maria, will lock in her attendance at Stanford―and four more years in a shared dorm room with Lily.

Maria and Lily will stop at nothing to ensure their victory—including harnessing the dark power long rumored to be present on the former plantation that houses their school.

But when feuds turn to fatalities, and madness begins to blur the distinction between what’s real and what is imagined, the girls must decide where they draw the line.

Review:

This book is dark. Like, really dark. I probably found it darker than it actually was because I couldn’t get over the fact that these characters are high school seniors. They’re practically kids. And yet they’re doing hard drugs, drinking a lot, fighting and backstabbing and cheating to get ahead … maybe it’s because it’s so alien to my experience of high school (to be fair, I was homeschooled), but it just seemed really, really dark.

Let’s talk about the characters – or at least, what little there is of them. The characters themselves take a back seat to the rivalry between them. There’s Maria, who’s super smart and a good girl rule-follower and whose scores in everything are just behind Delilah, who is a druggie and party girl willing to cheat (or sleep with people) to get ahead. “Disabled” isn’t really a personality trait, but it seems to make up the bulk of Lily, and there’s also Maria’s friend Brandon, who is mostly just fat and gay. All of them are flat, and a lot of it reads like traits thrown in for diversity points.

The back cover promised a supernatural element, but beyond a creepy seance at the beginning and Maria experiencing some probably-a-ghost occurrences, there really wasn’t anything supernatural up to the point where I stopped reading. There wasn’t even anything supernatural involved in unseating Delilah and the death – it was all drugs. Which was pretty disappointing to me, because the main reason I picked this book up was for the supernatural element.

And that’s a big part of why I put it down. There wasn’t much of the supernatural like I wanted, it was so dark, and I couldn’t handle all the drugs and watching these kids destroy themselves and each other over … what? A scholarship? Rivalries? It’s high school. None of it will be that big of a deal in five years. Maria and Lily are acting like the scholarship is the only way for them to even see each other again after they graduate, and I’m pretty sure there are other options, even if they can’t go to the same college.

I enjoy a lot of YA books, but I’m just too old for this one. Having graduated college and being a bona fide Adult, reading about this high school drama just made me sad that these kids lacked perspective. It would probably be better enjoyed by someone actually in high school who doesn’t have the adult perspective I do.

Review: Climbing the Date Palm

Title: Climbing the Date Palm: A Labor Rights Love Story

Series: Mangoverse #2

Author: Shira Glassman

Genre: High Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Threat of death, sexual content (implied or lightly described), homophobia

Spoiler Warnings: This book is second in a series, so this review will probably contain spoilers of the first book, The Second Mango.

Back Cover:

Prince Kaveh, the youngest son of the king of the City of Red Clay, is bisexual, and completely besotted with Farzin, the engineer his father hired to oversee the improvements to the city’s roads and bridges. However, the king doesn’t share his positive feelings. After Farzin ends up at the head of the protest that ensues when the workers are only paid a third of their promised wages, he’s thrown in prison and is scheduled to be executed.

Queen Shulamit, who rules over the neighboring nation of Perach, is eager to assist the desperate prince. She, too, loves justice and has a same-sex partner. She’s also hoping Kaveh, with his royal blood, is willing to give her and her sweetheart a legitimate heir in exchange. But can she find a peaceful solution that will pacify the king next door, get his workers fairly paid, and free Farzin? Or will she and her dragon-riding bodyguard Rivka have to go to war?

Review:

This story was very similar to the first book in the series, The Second Mango – in feel, that is, not in plot. Like the first book, Climbing the Date Palm was a fun, entertaining, not-very-deep story. However, it did go a bit darker than the first book.

Climbing the Date Palm introduces a whole new set of characters in a whole new kingdom, the main one being the bisexual Prince Kaveh, whose main personality trait seemed to be “being head-over-heels for this one guy.” Although, considering the circumstances of this one guy being sentenced to death, that can be forgiven. He kind of had that weak, wimpy younger prince trope going on, but overall I didn’t mind him.

I loved Shulamit again in this book. She’s brave, kind, and getting better at wielding her queenly power for the good of others. She feels scared and uncertain, and then she does what’s right anyway, and I admire her. The other major characters from The Second Mango, namely Rivka, Isaac, and Aviva, also play important roles, and they’re still great. Isaac gets a bigger part in this book, and he’s clever and fun to read about. Rivka is still awesome. And Aviva gets a bigger role and she’s sweet and supportive and a great complement to intellectual Shulamit.

As far as plot goes, this book mostly fixed the problem I had with book one – namely, that the problems didn’t have very high stakes. The stakes in this book involved a man’s life, war (if Shulamit and company can’t find a peaceful way to save Farzin) and the fate of an entire country (Perach if Shulamit doesn’t get a legitimate heir somehow). While it is pretty straightforward without any real twists, it was enough to keep me interested and thoroughly entertained.

There’s still not a whole lot about the setting in this book, but again, what you do get is great, and I love how Perach’s culture is based on Judaism. Since this is the second book with not a lot of setting details, I don’t have super high hopes for getting more in future books, but I can dream.

I only have one real problem, and it’s kind of nitpicky – the subtitle. I appreciate what Shira Glassman was trying to do with the whole pro-union message, but the banding together of the workers against the king didn’t actually work. That was the whole plot, that the king just ignored the workers’ attempts to unionize, imprisoned the person he felt was responsible, and Shulamit had to step in.

Overall, while it did have its problems, Climbing the Date Palm was fun, mostly lighthearted, entertaining, and just a great light read when you want something simple but enjoyable. I’m excited for book three.

The Mangoverse Series:

1. The Second Mango
2. Climbing the Date Palm: A Labor Rights Love Story
3. A Harvest of Ripe Figs
4. The Olive Conspiracy
5. Tales from Perach

Review: The Second Mango

Image from Goodreads

Title: The Second Mango

Series: Mangoverse #1

Author: Shira Glassman

Genre: High Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Death, kidnapping, f/f sex (barely described), m/f sex (implied)

Back Cover:

Queen Shulamit never expected to inherit the throne of the tropical land of Perach so young. At twenty, grief-stricken and fatherless, she’s also coping with being the only lesbian she knows after her sweetheart ran off for an unknown reason. Not to mention, she’s the victim of severe digestive problems that everybody thinks she’s faking. When she meets Rivka, an athletic and assertive warrior from the north who wears a mask and pretends to be a man, she finds the source of strength she needs so desperately.

Unfortunately for her, Rivka is straight, but that’s okay — Shulamit needs a surrogate big sister just as much as she needs a girlfriend. Especially if the warrior’s willing to take her around the kingdom on the back of her dragon in search of other women who might be open to same-sex romance. The real world outside the palace is full of adventure, however, and the search for a royal girlfriend quickly turns into a rescue mission when they discover a temple full of women turned to stone by an evil sorcerer.

Review:

I’ve had this book on my to-read book for a while after discovering Shira Glassman somewhere on Tumblr and picked it up because the ebook was cheap on Amazon. It’s short and it was a quick read, and I did enjoy the story. But I do have some reservations about it.

So let’s talk about what was good. The characters were great. Shulamit is a solid character, and even though she seemed a little too focused on sex (although that could just be me, since I’m asexual and don’t really think about sex at all), she had a lot of complicated feelings that made her really likable. She also has serious food allergies (celiac disease and a poultry allergy) that cause her a lot of problems, which added an interesting dimension.

The other major character, Rivka the warrior, was also well done – and interestingly, you actually get more of her backstory than Shulamit’s. Her history makes for a great dramatic story and she has some emotional pain she’s dealing with, which makes her especially enjoyable to read. She also has a great dynamic with Shulamit and I loved watching the two girls interact.

Information about the setting was sparse, but what there was was solid. I’m hoping future books in the series have more of it, because I’d love to learn more about Perach and how it works. The plot also wrapped up nicely and it had a great happy ending that I thoroughly loved.

Now let’s talk about the not-so-good stuff. Namely, the tension, or lack thereof. The plot is super straightforward (there’s only one twist, and it has more to do with Rivka’s emotional arc than the actual plot) and the tension never ramps up. They meet a problem, they solve it. They meet a problem, they solve it. They meet a problem, their lives are in danger for a few moments, they solve the problem. The tension is minimal, they never run into other problems while solving a different problem, and in a lot of ways it just feels too easy.

But even given that, did I enjoy it? Yes, thoroughly. It was light and fun, and though it was missing a lot of the complexity I was expecting from a fantasy novel, sometimes simplicity is good and I missed next to nothing reading it in bits and pieces. It was a fun romp and I just bought book two – I’m looking forward to continuing the simple, light adventure in the Mangoverse.

The Mangoverse Series:

1. The Second Mango
2. Climbing the Date Palm: A Labor Rights Love Story
3. A Harvest of Ripe Figs
4. The Olive Conspiracy
5. Tales from Perach

Webcomic Spotlight: SuperCakes

Title: SuperCakes

Author: Kat Leyh

Genre: Superhero

Trigger Warnings: Nonrealistic violence (e.g. against ice monsters), mild body horror (characters dissolving into liquid/smoke)

Summary:

This comic is a  series of vignettes about super-powered girlfriends, May Ai and Molly LaMarck.

Review:

I found this on a Tumblr list of queer webcomics (which is where I seem to be finding most of my webcomics these days). It’s about two superhero girlfriends and their adventures as superheros and girlfriends. There isn’t really an overarching plot, there’s just a series of short, mostly-unconnected snapshots of their lives – May bringing Molly home for the holidays, for example, and the two of them fighting ice monsters while complaining that the ice prevented their pizza from being delivered.

Like all the webcomics I do in my webcomic spotlights, it’s super short. (At least for now – according to the comments section Kat plans to add more in the future, but as of now it hasn’t been updated since 2014.) And it’s fun and unique. Yeah the girls are superheros and have super powers, but it’s also kind of a slice of life, seeing them interact with each other and other people and complain about forgetting to put away the pancakes when they have to go do superhero stuff.

And it’s neat because sometimes you get epic superhero stuff like this:

And sometimes you get cute slice-of-life stuff like this:

Overall, it’s adorable, unique, and fun to read. And I for one am hoping it gets updated soon.

You can read it for free here!