Tag Archives: siblings

A Sapphic Asexual Manga Romance: Doughnuts Under a Crescent Moon Series by Shio Usui

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the cover of Doughnuts Under a Crescent Moon Vol. 1

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I’m always looking for more sapphic manga with adult main characters: until recently, yuri stories between schoolgirls was about all I could find available in English. While some of those are great, I am excited to see more queer manga coming out now with other kinds of representation, including some fantastic F/F love stories between adults.

This four-volume series is a quiet love story between two coworkers. In volume one, Hinako is self-loathing. She feels defective for failing to fall in love (with men) and spends spends her time and energy trying to be normal through makeup, fashion, and unsuccessful dating. Meanwhile, Asahi is isolated because she had to raise her little sister when their parents died, which meant she had to grow up fast.

As the two of them begin to bond over lunch breaks, sharing donuts together, they struggle to define what they are to each other. Heteronormativity and allonormativity make it difficult for them to understand how they can be so important to each other without wanting a sexual aspect to their relationship.

This has a melancholic tone, but it’s also gentle and comforting. I liked the slow build of their relationship, and I was happily surprised that this has asexual representation. (The terms aren’t used, but both characters are probably lesbians on the asexual spectrum.) I also appreciated the side characters, like Asahi’s best friend Fuuka and her little sister Subaru. They added some levity and excitement to a more slow-paced love story between Asahi and Hinako.

Doughnuts Under a Crescent Moon isn’t my favourite sapphic manga: it’s a little sadder than I’d prefer, I wish the representation was a bit clearer, and the conclusion is a bit abrupt, but I still really enjoyed it, and I’m happy to see more adult sapphic manga available in English now!

A Fast-Paced Space Opera: The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa

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the cover of The Splinter in the Sky

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Enitan is a scribe focused mostly on figuring out how to grow her tea business on the side, but when her sibling Xiang is kidnapped and the Imperial forces decree that they need a political hostage, she volunteers so that she can go to the heart of the empire and try to find her sibling. Soon she is juggling the larger conflict between the Holy Vaalbaran Empire and the Ominirish Republic, not to mention the attention of the new Imperator and God-Emperor Menkhet. While posing as the perfectly nice political prisoner, Enitan tries to find her sibling and save her homeland without losing her life.

Spies, elaborate and indulgent parties, the dark underbelly of colonization and empire—this book is, first and foremost, fun. It takes the spy thriller angle and runs with it, resulting in a fast-paced adventure of assassinations, high-speed chases, and political machinations. Everyone has an ulterior motive, and few are able to say what they really mean. It reminded me a bit of old noir detective stories with a bit of space royalty thrown in.

For those who might be a bit intimidated by sci-fi, this book skirts around technical worldbuilding for a softer, more approachable version of the genre that will appeal to fantasy readers. That’s not to say that it lacks description. Kemi Ashing-Giwa does a phenomenal job using architecture and food to explore the image-building involved in empire construction, and the result is a lush book tempered with the sting of biting commentary on the true toll of that mythologizing. It’s also a queer-normative world, and so though atrocities under colonization abound (and I suggest that people take a peek at the trigger warnings), it’s refreshing to see a space where sexuality and gender identity acceptance is a given.

At times, I wanted a bit more depth. There’s so much to explore and I wanted the book to linger at some of the descriptions or political relationships, to unpack their impact outside of exposition. As the pacing picks up towards the middle of the book, some of the plot resolutions feel convenient rather than twisty. It could have easily handled another one- or even two-hundred pages.

That said, I still had a great time reading it. I was a bit late to the train and just read A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine last year, and it quickly became one of my favorites. I’m on my way to devouring all of the queer space opera that I can get my hands on. The Splinter in the Sky satisfied my craving for more stories like this while still feeling very much like its own entity. Fans of sci-fi-light books, fantasy with a political bent, or spy thrillers will want to give this a chance. For a debut novel, it promises great things to come.

Trigger warnings: violence, racism, references to suicide, references to genocide, police brutality, sexual harassment, torture

A Sapphic Gothic Fairy Tale: Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire

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the cover of Down Among The Sticks And Bones

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My favourite holiday of the year is Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon, particularly the October readathon. My roommate and I spend all day reading horror books and snacking. It is a delight. Last year, I read Every Heart a Doorway and really enjoyed it. The horror/fantasy novella series felt like a perfect fit for the October readathon, so I decided I’d read one every year. Each follows different characters, and this one has a sapphic main character (who was also a side character in the first volume).

I still love the writing style, including the little asides to the reader, and I was especially delighted by the first chapter: The Dangerous Allure of Other People’s Children, which explains how easy it is to see families that seem picture perfect on the outside while missing the real difficulties and messiness of raising kids. Jacqueline and Jillian grow up with parents who are determined to have perfect children to further their own image. They were hoping for a boy and a girl, but they’ve made the best of having twin girls by assigning one the role of tomboy (Jillian) and one the expectations of femininity (Jacqueline).

This beginning section explores gender roles, showing how both Jill and Jack chafe against these expectations, and how every person is a constellation of many characteristics that are gendered in a variety of ways. They are raised to compete with and judge each other, and they have no safety with their parents. It’s no surprise they want to escape.

As is the premise of this portal fantasy series, they find a door to another world—but it’s a gothic world, with vampires and resurrected corpses. Before long, they both feel at home here, able to explore the sides of themselves that they repressed as children. Jillian is enraptured by being chosen by a vampire lord, enrobed in the fancy dresses she was previously denied, and with freedom she couldn’t previously dream of. Jack is able to find value in hard work and her own intelligence instead of just as an adornment. Both can see a future for themselves in this world, and Jack even finds a girlfriend. But this is a gothic story, so you know we’re not heading towards a happy ending.

I enjoyed this book and will definitely be continuing this series, but I did like Every Heart a Doorway better. This is the backstory of two side characters from the first book, so I already knew the ending of this one. Spoilers, highlight to read: I knew that Jack and Jill change their gender presentations from what was assigned to them as kids. I know that they don’t stay in that world. And, the biggest spoiler: I know Jill is a murderer. End of spoilers. It was hard to have much tension with that in mind.

I still am glad I read this one, but it was a little disappointing after loving book one. This is an atmospheric gothic read with sapphic and OCD representation in Jack. It has engaging writing and a dramatic plot. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had read it before the first book. I’ll be interested to see how the rest of the series compares, but I’m predicting that I’ll enjoy the books set at the school more than the books set in the different worlds.

Not every book in this series is sapphic, but it seems to include different kinds of queer representation throughout.

If you’re looking for a queer gothic fairy tale to read on a blustery Autumn evening, definitely check this one out. It works as a standalone, so you don’t need to read any other books in the series—though you’ll probably want to. And it’s short enough that you still have time to read it before October ends!

For some other perspectives on this Down Among the Sticks and Bones, check out Marike’s and Til’s reviews.

An Anti-Fascist Queer Space Opera: Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

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the cover of Some Desperate Glory

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Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh is one of the most powerful science fiction books I have ever read. I have not been able to read another book because I keep wondering where the main character Kyr has gone. I look for her in everything. She is such a well-rounded, complicated character (the best kind), and her story is going to stick with me for a long, long time.

The novel follows Kyr and her twin brother Magnus as they navigate the universe outside of the only home they have ever known. They are the best of the best when it comes to their training on Gaea Station, the last stronghold of humanity that stands against the alien threat that demolished the Earth before Kyr was even born. Being the best (of the girls) is what Kyr has worked for all her life. She has given everything to Gaea Station, and she has trained her mess of girls relentlessly, never settling for anything less than perfect. She is sure that this will pay off for all of them, most especially herself, but when the adult assignments come out, Kyr’s world gets shaken so substantially that she believes her only choice is to leave Gaea Station in an attempt to fix what the leader, a man she calls Uncle Jole, somehow got wrong. Leaving Gaea Station opens an entire world (literally) of possibilities for her, and Kyr unwittingly finds herself thrust into lives outside of Gaea Station that she never even knew were possible.

I read this book after a friend texted me updates as they read through the novel for the first time. Their reactions to the book convinced me to buy it when all I knew of it was that it contained time loops (my favorite plot dynamic). I do not regret picking this book up for a second. The amount of character development that Kyr undergoes over the course of this 400-page novel is extreme. She starts off the novel as a proud raised-fascist bent on getting Earth’s revenge, but she ends it as her own direct antithesis. I have not been able to put her story down. As a big The Locked Tomb fan and Baru Cormorant enjoyer, I expected a lot out of this book’s assessment of empire and the responsibility of its characters to claw their way out of the empire’s belly. Emily Tesh does not shy away from either of these things, and I was completely absorbed in the story she was trying to tell. Kyr is sucked in deep into Gaea Station’s propaganda and brutal view of the universe, but when she is faced with the truth of Gaea Station’s corruption, she pulls herself out of it and is already a different person before we even reach the middle of the novel. When I started my reread of the novel only two days after I had finished it the first time, the Kyr at the beginning felt like a completely different character than the Kyr who ends the novel. I experienced whiplash watching her beat up a character that she ends the novel in a close relationship with, and I loved it. It made me cry, seeing what she grows from. For a character to change so substantially, Emily Tesh has to have done something right. What other characters would go through over the course of a trilogy, Kyr goes through in one novel. Her story is contained in this one piece, and it keeps the reader engaged, watching every step that Kyr takes away from Gaea Station change her just a little bit more.

I have seen some criticism online of the “queer space opera” label Some Desperate Glory wears on its inside cover, but the ability of Kyr to radically accept her brother’s queerness and to eventually find her own queerness outside the borders of Gaea Station is a defining detail of the novel. Take away Kyr’s discovery of queerness within her bloodline, and you’re left with a book that takes place in space… and that’s it. The book does not progress without Magnus and Kyr both loudly proclaiming their queerness. On Gaea Station, Kyr only knows that she is the best of the girls; she doesn’t know if she experiences attraction because it is not important. Gaea Station has Nursery. They don’t need Kyr to know who she likes as long as they can force her to produce more boys to serve Gaea Station. It is an extreme act of rebellion for her to realize she is gay. Just because Kyr is not making out with every girl she sees or falling dramatically in love with every single one of her messmates at every turn does not mean the novel is not queer; it simply means that the novel’s focus on queerness is on the identity itself instead of on the acting out of that identity. Kyr’s story is not dependent on her exploring the bounds of her queerness because she isn’t far enough out of the hold Gaea Station has on her to do that. Kyr realizing that she is queer at all is what helps her figure out how awful Gaea Station has always been and makes the term “queer space opera” ring true.

If we’re using stars as a rating system, I give this book a complete 5 out of 5. While there are a few aspects of the world that I believe were hammered in too much (we get it, the shadow engines will smear somebody across fifteen dimensions, you don’t need to keep saying it every other chapter), I found myself able to look over them due to how well the book is written as a whole. The book begins with a list of trigger warnings, and it means them, so make sure to skip this novel if any of the triggers listed therein apply to you, such as: sexism, homophobia, child abuse, suicide, and more. This book is not shy about anything; everything listed in the warnings is handled front and center, in sometimes very graphic detail. Emily Tesh clearly cares about her characters and about the world that she writes them into, and Some Desperate Glory makes me want to read everything she has ever written just to get a taste of the way she crafts a story.

Mars reviews Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel by Jaqueline Koyanagi

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Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi cover

Please be aware that although I’ve tried to keep it minimal, this review contains spoilers.

Alana Quick is one of the best starship surgeons the non-gentrified City of Heliodor has to offer, or she would be if only someone gave her the chance to prove herself on a real starship. Unhappily trapped in the dusty chop shop she shares with her Aunt Lai on the planet Orpim, and bankrolled by her wealthy spirit guide sister, Alana and Aunt Lai struggle to make ends meet by working on whatever ship rolls their way. The two are desperate to afford the medication that keeps the worst symptoms of their shared condition, Mel’s Disorder, at bay, even to the degree that Aunt Lai would take extra hours working a call center job for the shady Transliminal Solutions, an “outsider” business whose mysterious, advanced technology has wiped out the local ship economy. Though she loves her aunt, Alana can’t shake her thoughts of escaping into the Big Quiet, and is consumed by her dream of making it off-world.

I can’t really get more into it without spoiling some awesome twists and turns, but suffice to say that Alana doesn’t stay grounded for long. One thing I can definitively say is that Ascension is a standout amongst its peers. Compelling characters meets space opera meets a uniquely metaphysical marriage of technology and astro-spiritualism. Our main protagonist breaks the mold as a queer, disabled woman of color. Breaks the mold in a genre sense, I mean, because Koyanagi gives us a lovable and diverse cast of characters to connect with, and Alana is only one of several significant characters who is affected by a disability, although none of them are defined by it.

This book hits the mark in so many ways, so I’ll try to give an overview of those to the searching reader. Non-traditional families abound here, including a rare accurate and healthy look at a functioning polyamorous relationship. Alana’s deep and true love for starship engines has spoiled many a human relationship for her. She suffers from the same condition that my favorite Law & Order: SVU detectives do – namely that she is married to her work. She will always, always choose the rush and thrill she gets from starships, for which she has not only a passion but a deep spiritual connection. Alana is burdened with the idea that traditional romance is over for her. Or so she thinks.

Also noteworthy is the exploration and growth of the sibling relationship between Alana and her sister Nova. There are few bonds in media that I feel are as underexplored as the one between siblings. Siblings can be complicated – they can be the greatest of allies or the greatest of enemies, or both at the same time – and the potential for such complexity and nuance is a device that is slowly gaining more traction among writers and media makers. Complex and contradictory is certainly a way to understand the Quick sisters.

A few things I should mention: there are super meta breakdowns of reality and conceptual universe-hopping at some point, so please be aware if that is going to be an existential red flag. There are descriptions of the painful physical symptoms Alana experiences with her Mel’s Disorder, dissociative experiences from another character, and descriptions of violence which are not gratuitous but may also be uncomfortable for certain readers.

Overall, I would highly recommend this book for anyone drawn to intergalactic adventures. As a sci-fi lover who is more than aware of how patriarchal and sexist traditional science fiction can be, I am very comfortable describing this book as not like that. If you enjoy this book, I would recommend Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet as a similarly sweeping, queer space opera.