The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

The City We Became

5/5. New York City comes to consciousness through its human avatars while Lovecraftian horrors stalk the streets.

Oh god I loved this. loved it. I'd read the short story from which it grew, and was a bit dubious when I heard her new trilogy would be something something Lovecraft because ugh, Lovecraft. Obviously she would not be bringing the racism, but did we have to keep bringing the Lovecraft at all? But you guys. This is so clever and queer and anti-colonialist and just – it's scary and violent and it's about the Proud Boys and angry white men in general and a lot of terrible things, but it is so joyful. It has no fucks to give for despair. It got me early on – the umbrella! And then the magic by money! I scarred the baby I cackled so hard – and I do not even go here, I do not even like NYC,* but I loved this.

*NYC being the city where it is simultaneously both nightmarish to have a service dog with you and nightmarish not to. Also, these days, most of my NYC trips are for work, which means spending all my time in and around Times square, so of course I don't like it.

No Man of Woman Born by Ana Mardoll

No Man of Woman Born

3/5. Collection of fantasy short stories, several transformative, all featuring nonbinary/trans/genderfluid people.

Good idea, repetitive execution. There are seven stories in this collection and six of them can be summarized as 'there's this prophecy about who can defeat [insert evil here] – and no one understands how the prophecy is actually talking about a non-cisgendered person.' Which is mildly entertaining once. By the third time it's madlibs (this time with a trans person and a warlord! That time with a genderfluid person and – I honestly can't remember which evil goes here). This is on purpose, mind you – these are supposed to be stories about how destiny sees the gender nonconforming person properly. But if you aren't hungry for that kind of affirmation, all these stories are doing basically the same thing.

Still, representation is representation, and I appreciate the assiduous use of content notes. Probably a really good find for a gender nonconforming teen, or someone else who actually is hungry for affirmation.