Alison Goodman

As I mentioned in my review of [b:Pantomime|15797050|Pantomime (Micah Grey, #1)|Laura Lam|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348428535s/15797050.jpg|19161274], I recently returned this to the library. No plans to pick it up again unless I'm really getting back into sword-and-sorcery fantasy novels, because I think that's what I was missing. I probably would have loved this in high school, but (luckily) I'm not in high school anymore!

I read up to the point that the trans woman character was introduced (and she sounds pretty great), but it also became clear at that point it was going to become a long politics-power-and-subterfuge kind of plot, and I didn't sufficiently care for the main character or the magic system (although the rest of the Asian-influenced culture was showing potential) to stick it out.… (mais)

This would possibly have gotten another star if not for the gender binarism and heteronormativity. (Mav doesn't want to be 'it', but is an alien, not human, but simply must have a human pronoun? YOU ARE LOOKING FOR 'THEY'. They do not actually have to be 'he' or 'she'.)

Not that I think it would have been any better if Mav had decided to identify as not-male, because the fact that he kept trying to force 'joining' on Joss early on? Made of squick. And then to have this bit?

'It was my fault,' I said. 'I should have tried harder.'
...
'..We can try and join again. Let's just rest a bit then we'll have another go.'
Mav reached over and took my hand.
'I did not have the strength to break through, Joss. That was the last try.'

That's just the most jumbled virginity-and-rape thing I... actually, no, I am docking this another star just for that, because that's even grosser. I mean even without the Joss-is-female-so-Mav-must-be-male shite, even after Joss explains that queer people exist, that's just nope.

Plus the swearing. I get that the author couldn't say 'fuck' in a book that was going to be up for the Children's Book Council Awards, but it doesn't take more than one appearance of 'snork' to infer from context that it means 'fuck'. Likewise 'screte'='shit', which is at least a bit clever because of its derivation from 'excreta'. I'm familiar with a lot of synonyms for 'fuck' and I still can't work out where 'snork' came from. And 'wankman'? Just say 'wanker'. Just fucking say it. SAY. IT.

And then alien snot in the petri dish. ALIEN SNOT. IN THE PETRI DISH. THIS IS HOW YOU SPLICE DNA, PEOPLE. And people were bagging on Jupiter Ascending for bad genetics, JFC.… (mais)