Joey

Hot, fun and politically exciting. Like many nerds and queers I've loved the Greek myths since I was a kid and this and KAOS make me think we're living in the golden age. Terakes makes it feel like your trans fag uncle is whispering these stories to you, passing them on....

Just perfect. Jansson captures wry old woman and wild little kid so so well. There's magic in all the details of how life was lived on a tiny island and the sense that one summer is all summers.

It's cheesy and overblown and obvious.... Of course we know at the start that the one who has hardened her heart to avoid pain will end up realising it's better to open up to love. There are way too many huge big plot lines for everyone and emotional revelations and c'mon change doesn't come so quickly.

Besides this many of the details don't ring true but the setting is quite entrancing and sure, I cried at the end.

It's a fun fast read that takes a lot of dark themes (living through a live streamed genocide, repression of Palestinian voices, Islamophobia...} and makes them surprisingly digestible. Also lots of entertaining digs at academia and the media for those who need to laugh at how bleak these last few years have been....

Fun to revisit this and I think I appreciate it more now. Thinking of Dorothy Porter reciting each poem... thinking of how much fun she has mocking the other characters - the leftie lawyer, the academic, the boring old male poets. It's a rollicking read and hot too!