Adrienne

I'm aware of Dracula and the other monsters referred here by pop culture osmosis, but I haven't read the Stoker or Lovecraft books.

I was still able to enjoy this book as a series of largely disastrous space adventures, told mostly from the point of view of the ship's AI.

Demeter is a fun character, as a ship dropped into multiple impossible situations which, according to her databases, should be fictional. Her vacillation as to whether any of this death is her problem and how can she get the corporation to take her seriously feels very relatable.

Steward, the medical AI, is on some ways even more relatable to me. They're cranky and self interested and convinced of their own cleverness. I really enjoyed the interaction between the two AIs.

The world building feels a little sketchy, in a good and bad way. In a good way, it feels like we barely scratch the service on the human culture of interstellar travel and Earth-colonial relationships. That all feels sufficient to me. How and why the monsters exist and why the limits on their powers feels a bit under explained. What did Dracula want to do with a tame werewolf and why was he traveling to alpha centauri?

Overall, I had a good time reading the book.

Interesting time capsule biographies of trans/genderqueer teens at the end of the Obama era. I do think a good variety of US East Coast based teens was included, with varying degrees of familial support and school hostility.

It feels pretty surface level, though, which is probably a consequence of this being biographies from interviews, instead of the kids writing for themselves.

Not a bad introduction to trans people, rather than trans issues, but I feel like there's more interesting stuff out there