Apollo

this book is the kind of haunted that followed me around my life as I read it, a great story about queerness, growing up, the complications of family and using horror/a haunted house and history to tell the story. Sometimes I found the descriptions to be really engrossing and other times I couldnt quite understand what was being described. The exposing of the violence of colonization in Vietnam and fraught complications of being an outsider in the place your family comes from are really important and im glad they incorporated that into the book.

I love this series of books and enjoyed being taken along on another journey with Chih, a journey back to their home. Fun to learn more about the neixin and some of the backstory to the relationships amongst the clerics. I wish there had been more dialogue involvement with the mammoth riders/Cleric Thien's granddaughters and this book felt a little less engaging than the others. I also wish the spooky/mysterious aspects around Cleric Thien post mortum had been played up a bit more. I still really enjoyed it though and looking forward to the next one.

The HP books aren't good enough to live up to all the praise and fandom they receive, but more importantly JKR has done immense harm to the trans community and is not anti-racist my any stretch of the means. She only retro-actively has been inclusive of POC via background inclusion/for PR purposes/tokenism. We all have participated in problematic faves and whatnot, but I will not support someone who we can see so clearly has and continues to do things that are extremely harmful. There's like a billion other fantasy books out there that are way better anywho. Expand your worldview and leave a bigot behind.