Julia

Beautiful, challenging, inspiring. Read this at the exact right moment that I've been struggling with some stuff about how to actual do transformative justice at work, and I feel rejuvenated and reinvigorated for the challenges inherent in change and growth.

Always feels a bit presumptuous making notes on books LOTS of people have read and of course appreciated. But! Timothy Synder deserves all the acknowledgement he gets that this short book is concise, prescient, and powerful. Useful and I'm sure I'll review it again. Wish I didn't have to, but here we are.

This was fine! But did not sell me on the rest of the series. I love a "marriage of convenience" trope, but not really with characters this young, and although I'm fine with virgin protagonists when it's true to historical romance, it bugs me a little in contemporary romance. Still, if you're looking for some charm you'll cruise through easily, this hits all the marks of a solid romance. I like the mains! I just wished them better plotting a few years in the future!

Loved this! I appreciate Lewis' warning that if we believe that history repeats itself, then we should be really concerned by certain historical examples, like how British suffragists turned to fascism (literally) after WWI. She is also so clear-eyed and incisive about how so much of feminism is really white feminism, taking turns with racialized capitalism to mutually forward their agendas, and I loved the framing that "enemy" and "comrade" are fluid states we should base on our actual politics, not labels. Also such a great chapter on TERFs. This book was divisive in book club, though - none of my friends disagreed with any of her arguments, but felt the "call out" tone was not their jam (I'm salty, so for better and worse appreciate others' saltiness). There are hints of another world - the one Lewis dreams for, not the one we have - when she talks of cyborgs and "monstrous affinities," and we did all agree that's the book we want to read. I have a copy of "Abolish the Family" I'll read next, which may be exactly that book? Either way, I wish anyone calling them a feminist would read this book.

I think my star rating would be higher if I had read this closer to its publication and earlier in my journey as a romance reader. I do like the concept, and find it very funny that this is listed in the recent NYTimes romance glossary under kink - look, yes, it's about a big blue alien, but the big blue alien is humanoid and obviously hot, so I just don't think it's that kinky! It's still spicy, though. I think my main quibble is that we get literally NO backstory of the protagonist, so I sometimes really wondered about her choices...like I would actually say there's a breeding kink in here, but it seemed at odds with what little breadcrumbs we'd gotten previously.

Noticing that I'm at odds with the overall star rating here for this novel, and I don't care! I loved every second of this novel. Leave it to Lily King to make me nostalgic for the worst parts of waiting tables. I think probably the highest endorsement I can give for her snappy writing and bravery about the writing process is that I gave this novel to an aspiring 20-year-old writer who has been struggling with whether to pursue this dream, and this was her verdict: "I loved this so much I hate you."

Beautiful, searing, incisive. A personal exploration of how queer and Palestinian (and arguably all) liberation is intertwined.

It's impossible to read this without grieving that the world won't get more of Alice Wong's sharp wit, irreverence, and fearless activism. At the same time, what a life! How lucky we are that she shared this slice of it with us.

Glad I read this series! I like Ash better now. I think the huge strength of this series is how Simone writes kink - this series finale even includes a beautiful defense of kink from Ash's perspective that I think contextualizes and deepens the meaning of everything that came before. I didn't love the demise of the villain (didn't ring psychologically true to me) and really don't think this happily ever after will withstand the test of time due to life logistics (won't say more as not to spoil), and yet I know I'll be thinking about this series for a long time. I especially loved Simone's afterward on Arthurian legend.