Sen
God, I love this series.
This story is about a mysterious innkeeper who steals people's secrets, and a boy with a skeletal body who can't remember ever being alive; a girl who can see when someone is about to die, and the half-human half-youkai who's been watching over her family for generations; a youkai comprised of butterfly-shaped souls, and the women he tries to get close to; and a man whose family has handed down a curse for centuries, and his childhood friend who wants to know him as an individual beyond his family legacy.
The art is gorgeous; the body horror is actually what drew me to the series in the first place, lol. The plot does take some work to untangle, as it jumps back and forth between eras of history (Owner is very, VERY old) and leaves many things implied rather than stated directly, but in my opinion it's worth the effort. There's a lot to think about with regards to its messages about relationships, communication, and the meaning of life. Leisurely unwind your body and soul as you partake in these phantom tales with me <3
I was on my second read-through of this book wondering why it just wasn't connecting with me, and I think I've finally figured it out: it's TOO aware of its audience.
This book is aware that you, the reader, are most likely someone who lives in the 21st century, and has certain knowledge about the world at the time that it was written. It's possible this wouldn't bother me so much if it were in third person, but since the main character is also the first-person narrator, she feels like a mouthpiece speaking directly to us and explaining how the world has changed since our time. As a result, she doesn't sound like an actual person living in the future this book envisions.
I do firmly believe that "show don't tell" is overdone as writing advice and telling can be used to great effect, but this book just does too much of it in my opinion. Dietz says she cares about these other characters who are living and dying in front of her, but I don't. None of them feel like real people to me, either. An entire relationship happens basically offscreen. I don't have any emotional investment in any of them.
The irony here is that I actually did like the short story this book is based on well enough, as well as the rest of Hurley's collection "Meet Me in the Future". But this is my fourth and probably final attempt at reading one of her full novels. The ideas are interesting, and the points they try to make about the world are good, but I think her style just doesn't work for me in long form tbh.
This book is a good comfort read. It is a slice of life story that explores the process of healing from trauma (notably survivor's guilt), various types of relationships (particularly romantic and familial), and the ways that different people go about their daily lives. The setting is low fantasy and has room for more exploration in future books. If you like low-stakes character-driven stories, please consider giving it a try.
Giving five stars specifically for The Shape Of My Name, which punched me right in the heart, and Before We Disperse Like Star Stuff, which I swear to god could be about real people with the way the dialogue was written, but all of the stories were good.
Everything in this book feels simultaneously grounded in reality and delightfully speculative, with sci-fi, paranormal, and horror elements interspersed perfectly with complex queer characters and messy relationships of all kinds and cool story formats. I'm gonna be thinking about this book for a good long while.
The premise intrigued me, but unfortunately I couldn't make it past the first 15 pages or so. A conversation between two people was presented as one giant run-on sentence, with no dialogue tags, quotation marks, or even capitalization aside from the first word when a new person started speaking. This went on for multiple pages and I could not focus on it at all.