Tell Me How You Really Feel, Aminah Mae Safi

Tell Me How You Really Feel by Aminah Mae Safi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was the queer, brown Gilmore Girls remake of my dreams and I am LIVING FOR IT. This was the best kind of enemies-to-lovers story fueled by misunderstandings and insecurities rather than actual douchebaggery. Both Sana and Rachel were gorgeously fleshed out characters coming to terms with family expectations, dreams versus reality, financial pressure, and struggling to present the most honest version of yourself.

I was once again blessed to read the second story in the last month about a Jewish character whose Judaism is actually an integral part of her identity and her story. The Passover seder literally had me wanting to shout from the rooftops because this is how you include cultural tradition and identity into story!! I really had to put the book down and just soak in that scene because it felt so god damn good.

Honestly, I'm just kinda sitting here grinning stupidly to myself over how much I just adore this book. This was definitely one the highlights of my year and I will absolutely be coming back to this book again and again.

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The Afterward, E. K. Johnston

It has been a year since the mysterious godsgem cured Cadrium’s king and ushered in what promised to be a new golden age. The heroes who brought the gem home are renowned in story and song, but for two fellows on the quest, peace and prosperity do not come easily. 

Apprentice Knight Kalanthe Ironheart wasn't meant for heroism this early in life, and while she has no intention of giving up the notoriety she has earned, her reputation does not pay her bills. With time running out, Kalanthe may be forced to betray not her kingdom or her friends, but her own heart as she seeks a stable future for herself and those she loves.

Olsa Rhetsdaughter was never meant for heroism at all. Beggar, pick pocket, thief, she lived hand to mouth on the city streets until fortune--or fate--pulled her into Kalanthe's orbit. And now she's quite reluctant to leave it. Even more alarmingly, her fame has made her recognizable, which makes her profession difficult, and a choice between poverty and the noose isn't much of a choice at all.

Both girls think their paths are laid out, but the godsgem isn't quite done with them and that new golden age isn’t a sure thing yet. 

In a tale both sweepingly epic and intensely personal, Kalanthe and Olsa fight to maintain their newfound independence and to find their way back to each other.

I adore trope inversions and books that look at a genre and say "okay but what's the other half of this equation?" They are so much fun, so thoughtful, and so totally and completely up my alley. So a book whose premise is "the Quest is done, now what?" is definitely gonna be a fave with me.

The majority of the book takes place After (i.e. after the Quest is done), with some chapters set Before (i.e. during the Quest itself). It's told from the point of view of the two youngest members of the Quest: Olsa, a street thief who was spying on someone for the Quest leader when shit went sideways and she got brought along partially for her own protection and partially because it helps to have a thief along when looking for a potentially well-protected gem of incredible power; and Kalanthe, an apprentice knight with a sterling records and similar enough body size to act as a decoy for the Quest leader if necessary. 

I loved that this story was told from their perspective. As the youngest and least experienced members of the party, their reintroduction to normal life following a world-saving quest is the most difficult to manage. The other members of the party have been on quests of some kind before or have more experience with combat or magic than Olsa and Kalanthe. They can continue with their lives or, in the case of one member, retireearly to handle her wounds. Our main characters, on the other hand, are just reaching adulthood and are left to figure out how their newfound fame is going to affect the lives they thought was ahead of them as well as how to fit the new relationship they want into situations that don't seem to leave room for new additions.

My biggest complaint of the book, and the reason I gave it four stars instead of five, is how neatly everything got tied off at the end. The appeal of a book like this is that it's going to address all the complexities and difficulties that come from the aftermath of a quest. So seeing all those complexities be tied up with a dues ex machina bow was disappointing. I really wanted to see Kalanthe actually get married to Edramore. As an aroace person, I just really love the idea of a marriage of convenience for financial/legal/political reasons where both parties are truly happy in the marriage but never love each other romantically. Furthermore, they totally could have some kind of poly relationship with Olsa, and given the right approach, I think Edramore and Olsa could have been happy as metamours, even if that meant Olsa did go to work for one of the other knights from the Quest. That could have been an AMAZING story. Instead they conveniently kill Edramore, have Kalanthe basically marry him posthumously, and therefore leave her open to marry/have a relationship with Olsa with no entanglements. And it just felt too neat and easy. I wanted to to see some complicated poly negotiations actually play out. Even if the book didn't delve quite as deep as I wanted it to, it was still a solid book that raised a lot of interesting questions about what happily ever after actually looks like in a high fantasy setting.

Dryland, Sara Jaffe

It’s 1992, and the world is caught up in the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the Balkan Wars, but for fifteen-year-old Julie Winter, the news is noise. In Portland, Oregon, Julie moves through her days in a series of negatives: the skaters she doesn’t think are cute, the trinkets she doesn’t buy at the craft fair, the umbrella she refuses to carry despite the incessant rain. Her family life is routine and restrained, and no one talks about Julie’s older brother, a one-time Olympic-hopeful swimmer who now lives in self-imposed exile in Berlin. Julie has never considered swimming herself, until Alexis, the girls’ swim team captain, tries to recruit her. It’s a dare, and a flirtation—and a chance for Julie to find her brother, or to finally let him go. Anything could happen when her body hits water.

I almost don't know what to do with this book. One of the blurbs on the cover described it as "part diary, part dream" which definitely feels right but I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. The lack of punctuation for dialogue really threw me off and left me confused half the time. I both loved and hated how open-ended the book was. I wanted some better understanding of what was going on with Julie's brother, but I liked how open Julie's own future and story seemed, not tied up in a neat happy ending. This book has been sitting in the back of my head for almost a week and I'm still not sure how to sum it up or what all to say. Definitely a unique reading experience for me, though.