City of Strife by Claudie Arseneault | Review

Pages: 375

Genre: high fantasy, lgbt

TW for the book (from author): “abuse (physical, emotional, mind control — seriously, if depictions of abuse trigger you, please be very careful when approaching this novel/avoid it.), torture, homelessness, child abandonment, police brutality, racism, family death, memory loss, death by fire (mention) and hanging.”

My thoughts

I went into this book with little expectation or knowledge outside of it being a lesser-known fantasy book with many queer characters. All that was very true! All the characters are queer; bisexual, demi, pan, poly, gender fluid, agender, asexual, aromantic is all represented in an overall ruthless and amazing magical city. It is also a very ethnically diverse group. I just found out the author is the person behind the “Aro ace database” and it’s ownvoices for aro-ace.

The writing caught me from the very beginning;

Arathiel had grown tired—tired of not feeling rough wood under his hand, tired of not smelling the salty sea or earthy autumn air, tired of not tasting even allegedly spicy meals. Tired of being alone, a shadow, always one step removed from the world. One day, he would need to face his family.

I might have a big weakness for main characters who take the time to observe the world around them, is a thief or assassin, but also cares deeply for their friends. Also in general I find that there is way too little focus on platonic love, friends and friends as found-family in fantasy and young adult books (which is what I mainly read when it comes to fiction). And this book truly had all of those things, to the point where the few boring parts where the pacing gets a bit too slow is overshadowed by the good and unique elements for me. This book just gave me a lovely, fun and exciting experience reading it with characters I squeal over, but also feel comforted by. Without sacrificing any of the heavyness or high fantasy elements usual to the genre.

Tonight, however, he had a more mundane activity in mind: a game of cards with the two precious friends he’d managed to make. Way more stressful than sneaking into an inhabited building during the day, locating his target, and slitting his throat before anyone noticed him. Not to mention, Cal wanted to invite a new player today. Worse, he wanted Hasryan to do it.

Fantasy centered in a city and its politics with merchant families and rivalry, it’s just great. It highlights the many tough, quick choices characters have to make, magic making everything more complicated somehow as well. And the plot builds so naturally on the personalities and choices made by these characters and their lives intertwining by living in the same city. It’s not a very extended world-building and I think here’s where the fantasy book would’ve had more potential to build on. There is very many characters to keep track on through multiple POVs, but personally it was okay, even if a bit difficult to understand or relate to all of them just by the sheer amount. It is just a book that tries (and succeeds) to do a lot in under 400 pages. The morally gray aro-ace wizard-in-training Nevian is suffering under an abusive mentor. Arathiel is a mood, as they say, as he’s been gone from the city for 130 years after disappearing while looking for a cure for his ill sister. He’s back to a completely changed city and deciding on whether to claim his right as a noble or keep this anonymous new identity as the keeper of a homeless shelter of sorts. And I loved Cal of course. I’ve highlighted too many quotes of him talking about cheese to not love that character.

Cal climbed into it, then stared at Larryn, his legs dangling. Expecting something. Larryn cleared his throat, hurried to his pantry, and retrieved several types of cheese from it. He had bought so many yesterday, and it would be delusional not to admit guilt had played a big part in it. He had no intention of cooking with this

This will be a book I return to reread and I need to get a physical copy as well. And I’ve yet to read the next book, which I’m excited for! I always need more personality-driven fantasy books with lots of politics in my life, but especially when they have such a queer cast and focus on friendship and found families.

Update Five Stars Predictions (pt. 2) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Ages ago, nine months to be exact, I made a post of five star book predictions. And the problem with those types of things are that you not only want to read them all, but have time to write reviews, because most of them actually were great.

The Hidden Girl & Other Stories by Ken Liu (my review)

In short I really appreciated and liked this collection of short stories. I had my expectation set high as I like the short story collection The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by the same author. I don’t think I realized the sci-fi thread through this one, but it was a pleasant surprise. Still, it’s harder to make multiple sci-fi stories I find equally fascinating as shorts, so it became a four out of five star read. Absolutely worth it.

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

I really would have loved this book as a middle school (or even younger actually) kid. It’s a queer romance between a Latino trans boy and a gay boy, featuring murder mystery and ghosts. And while I loved all those aspects, the plot was predictable for being young adult. I would say it was the age categorization that made my expectations higher and unfair for me to judge, so no star rating here.

Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality by Edward Frenkel

You ever start reading books during off-time and then realize it’s hard to continue once the semester starts, especially if it is too close to whatever you study? I’m still not done with this book, even though I love it. I will say that halfway through, it’s a five star read. I especially loved the discussion on how math education should be changed, and how Frenkel himself got into mathematics.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong:

This is an emotionally heavy and brilliant book. The writing alone is breath-taking, and made everything come to life in such a way that I needed several breaks while reading it. The book is written as a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read, with a raw honesty. It is centered around his Vietnamese family, living through the war and its consequences, about family, violence and trauma, but also healing, identity and sexuality. The book tries to do much by interweaving storylines through time, and as a consequence it has some slowness and confusion, making it a four out of five star read for me.

I also loved the poetry collection «Night Sky with Exit Wounds» by Vuong. Would absolutely recommend them both.

Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe (web comic link): this is a on-going web comic, but I’ve binged all the episodes released so far. I really adored the art style, I was unsure of the Hades-Persephone romance because it’s done so much, but it’s very self-aware and certainly cute. I truly liked how much focus it is on Persephone being a young godess trying to be independent, but learning that it’s okay to take support from others, while everyone shitting on her special treatments. Definitely so much personality to these characters, big and small, which is why it’s getting five stars even though I was bored at certain points.