Disability – Page 4 – Made of Stardust and Stubbornness

“The Labyrinth’s Archivist” Review

Posted on September 16, 2023October 12, 2024 by Jen

“The Labyrinth’s Archivist” by Day Al-Mohamed

Walking the Labyrinth and visiting hundreds of other worlds; seeing so many new and wonderful things – that is the provenance of the travelers and traders, the adventurers and heroes. Azalea has never left her home city, let alone the world. Her city, is at the nexus of many worlds with its very own “Hall of Gates” and her family are the Archivists. They are the mapmakers and the tellers of tales. They capture information on all of the byways, passages and secrets of the Labyrinth. Gifted with a perfect memory, Azalea can recall every story she ever heard from the walkers between worlds. She remembers every trick to opening stubborn gates, and the dangers and delights of hundreds of worlds. But Azalea will never be a part of her family’s legacy. She cannot make the fabled maps of the Archivists because she is blind.

The Archivist’s “Residence” is a waystation among worlds. It is safe, comfortable and with all food and amenities provided. In exchange, of course, for stories of their adventures and information about the Labyrinth, which will then be transcribed for posterity and added to the Great Archive. But now, someone has come to the Residence and is killing off Archivists using strange and unusual poisons from unique worlds whose histories are lost in the darkest, dustiest corners of the Great Archive. As Archivists die, one by one, Azalea is in a race to find out who the killer is and why they are killing the Archivists, before they decide she is too big a threat to leave alive.

Review

I really enjoyed this story – the characters were great and I liked how the main character’s disability was used in the story – Azalea is a great character all around. The murder mystery was interesting and I enjoyed how it all played out. It may have been a bit predictable who was the actual killer but it was still fun reading it. I liked the fact that Azalea’s grandmother had the same gift if perfect memory and it wasn’t played as if it was a compensation for her being blind – it was a thing other characters may or may not have regardless of disability or not.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “The Labyrinth’s Archivist”.

Book Details

Author’s Website: Day Al-Mohamed
Publisher / Date: Falstaff Books, July 2019
Genre: Science Fiction, Mystery
Page Count: 132
Completion Date: September 10, 2023

“The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester” Review

Posted on July 22, 2023October 13, 2024 by Jen

“The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester” by Maya MacGregor

Sam Sylvester’s not overly optimistic about their recent move to the small town of Astoria, Oregon after a traumatic experience in their last home in the rural Midwest.

Yet Sam’s life seems to be on the upswing after meeting several new friends and a potential love interest in Shep, the pretty neighbor. However, Sam can’t seem to let go of what might have been, and is drawn to investigate the death of a teenage boy in 1980s Astoria. Sam’s convinced he was murdered–especially since Sam’s investigation seems to resurrect some ghosts in the town.

Threatening notes and figures hidden in shadows begin to disrupt Sam’s life. Yet Sam continues to search for the truth. When Sam discovers that they may be closer to a killer than previously known, Sam has a difficult decision to make. Would they risk their new life for a half-lived one?

Review

Originally read this last year soon after it was published – I still love it. It’s a great quick read with awesome characters. The central mystery is a little predictable but it was still fun waiting to see what was going on. I liked it more for the character interactions. Especially Sam realizing there is a place where they can be themselves and have friends and date safely. This is both a story about being non-binary and Autistic and finding people who get you in all the ways that matter. Their father already does but having people beyond their father understand them is something new.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester”.

Book Details

A young person shown on the cover with white/purple hair and wearing a black t-shirt with a logo of something that is covered up by the book they're holding in their right hand against their chest. Their right arm is covered with a tattoo of sky and a bird and tree. The background is purple and white with stars. The title is shown at the top of te cover.

Author’s Website: Maya MacGregor
Publisher / Date: Astra Young Readers, May 2022
Genre: General Fiction, Mystery, Young Adult
Page Count: 355
Completion Date: July 20, 2023 (2nd read)

“Hell Followed with Us” Review

Posted on July 3, 2023October 13, 2024 by Jen

“Hell Followed with Us” by Andrew Joseph White

Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon they infected him with.

But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction, Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC. The ALC’s leader, Nick, is gorgeous, autistic, and a deadly shot, and he knows Benji’s darkest secret: the cult’s bioweapon is mutating him into a monster deadly enough to wipe humanity from the earth once and for all.

Still, Nick offers Benji shelter among his ragtag group of queer teens, as long as Benji can control the monster and use its power to defend the ALC. Eager to belong, Benji accepts Nick’s terms…until he discovers the ALC’s mysterious leader has a hidden agenda, and more than a few secrets of his own.

Review

This was a really good book! There’s a lot of gore and body horror but I don’t think it was as graphic as it could have been. If it was a movie or a tv show I’d probably have trouble watching because of the gore but in text it didn’t seem so bad. If you read the introduction of the book the author explains where a lot of it came from and how he felt as a teen struggling with his identity. Which is the whole book too.

All of the characters were great and I liked how everything worked out. Even Nick’s “secrets” worked out well in the end. Benji was a great character to get to know. I did wonder if some things could have been explained a little better but at the same time I wasn’t sure how much the characters knew or could explain because they’re all teenagers dealing with the world they’ve been left in. I’m not sure how fully they understood everything to start with. Even Benji’s awareness of everything and understanding of what was happening seemed suspect.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Hell Followed with Us”.

Book Details

Author’s Website: Andrew Joseph White
Publisher / Date: Peachtree Teen, June 2022
Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopian, Young Adult
Page Count: 416
Completion Date: June 30, 2023

“Noor” Review

Posted on June 21, 2023October 14, 2024 by Jen

“Noor” by Nnedi Okorafor

Anwuli Okwudili prefers to be called AO. To her, these initials have always stood for Artificial Organism. AO has never really felt…natural, and that’s putting it lightly. Her parents spent most of the days before she was born praying for her peaceful passing because even in-utero she was “wrong”. But she lived. Then came the car accident years later that crippled her even further. Yet instead of viewing her strange body the way the world views it, as freakish, unnatural, even the work of the devil, AO embraces all that she is: A woman with a ton of major and necessary body augmentations. And then one day she goes to her local market and everything goes wrong.

Once on the run, she meets a Fulani herdsman named DNA and the race against time across the deserts of Northern Nigeria begins. In a world where all things are streamed, everyone is watching the “reckoning of the murderess and the terrorist” and the “saga of the wicked woman and mad man” unfold. This fast-paced, relentless journey of tribe, destiny, body, and the wonderland of technology revels in the fact that the future sometimes isn’t so predictable. Expect the unaccepted.

Review

This was a quick fun read. All of the characters are cool and the world building was interesting. I did think it sort of ends abruptly and ambiguously. It’s not entirely clear what was going to happen next to the characters though there’s hints that they’ll be okay.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Noor”.

Book Details

The entire cover is yellow/gold with a black women from the chest up facing towards the right but with her head turned slightly forward. The women has her hair up and arranged on the back of her head and is wearing what looks like a jewel on her forehead and a necklace.

Author’s Website: Nnedi Okorafor
Publisher / Date: DAW, November 2021
Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy
Page Count: 224
Completion Date: June 20, 2023

“How Long ’til Black Future Month?” Review

Posted on June 17, 2023October 14, 2024 by Jen

“How Long ’til Black Future Month?” by N.K. Jemisin

Three-time Hugo Award winner and NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin challenges and delights readers with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption that sharply examine modern society in her first collection of short fiction, which includes never-before-seen stories.

Spirits haunt the flooded streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow South must save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. And in the Hugo award-nominated short story “The City Born Great,” a young street kid fights to give birth to an old metropolis’s soul.

Review

This is a great collection of short stories all written by N. K. Jemisin. Some of them are early ideas that would become her larger works. Others are stories she had written for other publications. All are great. I also highly recommend reading the introduction to the book for more background and to know where the title of the book comes from. I really enjoyed each story and will likely read more by this author at some point.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “How Long ’til Black Future Month?”.

Book Details

On the cover a young black woman is facing towards the right in profile with her long hair styled with decorations that are white geometric shapes. The shirt or dress she is wearing has a thick collar that looks like two rows of white balls. The title of the book and authors name are on the top and bottom of the cover.

Author’s Website: N.K. Jemisin
Publisher / Date: Orbit, November 2018
Genre: Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Short Stories
Page Count: 416
Completion Date: June 14, 2023

“Lakelore” Review

Posted on May 7, 2023October 14, 2024 by Jen

“Lakelore” by Anna-Marie McLemore

Everyone who lives near the lake knows the stories about the world underneath it, an ethereal landscape rumored to be half-air, half-water. But Bastián Silvano and Lore Garcia are the only ones who’ve been there. Bastián grew up both above the lake and in the otherworldly space beneath it. Lore’s only seen the world under the lake once, but that one encounter changed their life and their fate.

Then the lines between air and water begin to blur. The world under the lake drifts above the surface. If Bastián and Lore don’t want it bringing their secrets to the surface with it, they have to stop it, and to do that, they have to work together. There’s just one problem: Bastián and Lore haven’t spoken in seven years, and working together means trusting each other with the very things they’re trying to hide.

Review

This is a great story with great characters. Bastián and Lore are trans nonbinary, neurodivergent Mexican American teens who find themselves in a very weird situation while figuring themselves out. The world under the lake isn’t explained in much detail but that’s mostly because no one really knows much about it anymore.

Bastián was just able to access it as a child and then Lore ended up being able to access it as well. They don’t know any more about it than we do really. And the land under the lake isn’t really the main point – it’s Bastián and Lore dealing with who they are as they work through some issues. Bastián has ADHD and Lore is dyslexic and the book goes into a lot of detail about how their brains work and what their lives are like because of it.

I really enjoyed reading all of that information and the way the characters interact with each other as they learn about each other. This isn’t a story where Bastián and Lore are the only ones who understand and love them for who they are – Their family and friends see them for who they are and love them deeply. Which is good because “two people against the world” stories are a little frustrating – even when it’s realistic because of the way some families.

This was a good read because of the difference. The land under the lake is what brings Bastián and Lore together and helps them figure some additional things out that they needed to deal with.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Lakelore”.

Book Details

The book cover has two teens who appear to be standing chest deep in a lake one looking away and one facing the viewer. There are mountains and the sun visible behind them. The lake has a variety of colors - blue, green, red, orange, purple in swirls. The teens have brown skin and brown hair and thee are green butterflies on their heads. One is wearing a white shirt and the other a yellow hoodie.

Author’s Website: Anna-Marie McLemore
Publisher / Date: Feiwel & Friends, March 2022
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Page Count: 304
Completion Date: May 6, 2023