#fuzzy recommendation

This book is about genderfluid witches taking down the patriarchy and written in a non-preachy and eloquent pen. Yes, it’s romance, and if you don’t like that, get out of here! It’s a YA LGBT romance fantasy novel that’s a flirtatious slowburn that still manages to balance the pining and the story equally. There is such a richness and art to the way the words in this book were written (ex. “Sunlight was a rumor here.”) and I also absolutely adore the characters-- Sly, tactical Teo and playful, mercurial Cielo. 

There was something about Teo that struck her as different to me than other YA heroines (or heroes, depending on the mood) I’ve encountered. Yeah, she’s described as the usual odd one out that always felt like she was different, but there was something else.

In hidnsight, maybe it was how she frequently got her shit together. She thought a handful of steps ahead and she was always planning something. When hell broke loose, she didn’t wait for someone to take the reins or tell her to do something: she thought of the plan and executed it. She was an active player, choosing things for herself. That’s not to say she was Mulan (2020). She was flawed, afraid, and still holding herself back from what she could be, and we watched her develop outside of the standards her family and society set for her.

I loved and appreciated the subtext on gender and sexuality in Teodora's narration while a more overt story on discovering one's identity takes place. I can’t really explain it, so I’ll just pull out some quotes from the book I adored so fucking much.

You don’t owe [your father] reasons, the magic said. Only love.

“Should I call you Teodoro? Or just Teo?” I felt a wave of pride, chased to shore by a darker one. Father had never acted this delighted when I was his daughter.

“You know who I would love to see tonight?” he whispered. “That girl I met on the mountains.” I shook my head. There was more to it than practicality. “You don’t like me this way?” I asked, my tone coarse, and not just from what we were doing. I did not wish to be with someone who disliked this version of me. Any version of me.

A lot more of this type narration happens in the second book, which has a lot more explicit romance scenes, inclusive characters, angst, and addressing toxic masculinity. Oh, and an anti-climactic confrontation scene early on that I will continue to be baffled at. But I digress.

Furthermore, I just love the relationship between Teo and Cielo. Arguably one of the more healthy relationships I’ve seen in this genre of fiction. They respect each other equally, they understand each other’s traumas, and they aren’t horribly possessive of one another... The only red flags as far as I know is when they do that thing teens do and make mistakes, have arguments, and forget to  communicate. And that’s great! Cause love is messy, people are messy, and being with people is messy.

This is such a wonderful book and I’ll throw it at anyone’s head when they ask for a recommendation. 

(PS: why are duologies so good??? is it because they know when to stop???? jfc)

I also screamed a lot of things from how cute the actual flirtations were and how stupid young Ylfing had gotten since leaving his teacher and how glaring the twist was. But you know. We're not here to listen to me talking about plot twists. We're here to listen to me talk about how it was a highlight on my reading list. I definitely loved how the book utilized footnotes. It wasn't the matter-of-fact Pratchett expositing and it really pointed out how unreliable our narrator was. In the first book, we had to remind ourselves to take Chant's narration with a grain of salt because he's naturally a crabby old bastard who does say he's filling in gaps of his story with third-hand information. But here, we find an in-universe reader pointing out the flaws and biases in Ylfing's story, filling in details and information we lack, and further driving in the dichotomy between new and old, fiction and truth. I just love how the in-universe reader interacts with the story we're reading, but at times it gets a bit redundant. That, or it feels like the author is hitting you on the head while pointing out the information you need to take a note of in fear you'll miss the build-up of the story. Talking about the story, this is an interesting progression from the first book. Like Ylfing, we begin to realize the weight of the actions that were done by Chant and understand the trauma that was unknowingly inflicted on someone when a main character rushes to their happily ever after. Seeing Ylfing trying to recover from being hurt and abandoned is painful and slow, just like his own path to redemption. From a cheery and optimistic apprentice, he's become a mournful and jaded traveller. Sometimes, like the reader, you want to slap him and other times you want to let him cry on your shoulder. How Ylfing continues to be exploited and ridiculed through this story also adds to the pain of it all, but it eventually has to get better. Eventually. Also, if you're into that inclusivity, this book has a wide array of sexualities and gender orientations and cultures, as did the first book. The first thing anyone would note would be how Fictional Amsterdam has six different social genders. They say that A Conspiracy of Truths was a love story to stories while A Choir of Lies was a love story for storytellers. That is most certainly true. We get to see traditional storytellers and storytellers who's lost the joy for it. We get to appreciate the tales they tell in the artful, crafted way they learned to tell them. And we get to love those who manage to claw themselves out of burnout and the abyss for the sake of their audience.

"These were the lovely Bones that had grown around my absence: the connections — sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent — that happened after I was gone. ... And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. ... My name is Salmon, like the fish. First name: Susie. I was here for a moment, and then I was gone. I wish you all, a long, and happy life."

It's still a story of Susie, post mortem, peeking into the lives of the family, friends, and foes she left much too soon. But she isn't vengeful. If anything, she is a watcher, an observer, a mourner. The movie cut too short the story of the Salmons, while the book rolls their lives out on the table as Susie narrates. She stopped living, but that doesn't mean the world stops and she accepts it and thrives.

The movie didn't do Susie Salmon justice because she isn't just a cautionary tale for missing girls. She's a letter slipped mysteriously into coat pockets from long-missing souls, begging and wishing the living to live. To move on from the hole rent open in the universe, to continue breathing while the dead have long since stopped. The world continues to change, and we see how improbable connections slowly make their way possible.

I also recommend this story to any girl and woman. Why? Because it's a story of womanhood and the trials and dangers women go through. Susie's story ends like the unfortunate end of many nameless girls. However, other girls' lives end up differently. Susie, forever fourteen, watches in jealousy and awe as her sister grows up to become a woman she'd never be. She watches Lindsey realize herself through the tricky waters of growing up, trauma, science camp, and boys. She observes her mother, trying to peer into the woman she wasn't in front of her children and family, trying to compare her to the lady she called "mom." She spectates her mother ripping out of being "mom," trying to find herself, finding freedom.

There are more women in Susie's life, and she follows them through the years, marveling at who they become and what they went through to get there. I honestly loved this book too much than I thought I would, and I would gladly force it upon anyone and everyone else looking for a book about living and moving on, being the victim of trauma and second-hand evils.

But... I prefer Gods of Jade and Shadow more. Cassiopeia battles, like Liesl, to flesh herself out as a person and not just a wayward cousin meant to serve as unpaid labor in Mexican back country. In the backdrop, Mayan heritage battles with modern sensibilities and a new religion, old gods at odds at each other— do they adapt or do they stay as they are, dust away in their people’s memory? As Cassiopeia becomes her own woman running through Mexico, the deity of death— Hun Kame— finds that he’s turning more and more human for comfort. Their unwanted companionship slowly develops into understanding, then friendship, then into something more, and then into nothing but a memory to press tightly against one’s heart on days when the past and present muddles itself up. 

And.

 I. 

 Love.

This. The book is just the great amount of devastating and the heartache is very satisfying. I LOVED the ending. People may disagree, but I appreciate how like Liesl, Cassiopeia must return to the human world but with new friends at her side to rampage through it while the myths remain with their mythic kind. That’s not to say I think heartbreak is the best thing in the world. I just love how that a great thing isn’t diminished just because it ends. Treasure is still treasure despite the time that passes. (I also appreciate how there is no book two :^) But tbh I’d appreciate a spiritual sequel)

As a Filipino, this book is really relevant to me: it covers colonialism, post-colonialism, indigenous identity in the modern era, diaspora, the meaning of religion, and the concept of identity in such a liminal country. It was also surprisingly feminist in its picks: there were stories that covered bodily autonomy and abortion, the aching for love over lust in a patriarchal society, the craving for human desire.  (Also: Spot Rizal. He makes a mystical cameo.) Not only the themes touched me as a person but so did the writing. The rich style and vivid voices of authors past delighted me. It reminded me what writing could be -- an intricate, difficult art. The turns of phrase made, the fleshing out of place and character all added up to a unique reading experience.

I can go on and on about how much I love this book because I truly adored it and it made my year before the year went to hell. Reading these short stories wasn’t like a homecoming like Patron Saints was but a reawakening of some sort. Not enlightenment, just... a redefinition of something intangible, pardon the pretentiousness. To any Filipino reader or writer, this is the one book I’d highly recommend you to steal, borrow, or search for. I’ve been told that the publishing house has closed, so the best alternative to borrowing the book from your local library is to look for the individual stories online (there are a handful up on the interweb) or check this page made by yours truly out.