I feel like I like I lived a whole other lifetime reading this book. God, this story was cool. How do I describe it? The breadth of topics and themes covered, even for the length (which was substantial), was really impressive. Romance and sexuality, of course, but also gender dynamics, the harm of gender essentialism, religious fantacicism and deconstruction, the panopticon/spectacle of reality TV, interstellar politics, capitalism (derogatory), self-determination and self-worth, sex work, guilt, betrayal (which was very ouch btw 😭💔), all with a lovely serving of queer joy...New York's hottest club, indeed.
Sashen was just lovely; one of my favorite MCs ever. You know, I think the expectation in a lot of speculative fiction is that our MC is combat ready/badass, and I'll admit I was thinking that Sashen/I would learn that his sword dancing actually led to combat skills, but I actually liked that it didn't. Instead, we saw Sashen be naturally good at the game in other ways, ways that were true to his personality (and abayan gender) while also grappling with what those traits meant for his self-determination, or lack thereof.
And the structure of the book, as a deposition with interludes and transcripts was very cool. Where are we going with this story? How will Sashen forgive Araxis? How will he learn to trust Araxis again? How will Sashen thrive in this new life (because I am almost certain he will, somehow)? I'm too soft for this, but also salivating for more. I mean, I only cried like, 4 or 5 times reading the first book. How could it get worse? 🙃 But really, this was an excellent work of storytelling, and my favorite read so far this year!