Icarus – book tour + review

Author: K. Ancrum
Publication date: March 26, 2024
Genre: YA contemporary/romance
My rating: 4.5/5 stars

Icarus is a forger and an art thief. Helios is a boy under house arrest…and the son of the man Icarus steals from. These two lonely souls on the cusp of adulthood, both struggling to resist their oppressive fathers, are brought together in a star-crossed friendship-turned-romance in this dazzling novel, loosely a contemporary retelling of its mythological namesake. The story also features Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome representation, which is very close to my heart, as well as various queer identities, found family, and so much more. Read on for my full thoughts (and a splash of literary analysis–when you have a mythology retelling, how could you not?).

Ace Books 4: Ace & Books – still more books with ace rep

Well, folks, another year has come to a close (yes, yes, that was three weeks ago), and you know what that means: time for a roundup of all the books with ace rep that I read in 2023! This past year, I read a whopping SEVENTEEN (17!!) books with characters on the asexual spectrum. As usual, they spanned quite a few genres (yay), and while mostly good, the rep quality also varied in a few (womp womp). I’ve provided notes on the type and quality of representation for each book. Where I’ve written a review of a book on the list, I have hyperlinked the title to that review.

Please, as always, remember that I am just one reviewer, and while I try to stay as objective as possible to make this article a useful resource, the ace spectrum encompasses a wide range of experiences. I am ace, but my take on the quality of any given piece of representation may differ from that of others in the community; much like our experiences, our opinions can and do vary.

With all that said, let’s get started!

P.S. If you’d like to see my lists from past years, here are the links to my roundups from 2020, 2021, and 2022!

Kaikeyi – review

Author: Vaishnavi Patel
Publication date: April 26, 2022
Genre: mythology retelling, historical fantasy
My rating: 4.75/5 stars

Motherhood and mythology are both quite complicated. Kaikeyi attempts to unpack the latter’s treatment of the former by reimagining the life of a figure from the Hindu epic Ramayana. And not just any figure, but one who, in the traditional epic, is portrayed as a villain; this story imagines a new possible context for her actions that make her far more sympathetic. This feminist historical fantasy was one of my favorite reads of 2023, and I highly recommend it. Read on for all my thoughts!

The Future – ARC review

Author: Naomi Alderman
Publication date: November 7, 2023
Genre: sci-fi thriller
My rating: 4.5/5 stars

They say you can’t prepare for the future (lowercase, general concept). Turns out, you also can’t prepare for The Future (capitalized, this book). This smart sci-fi thriller was a wild ride from start to finish, and every time I thought I knew where it was going, it unfolded another layer of complexity and deception. I posted a shorter version of this on my Instagram a while ago, but realized my blog post never made it into the real world. So…read on for my full thoughts!

Being Ace – review and story notes

Editor: Madeline Dyer
Publication date: October 10, 2023
Genre: young adult anthology
My rating: 4.5/5 stars

I first heard about this anthology before it even had a title; the editor, Madeline Dyer, mentioned it in an ace group on Facebook, and I’d been anxiously awaiting its publication since then. So, naturally, when I had an opportunity to review a copy of it from the publisher, I jumped at the chance. While my review on Instagram was posted a while ago, I wanted to put this longer review up as well, as it contains detailed notes on the specific type of representation in each story, as well as relevant trigger/content warnings and more detailed thoughts on each installment. This is a powerful anthology that I believe will be extremely validating to ace folks everywhere–read on for more of my thoughts.

Seven Faceless Saints – review + quotes

Author: M. K. Lobb
Series: Seven Faceless Saints (#1)
Publication date: February 7, 2023
Genre: young adult dark fantasy
My rating: 4.5/5 stars

I cannot adequately express how glad I am that this book lived up to my expectations for it–it was one of my most-anticipated reads of this year, and it was just what I hoped for. There was a murder mystery. There were fantasy politics and corrupt religion. There was an enemies-to-lovers arc. There were also things I didn’t expect but was really happy to see–demisexual rep, mental health conversations, and a Soft Boy/Angry Girl pairing to die for. Read on for my thoughts on the book, as well as some personal favorite quotes from it!

Ace Books 3: Tokyo Drift (even more books with ace rep!)

Yes, yes, it’s already more than halfway through March, but I am just now getting around to my annual recap of all the ace books I read last year. I ended up only getting to eight in 2022 (not counting rereads, one book that I tabled because I wasn’t in the mood for it, or one book that didn’t actually have ace rep as promised), but a few of them ended up being truly fantastic, so I think I’m mostly okay with that? As always, this list is meant to be somewhat more thorough in its explanations of (a) what type of representation there is, (b) how explicit the representation is, and (c) my personal opinion of the quality of the representation. Where applicable, I have linked my full reviews of these titles; I only have a few reviews, unfortunately, because last year was a really busy time for me. Law school is a crazy time.

As always, please remember that ace identities are not a monolith, and people may always differ in their assessments of the quality of representation. I try to be relatively objective when possible, but please take my opinions with a grain of salt.

If you haven’t already, be sure to also check out my first and second posts in this series!

The Witch King – audiobook review

Author: H.E. Edgmon
Series: The Witch King (#1)
Publication date: June 1, 2021
Genre: YA fantasy
Audiobook narrator: Dani Martineck
My rating: 2/5 stars

Preliminary note: this review is a little spotty, is in part because I read this book last November, so my memory is a little iffy, and in part because the issues that bothered me have stuck in my head and I don’t much feel like talking about the rest. I didn’t like this book much, if at all, which was quite a disappointment, because the ace rep, Native American rep, and OwnVoices trans rep had definitely caught my eye. Ah, well. Not every read can be a winner.

Iron Widow – review

Author: Xiran Jay Zhao
Series: Iron Widow (#1)
Publication date: September 21, 2021
Genre: YA science fiction
My rating: 5/5 stars

The first thing I’m going to say about this book is that I cannot believe it took me so long to pick it up. It’s been on my shelf since 2021 (I received it in my second-ever Illumicrate box), and yet I didn’t pick it up until the very end of 2022, at the urging of several good friends of mine. Once I started reading, I couldn’t stop. Iron Widow has all sorts of great things: feminism, battle robots, characters with dubious morals, queer representation, revenge, sarcasm, Chinese historical references, and more. Often dark but never bleak, this is a page-turner that you don’t want to miss.

Aces Wild – review

Author: Amanda DeWitt
Publication date: September 13, 2022
Genre: YA contemporary
My rating: 3.5/5 stars

Okay, so. The blurb on this one had me 100% sold–a heist in the vein of Six of Crows featuring an all-asexual cast? You’d be hard-pressed to find a more perfect intersection of my interests. The thing is, this marketing tactic really did the book a disservice. This is not like Six of Crows, minus perhaps the found family element and some teens engaging in illegal activity. It was a fun read, and the ace rep was wonderful, but I’ll admit, I felt rather let down. Were it not for my extreme soft spot for good ace rep, this would likely have been a lower rating. Read on for a better breakdown of my thoughts!