psocoptera: ink drawing of celtic knot (Default)
psocoptera ([personal profile] psocoptera) wrote2025-07-01 10:37 pm

Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way

Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way, written by Ryan North, art by Chris Fenoglio, 2024 graphic novel. I tricked myself out of Hugos hooky by reading this book not on my own voting behalf but on the theory of just looking into it to see if I thought someone else should bother, and then it was fun and I got hooked and it was a nice evening's read. Cute and clever take on the choose-your-own-adventure format, satisfying story, worked for me even though I don't know the slightest thing about Lower Decks (but I do know TOS/TNG decently well and there were a lot of references). And now I suppose I might as well take a look at the rest of the graphic category, maybe, hm.
psocoptera: ink drawing of celtic knot (Default)
psocoptera ([personal profile] psocoptera) wrote2025-07-01 09:49 pm

Rules for Ghosting

Rules for Ghosting, Shelly Jay Shore, 2024 novel. I was still playing Hugos hooky, after also reading two-thirds of Asunder which got interrupted when my ebook expired, but I have a paper copy as of this afternoon so expect to hear about that soon. I came across this book in a couple of different contexts (a book group I'm not in but am adjacent to was reading it, etc) and was intrigued - queer (m/m) romance, literal ghosts, Jewish funeral customs? Sure! If that sounds good to you you will probably also enjoy it, although I felt like it was stronger as a family drama in some ways than as a romance - it almost felt like some of the early "getting to know each other" scenes might have been deleted for length, since there was a kind of weird jump to them knowing more about each other than had happened on the page. Pluses: learning about taharah and shmira, interesting low-key take on including paranormal elements. Minuses: dog squick (really hard for me to enjoy a schmoopy scene of the couple kissing and cuddling if one of them just kissed his dog, ew ew ew), author mentioned in a Q&A at the back of the book that she was picturing one of the couple as an actor whose face I hate, which kind of ruined the ship for me tbh. I mean, at least I had already finished the book, but it killed any post-romance-novel afterglow. Maybe don't read the Q&A if you have any actors whose faces you hate. Could be a plus or minus: I am not qualified to evaluate how good a job Shore did writing in a trans POV, but it seemed reasonable to me? But also seems plausible that a review by a transmasc person might point out things I wouldn't catch? (Shore herself is a she/they person.)