“The Bone Cave” by Dougie Strang

This book I bought in Dunkeld at a combination coffee shop and bookstore. It only felt appropriate to buy a book about wandering around the Highlands while we did the same thing. I talked more about our experiences in Dunkeld in this post.

The book narrates Strang’s experiences with a huge hiking trip through the Highlands, making stops at places with myths about them. He ends up making a kind of figure 8 through the area, there is a map at the beginning and he refers to things like towns and highways as he goes. I only recognized Inverness and Loch Lochy/Loch Ness.

The narration is equal parts describing the hike, talking about the folk tales, and telling the tale of Strang’s life. I thought the last bit was the most interesting, for a few reasons, among them being that I’m not as familiar with the scenery or stories. But my main apprehension with the book was that I knew it’d be different if a woman was doing this in terms of approaching the stories and how travel risks are thought about. But Strang is more aware than I thought, he talks about having daughters and how they likely would assess things like hitchhiking very differently. Strang also discusses how he grew up and was in an apprenticeship but felt it to be soul sucking. He applied to a job on a whim and ended up heading out to the woods to live there. Through that, he decides to get a degree in Scottish tales, leading directly to this journey through several myths.

The book certainly isn’t a thorough discussion of Scottish history or folklore, but it gives a very interesting intersection of them. The whole thing is driven by place and as he travels Strang can recount both the history of the location and how it has stuck around as well as myths mentioning it. It is interesting how history can stick around in the imagination of contemporary individuals, to this day folks have feelings about the massacre at Glencoe and discriminating against those descended from the general leading that effort. It’s honestly kind of amusing.

So I really liked reading this book as it paralleled my travels. I certainly didn’t go on any trips as noteworthy, but I like to learn about where I’m traveling. And this was a great way to get a little knowledge of Scotland and it’s culture as I’m no expert.

This Is Beautiful: Exercise

 My schedule is finally evening out and it is honestly so nice having access to more things. I'm able to take 3 different dance classes at 3 different places plus aerial circus and it feels amazing to have exercise that I want to do. Near me! It's wonderful. I hope that over time it'll just be a lot like healthier for me to be doing all of this, and it's not so time consuming I can't also do non-exercise things as well. Anyways, I feel great, I love what I'm doing, and it's shaping up quite nicely.

“Ayiti” by Roxanne Gay

This is a collection of short stories by Roxanne Gay, whose other works I have also read previously if you want to find those posts. This is the only fiction that I have read from her, and she mentioned when she visited campus for a talk that she does consider herself a fiction writer.

Ayiti itself is the indigenous name for Haiti, which is where Gay is from. Hence, all of the stories have to do with being Haitian, and most of them are about Haiti’s relationship to the US. People wanting to immigrate, those that have immigrated, those with other family members that immigrated, all of those stories are in here.

Reading this immediately after Hunger, which Italked about in this post, was really striking. There’s a longer story about a woman from Haiti who marries a rich man from the US. They have their honeymoon on Haiti where the woman is kidnapped by a group of men who rape her repeatedly. She returns and is traumatized by this, and eventually gives birth to a baby boy. The story is difficult, but also really beautiful. The way Gay talks about this protagonist and her own assault in Hunger is really strikingly similar, I have to wonder if that was her way of processing it. Or if it was her way of representing her own experiences.

I really liked this book, it is a quick read but there’s a huge variety of stories here that give a depth to the Haitian experience. I would recommend, especially if you are like me and hadn’t read Gay’s fiction before.

This Is Beautiful: Local Comedy Show

 Last weekend I got tickets to a local comedy troupe at a nearby venue. I wasn't sure what to expect, comedy can be kinda hit or miss. I was hoping this would be better since it's a local group that performs pretty regularly, from what I can tell. And it was so fun! I had a really great time, I'm checking out when that group is performing next. Sometimes it can be so rewarding to just go to a random show!

Edinburgh Fringe

The follow up to my previous post about Scotland is that we spent the second half of vacation in Edinburgh at the Fringe festival. I had never been and I loved it! It felt very much like just trying to absorb as much art as I can in a few days.

We stayed in student housing, which wasn’t great, honestly. It did the job but the bed was uncomfortable, plus there were two of us in there. But we got our own (tiny) bathroom and a shared kitchen. It definitely worked for our purposes, but maybe a hotel if we ever make more money.

The shows themselves were really the highlight. There was such a cool mix of different genres, we saw multiple circus shows and audience participation shows for sure. Most of them were comedies also, and based on other IP. So for example, one of my favorite shows was “Fly you Fools!” which was a group of four actors reenacting “The Fellowship of the Ring” that was equally faithful to the movie and funny. Unfortunately a lot of the Fringe fest is very DIY, actors flyer for themselves and run a lot of the tech themselves, there is some venue staff as well who also work very hard. But it seems logical that independent shows not based on something the public has familiarity with would have a harder time.

I loved this experience so much, I could have been there all month and not gotten tired of it. And spent too much money. But it was really delightful to just take it all in and focus on art for a week. I hope I can go back sometime!

This Is Beautiful: Advanced Dance Class

 For so long I have been looking for like a ballet company where I can take open adult classes in the evenings. It probably sounds snobby, but going to somewhere that specializes in ballet gets the classes up to a higher level and pushes me more, and I need that. Anyways this past week I managed to get to class at Carolina Ballet and I was a little intimidated going in because it seemed like everyone was incredible. But it was great, I sweated like I haven't in years. It's so nice being back at it!

Dunkeld and Birnam, Scotland

Earlier this month we went on vacation to Scotland! It was great to be back there, I really enjoy that every time there’s a change in my life I have to go to Scotland. Our plan was to go up to the Highlands for some rest first for about a week, and then to Edinburgh (which will be a future post). We took the train to Dunkeld and Birnam and stayed in a cute place there, it was really lovely!

Now Dunkeld and Birnam are technically two different towns, but they are connected by a short bridge so it doesn’t really matter. Over in Birnam there are less things for sure, but it’s still very cute. The main attraction is Birnam Arts with the Beatrix Potter experience. The story is that Ms. Potter spent her summers in Birnam when she was young, and her experiences with the wildlife there led to her writing all of these children’s stories. She also met the naturalist Charles MacIntosh there, and he is buried in a nearby cemetery. There’s a theory that his likeness is Mr. MacGregor in Peter Rabbit which is extremely adorable. Past the church, there’s the last tree from Birnam Wood, a medieval forest featured in the Shakespeare play “Macbeth”. It’s about 400-500 years old! Very cool to see, the tree itself is huge and well worth the visit. Other than that, there’s some cute cafes and coffee shops. We really liked the Birnam Wood Café and Birnam Books personally.

Over the bridge in Dunkeld, there’s a little more going on. Most restaurants and hotels are over here. There’s also the Dunkeld Cathedral which is super historic but in disrepair right now. They were collecting money in a few ways but also by holding free music concerts all summer which was so fun! We caught a Scottish folk music performance and a classical saxophone performance. There was a cute knit shop, a fish and chips place, a tea shop, a bakery, a clootie dumpling place (a baked treat), and more! We spent most days doing the 15 minute walk into town and then figuring out where we hadn’t eaten yet.

Just outside of town there are many trails for hiking and biking, we only did one. It’s the Hermitage walk and it’s known for not being too difficult so it’s relatively accessible for kids and older people. It was cool though to be out in the wilderness, so nice to get to see the woods and some wildlife.

So that was our trip to the Highlands! It was a lot of fun and really nice that it was on a train route for us. I would love to go back sometime for another relaxing vacation.

This Is Beautiful: Living in a City

 Whoopsie doopsie, I meant to post this yesterday but hey I'm just back from vacation (more on that in later posts for sure). I've been living in Raleigh for a little over a week now and I have to say that I'm actually really liking it. There's so much stuff nearby, I can take a quick bus ride to work, and I can finally find things that were nowhere out in my random Midwest college town. Also the food's really good, that has me pleased.

My main complaints are of course the heat (I'm dying, please cool off soon) and lack of like a tram or subway system. The buses aren't bad, so far, but it is hard having to drive everywhere. Everyone drives also so the parking isn't horrible that I've seen so far, but I just can't stand driving.

It feels so nice being back in a city. I think this won't be perfect, but it'll be really nice for a few years.

“Bury Your Gays” by Chuck Tingle

I first heard about this book from The Ace Couple podcast, they reviewed it for its representation of an aromantic and asexual character and looked on it extremely favorably. So it was on my radar, but I didn’t get around to picking it up until Mr. Tingle himself came through town and redid his Bury Your Gays tour at our local library. At that event, I finally got my hands on the book. And this was really a delightful read, I’m so glad the starts aligned to make this happen.

The book follows Misha, a writer in Hollywood known for excellent scripts of queer horror. Misha has an Oscar nomination for his latest short film about a mouse, and has a season finale of his TV show coming up. Unfortunately, the tv show follows two agents who Misha wants to make queer and happy, but the executives say that they’ll make more money if they are queer and dead. Misha is pondering how to pull this off when odd things start happening to him. Seems like several of his horror monsters are coming to life and following him around.

Things are terrifying until he follows one of the tv executives back to a remote studio location. There he plans to break in, until the tv executive runs out and drives off, then Misha ends up witnessing his murder. He heads back to the studio, breaks in, and learns that scientists there are working on nanobots that can be assembled using AI into anyone the entertainment company has the rights to. Living, dead, or fictional, doesn’t matter they can remake them and have them act like themselves. All to make more money. Misha agrees to kill off his characters, but now the algorithm wants him dead. He barely makes it through the Oscars, but makes a speech about the importance of queer joy and changes the algorithm. Now everyone wants queer happiness with as little conflict as possible, and Misha is still feeling throttled.

Meanwhile his best friend Tara is aroace and works in IT. She develops a plan where they go and confront the nanobots and she uploads a virus into the backdoor of the program, killing them all off. Everywhere in Hollywood, people turn to ash. Misha writes the ending to the tv show he wants, and the terrifying fictional monsters stop appearing.

The aroace representation is really a highlight of this book. You wouldn’t get this from my summary, but Tara is a major character throughout the book. She’s targeted by the first monster along with Misha and has equal stakes in their rescue. She also is constantly telling him to turn off his phone around the company so that they don’t get his data. The ending is pulled off because 1. The company doesn’t have her data and 2. There’s no asexual representation, so the AI has no idea what she’ll do. It’s a great way to have a wonderful character in the book and utilize her sexuality as part of the plot.

In general though, the book does a great job upending tropes regarding queer individuals, not just the ace community. It’s title comes directly from the idea that gay characters cannot be happy in film and tv, they have to be killed off. Misha gets to directly upend that with his tv show. Misha himself also gets to live and not be killed off in a fake suicide backstage at the Oscars. After changing everything to queer joy, the new executive is a walking gay stereotype and called out as such. As Tingle himself is a queer writer, I have to imagine that this is pretty autobiographical which is also cool to think about.

I really enjoyed this book in general, and also specifically for its representation. Horror isn’t really my cup of tea so I might not have looked into it otherwise, but I’m so glad I did. I should get around to some of Tingle’s other horror works, there are so many of them after all!

“Hunger: A Memoir of ‘My’ Body” by Roxane Gay

I have been a rather casual fan of Gay’s work for a while, I read Bad Feminist back in 2020 or so but I always like her essays online. I finally picked up this book after she happened to be speaking on campus and mentioned that this was being turned into a movie as well. I knew of this book, but since my main exposure was her essays it just never popped up for me. I’m glad I finally picked it up!

The book is in a format that is very easy to read, most of the chapters are only a few pages and it feels much more like a series of short essays or reflections than a narrative. But there is an underlying story of how Gay was raped as an adolescent and from there turned to eating as a way to protect herself. From there the book is primarily about what it is like going through the world in such a large body, what she struggles with, and how she is trying to heal.

Lately I have been almost obsessed with books that manage to talk about healing and the realities about it. It isn’t pretty or neat or linear. And she talks quite a bit about her process here and how wonky it is and the intersectionalities with being a large, Black woman. It gets driven home for me in a chapter where she talks about how she had to break herself in another way (her ankle) in order to realize how much she had and how much she had to live for. I think that’s such a nice way of getting at it that you just have to hit the right breakage in order to put yourself back together.

The other aspect I really appreciated was her brief discussion about the body positive movement. I am nowhere near her size, but I think talking about how she doesn’t feel there’s a place for her there since she doesn’t totally love her body resonates a lot. I also don’t love my body but want to, and I want to, more importantly, respect it and treat it well.

I am looking forward to trying to find the movie version as this seems like a difficult book to put together on screen. Gay seemed really enthused by it at the event and that is always a good sign. And I really should read more of her works. It just about always hits and captures the nuances of feminism and the like that you don’t see much elsewhere.

This Is Beautiful: The Odyssey

 Not a hot take by any means, but Christopher Nolan's film "The Odyssey" is extremely well done. I went to see it earlier this week with a friend and it really did not feel like its runtime. A major standout for me was the music, whoever composed that score had an impeccable sense and control of the tension. The music was really a part of the whole experience instead of something laid on top of it. The best example I have is that Odysseus's bow string is a chord and part of the music whenever he is fighting or hunting and that is used to really great effect. 

The film can feel a little preachy at times with all the talk of Zeus' law (treat strangers with kindness) and how it has been broken. But I think it works for a modern audience, it both makes it feel rather timely and humanizes the characters. Odysseus knows that he messed up during the war and is able to talk about that to Penelope towards the end.

The performances were amazing and the visuals were fantastic. I'm so glad I managed to catch this film in theaters!

“The Bloody Chamber and other stories” by Angela Carter

This is a collection of short stories based on fantasy or folk tales. Some are really short, only a page, while others are much longer. There’s one based on Beauty and the Beast, a Puss in Boots, and Red Riding Hood among others.

I have a soft spot for retellings of familiar tales that get more of a modern twist, especially those written by women, so I did largely enjoy this work. Most of the protagonists are female, and a lot of them manage to get happy endings! Especially in “The Bloody Chamber,” the main character is about to be beheaded by her serial killing husband when her mother comes for her and shoots him in the head. It’s very satisfying.

I will also say though that there’s a bit too much… sex? For my tastes. It’s fine for the stories where it makes sense, and it’s really funny in Puss in Boots, but almost every story has a girl taking off her clothes at some point. Which like, I get it for a few stories and there’s a bunch that deal with the human/animal divide so that’s all good. But then the Little Red Riding Hood one mentions the wolf’s huge junk multiple times and she gets naked at the end and it just feels like we used this up previously.

So this was fun, it’s a quick read, but it gets a little repetitive. I still had a great time though, which is all I want from a book like this.

This Is Beautiful: Staying Put

 Alright my past post was on Toronto, but now I'm reversing course here. I'm so glad I get to stay at home for the next two weeks and work part-time. I need a break from doing things and I think that this is going to be great! I'm a few days into a course that I'm teaching in the mornings this week and next and so far it's pretty chill and I'm liking it a lot. Hopefully this is just the recharge that I need.

Toronto

 Last week we finally had a real vacation and went to Toronto, Canada! It was really nice, except for the air quality turning the city into the apocalypse about halfway through. That was not as fun. But I really liked the place! I would love to go back since we definitely only experienced a fraction of the stuff available.

First of all, I loved the vibe of Toronto. It felt super international and artsy. There was a lot of fun graffiti that I enjoyed on a lot of the street lights and community boards. My favorite was a sheet of paper saying "Are you ugly? Email me, I have questions" which was so funny. There also was such a diverse group of people on the streets and in restaurants. Nearly everything was in English and French, which was so neat as an everyday occurrence.

Now our first day was dedicated to museums, starting with the Art Gallery of Ontario. I really liked their collection! There was a lot of local and Canadian art, plus plenty of special exhibits you can get into with general admission. And even beyond the super advertised exhibits there were a number of rooms dedicated to specific artists so you can see a lot of their work in one place. It was a cool way to highlight their work without making a huge fuss about it. Plus all of the museum descriptions on the walls etc were in English, French, and Anishinaabeg. Which I had never seen in a museum and was super excited about.

After that we went to the Baha Shoe Museum! I was so excited about this museum, it was half of the reason I wanted to go to Toronto. There was a main exhibit covering a timeline of shoes, then a few special exhibits. We saw an exhibit on a specific designer, cowboy boots, and archeology of shoes at a specific site near Hadrian's Wall. It was a cool mix of topics related to shoes! Only a fraction of their collection is ever on display so it changes over frequently, which is sad for me since I can't go back for a while.

Our next day was when the sky looked like the end times due to air quality, but we went out to the Toronto Islands anyways. It was so nice to hop on a ferry and just get to a beach. It's great to have that so accessible and nearby to such a large city!

Anyways, I loved Toronto. All of the food I had there was amazing, and there were so many museums we didn't have time to check out. I hope that I'm able to go back soon!

This Is Beautiful: Local Conference

 Over the weekend I managed to self-finance my way to a local conference at a university about an hour away. It was really nice! First of all, I could do whatever I want. I have stopped formal work for a university so I don't need to report back to anyone and can check out as much as I have interest in. And also, it's close enough I just drove up and stayed with a friend. It was lovely and flexible. I got to check out what I was interested and just ditch the rest. So nice!

"The Crystal Cave" by Mary Stewart

 This is part of my journey through some older fantasy books. This was ok, because I had just finished a really good book I was definitely not as enthusiastic about this one. Tigana just has such a lovely cast of characters. This book just focuses on the protagonist the entire time and as a result just feels flat and lonely.

The story tells Merlin's life leading up to his raising of King Arthur. It starts with him as a child, a bastard in the house of an English noble. He meets a wizard in the woods and learns from him, but ends up running away when his grandfather dies and his uncle that hates him takes over. This doesn't last long, he is kidnapped and taken to Ambrosius who is trying to become king. It's then revealed that Ambrosius is his birth father, and that Merlin has some form of Sight that sometimes lets him see the future. Merlin helps Ambrosius win, Ambrosius then dies unfortunately and his brother Uther becomes king. Uther falls for the Duchess of Cornwall and Merlin helps them hook up and produce Arthur. Story ends with them procreating and Merlin predicting to his manservant that this child will be the greatest king of England.

As I have alluded to, I found this story to really lack colorful characters since so much of it is Merlin going off on his own. He repeatedly says that he loves being by himself in caves which would be a great opportunity to clarify some part of his magic. But that also never happens either. Plenty is explained as just being good at engineering, but his Sight comes and goes and is never quite clarified. He seems less like an actual wizard and more like some confused priest.

The treatment of women is also pretty abysmal. Repeatedly they are called whores or sluts, and the only women with any hint of a thought process are Merlin's mother and the Duchess at the end. Of course, I should emphasize, both women are just there to have children. Really disappointing since the author is (checks notes) a woman. Like I really don't care if it's to be "historically accurate" I don't want to read it.

This is part of a series about King Arthur but I really don't think I'll be checking out the rest of the series. This one stands enough on its own and I can stop reading here without needing more of it.

This Is Beautiful: Moving?

 Alright so I spent this past week moving myself into an apartment in North Carolina and it was surprisingly... not painful? I tried to be smart about it and got the place and had furniture delivered in advance. And then it took multiple big shopping trips to get the rest of the stuff and some food. But overall this wasn't that bad? Which surprised me a lot, I feel like moving is one of the most stressful things you can do. But everyone has been super friendly, and I think after inhabiting multiple apartments I'm used to a no frills life and I know what I need to function. And it's exciting to think of the opportunities here and the things I'll be able to do! So trying to ride that excited wave for the last few weeks before I officially change residences.

“Tigana” by Guy Gavriel Kay

This is one of my favorite fantasy books that I’ve read in a while. The plot is really nicely wrapped up, the conflict is complicated, there are multiple viewpoints and elements of action, and it is really thought provoking. In the 10^th anniversary afterword by the author, he mentions how this is primarily a book about memory. How if you destroy the memory of someone or someplace you eliminate it on a deep level. And that’s so interesting to think about in a fantasy setting.

The book opens with Devin, a singer in a troupe, being hired to sing at the Duke’s funeral. During the proceedings he follows one of his fellow musicians up to a mysterious room where she shoves him behind a panel and they overhear about a meeting taking place in the woods. Devin goes to listen and hears about a plot to overthrow the two wizard tyrants in the region. The meeting is interrupted by one of the other musicians in his troupe, Alessan, and he is revealed to be a prince of Tigana. Tigana is a land that used to exist, after Brandin (one of the tyrant wizards) loses his son in a battle in Tigana he overthrows the region and uses magic to make it impossible for anyone not born there to learn, remember, or hear the name. Alessan takes Devin away when the meeting is found and explains that to him. Devin realizes that he is from Tigana and joins the cause. They return to the meeting place and everyone there was slaughtered by Alberico, the other wizard tyrant. Also the Duke is revealed to not be dead, merely faking to get this plot started. He also joins them as he is secretly a minor wizard.

We swap to narration from Dianora, a concubine to Brandin. It is revealed that she is from Tigana and came there originally to kill Brandin, before falling in love with him. She is also a sister of Baerd, one of the men with Alessan. Back to Devin and co., they are traveling around stoking unrest until they run into a troubadour wizard Erlein. Alessan as a prince binds Erlein’s power to his cause. Erlein protests as he now can only do magic that Alessan orders, and he tries to run away. But he is eventually resigned. They continue until Alessan gets word that his mother is dying. They head back to Tigana to see her where she rebukes him for not taking on Brandin himself. She then dies. By now though some geopolitical shenanigans are in action, Brandin is trying to establish himself as King of the land. To legitimize this, Dianora does a Ring Dive, a ritual where she grabs a ring he throws from the sea. Brandin and Alberico are now at each other’s throats, but there is a kind of stalemate where they aren’t at war yet. To kick things into motion, Catriana (a member of the original musical troupe) kills the relative of Alberico’s near them and attempts to sacrifice herself. Erlein saves her of his own accord and Alessan frees him. They go to battle soon after, and it is revealed that the plan is for their motley crew of wizards and magic users to shield Alberico until the last second when Brandin sends every ounce of magic at him. Brandin kills Alberico but leaves himself powerless. This removes the enchantment from his Fool, now revealed to be the Prince of Tigana that killed his son and was thought dead. The Fool kills Brandin before dying. Dianora drowns herself and her servant greets Alessan and co. In the end, Baerd never learns what became of his sister and the servant hides the identity of the Fool.

Now first of all, the writing style of this book is amazing. It is easy to understand and super clear, which is important with all of the geopolitical maneuverings taking place. There are multiple times where the reader is dropped into a situation with no context, and then has to put together pieces to figure out what exactly is going on. But Kay makes it very simple for the reader by not using a fantastic style of writing and instead just being accessible to a wide audience. I can’t stand when fantasy authors think that if they write in an archaic manner that it’ll elevate their story or something and Kay does not fall into this trap.

So much of the book has to do with the importance of memory and stories. Obviously there’s Tigana being wiped from the face of the earth with its memory destroyed. Many of the characters are living through the pain of being able to remember that land, but not being able to say it to others. Now part of what felt fake about this is that Devin does not remember Tigana at all, but being born there he feels a duty to join their cause. It just doesn’t feel like he has a stake in this, but to be fair that is partially addressed in the text as Devin acknowledges that he just feels that it’s the right thing to do to sign up. There is also memory with regards to different characters. At the very end, the identity of Brandin’s killer remains hidden. I thought that might have been unfair, but there is a sense that it would be too much for Alessan to know that he brother was alive and enchanted this whole time. His brother got his revenge in the end, and that fulfilled him, and once he is dead it sure doesn’t matter to him how he gets remembered. Alessan as well seems to have a sense of his legacy and import and thinks about that carefully, he is frequently emphasized to be a good and fair leader.

It is interesting to me that the book has a sort of “chosen one” plot with Alessan, and yet the main protagonist is Devin who is an ordinary guy. We get to learn about Tigana and this plot through his eyes, which makes a lot of sense narratively. But it feels ahead of its time that the narration is just a smidge off center. Alessan is clearly who everyone and everything revolves around, and we don’t get behind his eyes at any point in the book. I quite like this choice, I think it makes sense to tell the story this way and also it lets Devin comment on the proceedings around him as an outsider to a lot of the plotting.

The book is delightfully not black and white, or good versus evil. Which is so nice as a lot of fantasy tends to fall into that trope. Alberico is the closest to a true bad guy, he slaughters everyone at the beginning and is known for wanton killing. Brandin gets more complicated as we see him through Dianora’s eyes, but it still doesn’t change the fact that he destroyed Tigana and there is very little mourning for him. Alessan is the closest we have to a true good, but he binds Erlein. They argue over this constantly, and the author mentions in the afterword that this is supposed to make the reader think about what lengths someone should go to for their cause. It is softened quite a bit by who Alessan is, and with Erlein coming over to his cause, but the conflict is there nevertheless.

Interestingly, there is some queer representation. It is not much, but it is mentioned that the two female dancers in the musical troupe hook up, and that women or men can be attracted to each other. The presence of this feels kinda cool to me given that this book came out in the late 80s. But none of the main characters are queer, none of the sex that is had (nothing graphic, but it is there) is queer and that just feels like a missed opportunity. If there’s a whole scene of Devin having sex with some queen whose castle they stop in, you can have some queer characters exist more prominently.

Finally I do have some complaints. Most have been mentioned already, Devin’s motivations for joining Alessan feel forced. Catriana as well, its stated that she joined because her father never fought for Tigana and fled before it began. Which feels ridiculous to me, her father is not her. But there is a whole theme with her and Alessan of disappointment between parents and children that this does add to. I just feel that having multiple tyrants is more motivating than your dad choosing life. On a similar vein, it is not totally clear what the aftermath of all this is. Alessan is ruling Tigana, sure, its alluded to that he becomes King of the whole area in the epilogue. But this is where things fall apart, sure Alessan is a good man but is he a good leader? How does he rebuild after all of this conflict? None of that is made clear, and in that way the book is very similar to typical “chosen one” fantasy stories. Which is disappointing after such a great discussion of conflict and memory and choices.

Anyways, despite all of that I loved this book. It was gripping in its intensity and made you root for all of the characters. There is a softness at the heart of it that also just felt warm and made you want to disappear into this world. Unfortunately there isn’t a sequel, which I expected, the story is self-contained, but Kay has plenty of other novels I may check out.

This Is Beautiful: Love's Labors Lost

 Ok so this isn't and won't be my favorite Shakespeare play. BUT even though I wasn't in it, Shakespeare in the Arb did this play this summer and I was able to see it multiple times to catch my friends. I then also went back and revisited "Lovely Little Losers" from the Candle Wasters in the hopes of picking up on more stuff from the play. And it worked, I realized a lot of odd things were just direct references to Shakespeare. It's an interesting adaptation since it's the characters from "Much Ado About Nothing"/"Nothing Much To Do" and as a result stuff gets rearranged. But I enjoyed it much more now that I know what it's about!

Professor Layton and the Unwound Future

It took me a little longer but I finally completed the final game in the original Layton trilogy on my phone. It is interesting to me that the entire trilogy is based on three different ways there are entirely different and fabricated worlds created.

The unwound future starts when Luke gets a letter from his future self. They then head to a clock shop from which they are transported to the future and meet Big Luke. In this future, Layton has become a gang boss and they need to band together to take him down. Meanwhile, Layton sees someone who looks like his old, dead girlfriend who died in an explosion. Eventually though, Layton from the past figures out that Big Luke is actually a rich villain who is trying to get all of the scientists working on time travel together to then blow them and the city up. Additionally, the woman Layton sees is revealed to be his old girlfriend who was temporarily sent to the future but she then almost immediately like degrades. Layton advocates for Big Luke on the grounds that those scientists killed his parents with their experiments, and they all return to London. The game ends with Luke moving with his parents to the US and being separated from Layton.

There are some big highs and lows of this game to me. I hate that Layton and Luke deceive Flora and leave her behind somewhere. Honestly throughout the series I wish Flora was better incorporated, Layton supposedly adopted her so he might as well act like it. I also think it’s a little lame that the London of the future is actually a huge underground bunker that Big Luke dressed up all fancily. Seems a little farfetched, but the last game had hallucinogenic gas so guess it’s relatively reasonable. It does give some fun spaces to explore. Also the poor keeper of the lost puzzles, Granny Riddleton, is replaced not once but TWICE! And that feels ridiculous.

A high though is the treatment of Big Luke with compassion at the end. Layton saves his life as a child, and then again here in the game by advocating for him. It’s a nice message and I love that the game ends on that. Because it is aimed at kids doing puzzles, it’s important to know that you are allowed to grieve but also that it cannot consume you like that. Fault can be leveled at people without having to resort to revenge.

Anyways, this is a delightful little trilogy. I don’t think there’s other Layton games for the phone which is sad, but there’s a brand new one coming out soon that I am very excited for!