Reviews and Comments

i loved this. i'm bouncing between le guin and octavia butler right now and i feel very good about it.

i couldn't get all the way through this. it's a newer sci fi series and i wanted to like it really bad, but i couldn't sorta, internalize or connect with the writing style, and the story had some YA energy that i also struggled to get into. i kinda stalled and stopped reading for a number of months because i felt committed to finishing this, but i decided a bit ago to stop and try something else and it was the right decision

sci fi space detective book! i'm so excited!

i immediately became best friends with all of the characters. even the ones who kinda made me roll my eyes a little. everyone was so warm and vibrant and alive that i connected to all of them in some way almost immediately, and so, i really felt it when their stories were recounted. or when times got tough.

there was commentary on the welfare system in the 90s. there was some moralizing, and there were some shots at a system that seems determined to hurt and kill people. but, rather than get bogged down in frustration, the novel expresses this angst and frustration through occasional outbursts from lish. little bits of an insane response while living through insane circumstances of poverty and life on the dole. which is great, because it's hard not to become frustrated or even angry about how cruel and absurd being on welfare is. but the novel remains largely focused on the stories it tells, of lucy, of lish, and of the other women at half-a-life. and it mostly treats the hypocrisy and incongruity in the system with a quick joke for a cheap laugh. which contributes to the warmth in lucy's narrative.

it was also a loving tribute to poor single motherhood. to the joys and the hardships of surviving and taking care of your kids. the dedication of the mostly young mothers. the adversity they just kinda shrug off and live with to protect their kids, time after time after time. the stigma of being on welfare, and the consequences of that stigma in how men treat them. but also the joy in the little weird things kids do. grass tipping from dill's head and confusing him, as he leans down to pick more grass, to put more grass on his head. the little noises and quirks. lish's precocious kids absolutely loving to learn, loving school, and putting on little performances and playing games as they grow up.

this was a wonderful novel to get absorbed into and i'm very lucky that my girlfriend was sweet enough to lend it to me <3

i loved this and i'm definitely going to do a little review blurb

i finished this! which means i can move on to some fiction for a while. which is exciting! i'm excited!

i'm highly invested in this series and i'm only like 30 pages in, but it's already bit into me. i'm excited to see how everything plays out in the last book of the trilogy

looking to read up on harm reduction, in part due to personal interest, and in part due to wanting to find volunteer and/or paid work in practicing harm reduction. the rosario dawson afterword advertised on the cover kinda threw me off but i decided to start this one anyway and i'm glad, so far, that i did.

i'm almost half through it as of posting this, and i'm so excited to finish the trilogy, there's so much depth, so much going on, in this series!

i got really hung up for i think ADHD reasons. i found myself having trouble placing settings in the story. i kept having to flip back to internalize where things were happening. i just couldn't keep track of details. i'd finished neuromancer in the past and this was an attempted re-read, so i decided to let it go and move on to more Ancillary series stuff!

i've read this before, but it was a long time ago and i don't really remember of it. my perspective these days is also very different. i'm excited to start!

writing a protagonist who is several different people wrapped into one consciousness, and is for some part of the story, not necessarily reliable as a storyteller, feels like it would've been a challenge, but ann leckie made it seem natural

the worldbuilding is, typically for good sci fi, brilliant. i felt absorbed into it. the constant surveillance within the radch is disturbing and feels connected to the real-life present. the colour and the characters are lovely.

i also noted that this is ann leckie's first full length novel and i'm super impressed.

i'm eager to read the next 2 in the series, though i'm going to read something else in between so i don't get series burnout!

i knew long before i read this that it would be important to me.

from a historical perspective, it shines a light on the realities of being a lesbian in the 60s and 70s. of being transmasculine and searching for terminology and self-understanding in a culture that didn't even marginally recognize gender outside the binary. or sexuality outside the hetero. it shines a light on surviving abusive parents. on finding community without the internet. of navigating complex queer subcultures. and hatred in its many forms, up to and including bar raids, arrests, and unspeakable abuses by cops.

it also illuminates and speaks to the beauty of love and friendship and comradeship within those queer communities. the intricacies in how butches and femmes and transfemmes interacted. i was able to see myself in the warmth and emotionality and fierce bravery in the face of fear and violence expressed by the femmes and that will stick with me forever.

the narrative also details the struggles of unions through economic upturns and downturns. the constant fight for unity against unsafe work conditions and dangerously low pay.

stone butch blues is a brilliant, intense work of art that carries the weight of history in its pages. it's important reading for anyone interested in queer history, queer present, and queer futures.