[Edit: Originally published December 3, 2016]
A mythological adventure story where everyone is queer. The main character, Pen, is a bi/pan girl. Her love interest is Hex, a trans man. Their other companions, Ex and Ash two gay men. Ash is a man of color who is described as being literally the most gorgeous. It’s a great cast.
I was concerned, as I always am when there’s a trans character, about how Hex would be written. But it was done fabulously. I am definitely happy with how he was portrayed. And he was the love interest! He had a character that was formed around other things than just him being trans. That was obviously an important part of his story, but he also had tattoos and knew how to use a sword, loves junk food, is a recovering addict, and collects books. He’s a multifaceted character and it’s just fantastic.
Fans of Greek Mythology this is a book for you. Things keep popping up that seem like they’re from The Odyssey and they actually use the book to try an navigate their world, which has become a post apocalyptic wasteland.
The main character is Pen and her goal is finding her family. She’s lead to believe that they’re alive after the Earth Shaker that destroyed seemingly everything. It’s on this journey to find her parents and just survive in the waste of the world, that she meets, Hex, Ez, and Ash.
Warnings:
- There are a couple sex scenes between Pen and Hex. It’s nothing graphic, but they are there.
- Eye injury. There are two times in the book where a character loses an eye or sustains an eye injury. It’s a little bit graphic, but not terrible. As someone who is bothered by eye stuff this wasn’t bad at all.
- Drug usage and mentions of. While Hex does talk about having used drugs, that’s not the biggest part of the warning. There is a section that is based of the Lotus eaters in The Odyssey.
- Parental death. There’s a lot of death because end of the world and there are very few people left alive, but the death of Pen’s mother towards the end is a little bit more than most of the other mentions of death we get.
I would highly, highly recommend this book. Finally, it’s genre fiction with queer protags. Not one, but four.
You can get the book here.
Related Reviews: Changing Times, The Song of Achilles, Eggshells
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