Shut Up, and Let Me See Your Jazz Hands

See, this series is weird for me because I read God Stalk at 12 and then found Dark of the Moon at the library, once, then never again and of course it was too out-of-print for me to hunt down for my own. Basically, I have loved Jame for more than a decade and yet I'm reading Bound in Blood for the first time today. I LOVE IT.

Like, I dig Jame and Tori and Kindrie and their whole fucked-up destiny/family/romance THING, and I dig the plot and the worldbuilding and the whole ball of crazy that is the Kencyrath (I have THOUGHTS, you guys), but the thing that might make me happiest? Is how CASUAL the queer content can be in these books. Like, this is not a Single Token Gay situation. There's sister-kinhood, and the true love of Brenwyr and Aerulan that extends even into the afterlife, and Kindrie's (THUS FAR) unrequited love for Tori, and the false Lord Randir is gay, and today I read about Jame meeting a woman and her seemingly-genderqueer husband (called Da by their kids so I'm going with "genderqueer" instead of "drag king") and getting teased about a threesome. All accepted both culturally and by individuals, except for a single creepy-ass villainess, and even that appeared to be more blackmail than actual homophobia, since Adiraina shut her down at least in part by pointing out that that would prevent anyone ever sharing a similar relationship with Rawneth. IT MAKES ME HAPPY. ALSO, THE MERI-KIT PRACTICE POLY AND ARE GENERALLY GREAT, IT'S JUST CHINGETAI THAT'S A JACKASS.

Okay, and I also enjoy that boys keep hitting on Jame and she's mostly "whatever, stop being a douchebag" about it, and then girls hit on her and she gets flustered. I JUST WANT JAME/TORI WITH A SIDE OF JAME/LADIES AND POSSIBLY OF TORI/KINDRIE. Like, I can't quite parse if consort-contracts are exclusive outside of things like sister-kinhood and mistresses, or if the Highborn practice poly as well, because if the latter, than Tori should totally contract for Lyra as well, I HEART HER, and she would be totally willing to share with and to love Jame.

Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

1. The Iron Dragon's Daughter (NOT FOR ANYTHING GOOD. JUST SEEING THE COVER FILLS ME WITH RAGE AND BETRAYAL.)
2. Great Uncle Dracula (The first chapter book I ever read by myself, in a single day. I was very excited! Also, the monster thing was very cool when I was seven.)
3. Tatterhood and Other Tales (I really cannot express how much this influenced me. I never had that "oh, girls can be heroes, too" epiphany because I grew up reading this and already knowing it.)
4. The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry (80% of my favorite poetry is in this book. The Middle Eastern poetry is especially amazing, and I never would have read any of it without this book.)
5. Covenants (Favorite book! No, you don't understand: I spent most of my life unable to pick a favorite and then there was this, and I've bought five separate copies, and I just am completely infatuated with stubborn, powerful, in-denial Rabbit and the scary-ass men who love him (and can read his mind! also, he keeps ending up naked!). SUIDENNNN, ILU SO MUCH.)
6. Small Gods (Terry Pratchett + religion = A++)
7. Gaea Trilogy (Mostly memorable for the massive "dude, you are fucked up" reaction. But it was also my first experience with homosexuality in fiction.)
8. God Stalk (One of my formative sci-fi novels; I read it at about 12? Awesome mindfuck of a novel - the heroine has amnesia, so you're figuring out her identity with her, based on scattered recollections and the tangled hearsay of Kencyr mythology. Plus, dirty/kinky/wrong het-ship I love.)
9. Grasp the Stars (Remains the most successful "squishy" science fiction I've ever read; human society has undergone a drastic but believable evolution, the aliens are genuinely alien (and WE are genuinely alien to them, which is much less often the case), and the SHIPPING. There's for-real poly and I have an actual chart of who I would like to hook up and how. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.)
10. A Tremor in the Bitter Earth (The TIELMARAN CHRONICLES. I remain totally sad that they have no fandom. There is noncon soul-binding and UST all over the place and kickass ladies and stoic heroes and it is AMAZING.)
11. Enchanted (HURTS SO GOOD. Okay, so this is totally the purest example of my h/c beginnings: the heroine is known - in two countries! - as Ariane the Betrayed, forchrissakes.)
12. Eight Cousins (I had a whole "classics" phase and this is hands down my fave of the time; yes, over Little Women, Five Children and It, The Secret Garden, all those.)
13. Ritual of Proof (Mostly proof that certain romance tropes are totes creepy regardless of gender roles; also, will forever be remembered as "the one with the man-hymen".)
14. Winds of Fate (I way overidentified with Elspeth.)
15. My dad's college lit textbook - introduced me to Shakespeare and AE Housman and Robert Frost and I ADORED IT.