Skip to main content

Featured

October Daye / Inheritance - Essay Series Part Five: Long Series and How to Read Them

Hello Patrons and general audience members! Welcome to another Books That Burn essay by Robin. Thank you to Case Aiken, who receives a monthly Patron shoutout. [Full Audio Available Here] This is the fifth and final entry in a five-part essay series discussing two long-running book series by queer authors: October Daye by Seanan McGuire, and Inheritance by A.K. Faulkner. I chose these series because I love them both, they were intended from the start to be long series, neither of them are finished yet, and the authors have different structural approaches to developing each series across so many volumes. Purely coincidentally, they are both long-running contemporary fantasy series mainly set in California in or near the 2010's, with major characters named Quentin, and whose fast-healing protagonists have a tendency to quasi-adopt a gaggle of magical teenagers. After a brief moment in the 1990's, October Daye begins in earnest in 2009 and has reached 2015 as of the eighteenth boo...
Post a Comment
Read more
Labels

Harley in the Sky by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Harley Milano has dreamed of being a trapeze artist for as long as she can remember. With parents who run a famous circus in Las Vegas, she spends almost every night in the big top watching their lead aerialist perform, wishing with all her soul that she could be up there herself one day.

After a huge fight with her parents, who continue to insist she go to school instead, Harley leaves home, betrays her family and joins the rival traveling circus Maison du Mystère. There, she is thrust into a world that is both brutal and beautiful, where she learns the value of hard work, passion and collaboration. But at the same time, Harley must come to terms with the truth of her family and her past—and reckon with the sacrifices she made and the people she hurt in order to follow her dreams.

TITLE: Harley in the Sky
AUTHOR: Akemi Dawn Bowman
PUBLISHER: Simon Pulse
YEAR: 2020
LENGTH: 384 pages
AGE: Young Adult
GENRE: Contemporary
RECOMMENDED: N/A

DNF 98 pages in (24%).

Partial Queer Rep Summary: No canon queer rep.

I don't like the main character and I vehemently disagree with her choices early in the book. At this point I can't help feeling like she brought this mess on herself and it makes it hard for me to sympathize with her. Since that's not a great feeling for me, I'm stopping. I can tell from the description that part of the point is that this is a mess and a lot of it is her fault, but this just isn't the book for me. 

TW for Harry Potter reference.

Bookshop Affiliate Buy Link

Add this on TheStoryGraph

The yellow and black stripes of a big-top tent, viewed from underneath, with the shadow of a young woman doing acrobatics silhouetted against the stripes.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts