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The Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean

Each generation, a competition is held to find the next empress of Honoku. The rules are simple. Survive the palace's enchanted seasonal rooms. Conquer Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. Marry the prince. All are eligible to compete--all except yokai, supernatural monsters and spirits whom the human emperor is determined to enslave and destroy. Mari has spent a lifetime training to become empress. Winning should be easy. And it would be, if she weren't hiding a dangerous secret. Mari is a yokai with the ability to transform into a terrifying monster. If discovered, her life will be forfeit. As she struggles to keep her true identity hidden, Mari's fate collides with that of Taro, the prince who has no desire to inherit the imperial throne, and Akira, a half-human, half-yokai outcast. Torn between duty and love, loyalty and betrayal, vengeance and forgiveness, the choices of Mari, Taro, and Akira will decide the fate of Honoku in this beautifully written, edge-of-your-seat YA...

Mort by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #4, Death #1)

Death comes to us all. When he came to Mort, he offered him a job.

After being assured that being dead was not compulsory, Mort accepted. However, he soon found that romantic longings did not mix easily with the responsibilities of being Death's apprentice...

TITLE: Mort
AUTHOR: Terry Pratchett
PUBLISHER: Turtleback Books
YEAR: 1987
LENGTH: 316 pages
AGE: Adult
GENRE: Fantasy
RECOMMENDED: No

Queer Rep Summary: No canon queer rep.

Most of this was fun and I had a good time, but there were too many random moments that took me out of the narrative with an off-putting comment that didn’t fit the rest of the story. Usually this took the place of treating the mention of someone’s fatness or the idea that they might be insane as if the observation of it was the whole joke. These moments were especially frustrating because so much of the rest of the humor is great. It’s paced well, the dynamic between DEATH and Mort was strange but interesting, and I liked the ending. 

CW for ableism, fatphobia, alcohol, toxic relationship (not depicted), violence, suicidal thoughts, animal death, murder, death.

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