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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...
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A Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She's used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, she'd be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remains of her world. Aster lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship's leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer, Aster learns there may be a way to improve her lot-if she's willing to sow the seeds of civil war.

TITLE: An Unkindness of Ghosts
AUTHOR: Rivers Solomon
PUBLISHER: Blackstone Audiobooks
YEAR: 2017
LENGTH: 352 pages (11 hours 54 minutes)
AGE: Adult
GENRE: Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction
RECOMMENDED: N/A

Partial Queer Rep Summary: Lesbian/Sapphic Secondary Character(s), Trans Main Character(s), Closeted/Questioning Main Character(s), Intersex Main Character(s).

DNF 5 hour 17 minutes in (44%).

I love so much about this book, I just couldn't handle a particular topic that's triggering for me when I was already stressed (mostly in good ways) by the story so far. The worldbuilding is very cool, paying attention to language and tiny cultural differences existing between the decks. The audiobook performance is good. I like Aster as a main character.

I really wish I could handle finishing this, but I just can't.

CW for sexual content (brief), ableism, cursing, racism, homophobia, transphobia (brief), interphobia (brief), pregnancy, abortion, alcohol, mental illness, dementia (backstory), child abuse, sexual harassment, sexual assault (backstory), fire/fire injury (brief), vomit, blood, violence (graphic), self harm (brief), infertility, medical content (graphic), medical trauma (graphic), cancer, terminal illness, slavery, police brutality, suicide (backstory), parental death (backstory), death.

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A Black person made of a star-filled night sky


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