caitri | Jun. 2nd, 2020

I wasn't in the mood to write about books today, but I'm a creature of habit who is at a loss in so many ways for anything approaching a semblance of normalcy, and so if literally all I can do today for a scrap of comfort is to tell you about a book, well, here goes. And as it happens, the first time I read this book was the week of September 11. I started it a couple days before, and then, well, the world turned upside down, caught on fire, classes were cancelled, and eventually in the wee hours of the morning I needed something to help me sleep, and this book was on my nightstand.

The novel itself is the first in a series of trilogies, all fat epic fantasies that beautifully combine the low-stakes of relationships with friends and lovers as well as the high-stakes of international turmoil and intrigue. Also, lots of sex. So much sex. In fact I'm so caught up in how much I love everyone in this bar I unthinkingly passed it on to a friend who was just like "Um. Is there. Going to be stuff without. You know. Sex. At some point?" (Mild exaggeration.) But since it's Pride month, this is also one of the first books I ever read where queerness was the norm. On top of that, the two moral backbones and refrains of the series are "Love as thou wilt" and "All knowledge is worth having" which are both solid things to live by really.