by Iris
A few years ago, I fell completely in love with novellas. I’d read a couple before, but I guess not enough to fully appreciate the form. Or maybe it was just a timing issue? But at some point during the Covid years I started absolutely inhaling novellas and I’ve never gone back.
The skill with which authors can evoke a whole city, country, world or even universe, and also build a fully-fledged plot in a mere 160 pages or so continues to blow my mind. But while I love novellas’ diminutive size, that is also exactly what makes it hard to review them. How much can you really say about such a short book without spoiling crucial plot points? So here’s another three-for, this time featuring novellas with Queer elements: three micro reviews in one fell swoop!
A young royal from the far north is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully. Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor’s lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for.
This book will forever be cemented in my memory as the one that kicked off my novella obsession. I first read it in 2021, smack dab in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, this is the book I brought with me to get vaccinated – I started reading it during the mandatory 15-minute post-jab waiting period. It was a bit of a logistical hassle, because I was eating an ice lolly at the same time (medical procedures during a heatwave means you get a nice, cooling treat for free!), but I managed.
Anyway. Even though the start of my reading experience with this one was clearly kind of odd, it quickly swept me away and I just couldn’t stop turning pages. There’s something about the way this story is written that is just so rich: the objects, the textures, the colors, the flashbacks to a long-ago life that nonetheless feels very vivid. The forbidden but beautiful love between two of the characters, and the plot twist at the end when you find out the trick they played… It’s really good stuff.
(The rest of the series is excellent, too, and they can be read in any order!)
Clara Gutierrez is an AI repair technician and a wanderer. Her childhood with her migrant worker family has left her uncomfortable with lingering for too long, so she moves from place to place across retro-futuristic America. Sal is a fully autonomous robot. Older than the law declaring her kind illegal due to ethical concerns, she is at best out of place in society and at worst vilified. She continues to run the tea shop previously owned by her long-dead master, lost in memories of the past, struggling to fulfill her master’s dream for the shop while slowly breaking down. They meet by chance, but as they begin to spend time together, they both start to wrestle with the concept of moving on…
This bite-size morsel of a story is tender and surprisingly slow-paced, with a little adorably awkward yearning (without making that the main focus). But it does pack a punch, especially for being only 116 pages long: there’s a bit of existential dread, plenty of fraught personal insights and decisions, and a beautifully slow building of trust between the two main characters.
I don’t remember exactly when I first read this very wholesome little book, but I’m pretty sure it was during the colder half of the year. The whole idea of a somewhat outdated but neat and comfy tea shop REALLY appealed to me, and I stand by that: this is a perfect read for a chilly, rainy, windy day. If you like Becky Chambers’ Monk & Robot books, Malka Older’s Mossa & Pleiti books, or even Martha Wells’s Murderbot Diaries, I highly recommend you give this a try.
There is a Wild Man who lives in the deep quiet of Greenhollow, and he listens to the wood. Tobias, tethered to the forest, does not dwell on his past life, but he lives a perfectly unremarkable existence with his cottage, his cat, and his dryads. When Greenhollow Hall acquires a handsome, intensely curious new owner in Henry Silver, everything changes. Old secrets better left buried are dug up, and Tobias is forced to reckon with his troubled past—both the green magic of the woods, and the dark things that rest in its heart.
First in the Greenhollow Duology, this book tells a beautiful, atmospheric story steeped in folklore and fairy tale. I once read a review from someone who said “This book felt like walking in the woods after rain” or something to that effect, and that’s an absolutely perfect description as far as I’m concerned: you can practically smell the forest while following Tobias in his daily life.
Speaking of the main characters: I love and appreciate Tobias A LOT. Such a wonderful, gentle, calm presence, but strong and stalwart underneath. Henry is the perfect amount of bumbling fancy man without things becoming too slapstick, and the way they circle each other is beautifully written. If you’re one of those people who does reading retreats to the middle of nowhere, this is the perfect book to bring!
