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i finished this! which means i can move on to some fiction for a while. which is exciting! i'm excited!

i'm highly invested in this series and i'm only like 30 pages in, but it's already bit into me. i'm excited to see how everything plays out in the last book of the trilogy

looking to read up on harm reduction, in part due to personal interest, and in part due to wanting to find volunteer and/or paid work in practicing harm reduction. the rosario dawson afterword advertised on the cover kinda threw me off but i decided to start this one anyway and i'm glad, so far, that i did.

i'm almost half through it as of posting this, and i'm so excited to finish the trilogy, there's so much depth, so much going on, in this series!

i got really hung up for i think ADHD reasons. i found myself having trouble placing settings in the story. i kept having to flip back to internalize where things were happening. i just couldn't keep track of details. i'd finished neuromancer in the past and this was an attempted re-read, so i decided to let it go and move on to more Ancillary series stuff!

@eldang@outside.ofa.dog i have a bit of a queue, but this review sold me on this and i'm going to throw it on my e-reader. thanks :)

i've read this before, but it was a long time ago and i don't really remember of it. my perspective these days is also very different. i'm excited to start!

writing a protagonist who is several different people wrapped into one consciousness, and is for some part of the story, not necessarily reliable as a storyteller, feels like it would've been a challenge, but ann leckie made it seem natural

the worldbuilding is, typically for good sci fi, brilliant. i felt absorbed into it. the constant surveillance within the radch is disturbing and feels connected to the real-life present. the colour and the characters are lovely.

i also noted that this is ann leckie's first full length novel and i'm super impressed.

i'm eager to read the next 2 in the series, though i'm going to read something else in between so i don't get series burnout!

i knew long before i read this that it would be important to me.

from a historical perspective, it shines a light on the realities of being a lesbian in the 60s and 70s. of being transmasculine and searching for terminology and self-understanding in a culture that didn't even marginally recognize gender outside the binary. or sexuality outside the hetero. it shines a light on surviving abusive parents. on finding community without the internet. of navigating complex queer subcultures. and hatred in its many forms, up to and including bar raids, arrests, and unspeakable abuses by cops.

it also illuminates and speaks to the beauty of love and friendship and comradeship within those queer communities. the intricacies in how butches and femmes and transfemmes interacted. i was able to see myself in the warmth and emotionality and fierce bravery in the face of fear and violence expressed by the femmes and that will stick with me forever.

the narrative also details the struggles of unions through economic upturns and downturns. the constant fight for unity against unsafe work conditions and dangerously low pay.

stone butch blues is a brilliant, intense work of art that carries the weight of history in its pages. it's important reading for anyone interested in queer history, queer present, and queer futures.

this book was incredibly meaningful to me. i saw myself in it at times, out of place and time. i saw history. i saw oppression on a scale that i dont experience today as a white canadian trans lady.

the butches, the femmes, the others, the neithers, the trans men, women, enbies of the 60s and 70s, really did change the world. it's still scary and there's still work to do. but their suffering, the wars they had to fight, meant something.

i hope it's the same for me.

aoki weaves passion for music together with a sci-fi subplot and a devil's bargain, in what feels like a very strange combination when you read the synopsis, but in fact works perfectly. aoki discusses trans issues, redemption, music, race, and technology with nuance and wit. her characters are vibrant and lively, flawed but lovable. i can't imagine anyone reading this without caring about aoki's characters to the point of tears in both its darker, and more uplifting moments.

i can't recommend this book strongly enough.