on
3.5/5
Non-Fiction
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Rating: 3.5/5
Pages: 400
Started: 10 October 2023
Finished: 16 October 2023
Summary:
When Darraugh was young, an enchanter gifted him a magic thorn that allowed him to grow up as a boy instead of the gender he was assigned at birth. But his family, particularly his father, refused to accept him, and so he took up a life as a sailor. When he receives news that his father is dying, he returns home, only to realize that the only way to cure his father is to find the enchanter who helped him so long ago. So he ventures to the forest the enchanter is known to occupy, and must come to terms with the literal thorny maze, and the enchanter's thorny past, to try to heal his own future.
Thoughts:
This was a fascinating book to read. I've never seen trans-ness and neopronouns placed so naturally in fiction, and that was really lovely to read. The world-building, with a transphobic older generation but accepting peers, was the perfect medium for the story's messages about queerness. The fairytale aspect of the story was also really cool, and the interwoven stories of the enchanter's past made the story as a whole feel rich and decadent. The book did get a little too obvious at moments; emotional conversations, like Darraugh's with his mom, were so correct that they felt too easy and thus unsatisfying. However, the story was overall well written and immersive, and its queer-centric and non-allo-centric nature was so refreshing and comforting to read.