wolffyluna | 'The Black Tides of Heaven' by JY Yang

This is not a 'Book Quest!' post, because I haven't actually finished it yet.

But I wanted to mention something while it is fresh in my mind. Something that illustrates how good this book is (or at least, how good it is so far.)

Partway through, there was a particular plot point I could see going one of two ways. One way I wanted it to go, and one way I'd be a little disappointed in it going. Not, like, put the book down levels of disappointed, but 'sigh... really?' levels of disappointed. But there was a good chance it would go the way I wanted it to go--

-- and it didn't. It went the way I would prefer it didn't. But the scene it happened in was so good, and fit in the story so well, and was written in this rich and emotional way, that I couldn't be disappointed. It was too right, and I'd been sold on this plot point in this one scene, because it was so good!

So, Black Tides of Heaven: good novella, so far.

So, in this setting, children don't have a gender, but are expected to pick one as a passage to adulthood. Gender is a choice-- but you have to pick one of 'man' or 'woman', and it's seen as a mark of adulthood to pick, so it's slightly odd to delay it. Declaring your gender early is fine, but there's an age you're expected to have done it by.

I'd heard some people saying (or possibly mis-remembered some people as saying) that this book had non-binary representation. And I was a little doubtful. Because 'children don't have a gender, but you're expected to have a binary gender by adulthood'... you could argue that is nonbinary representation, but I'm not sure.

This book follows two twin, Mokoya and Akeha.

Mokoya-- definitely a girl. Definitely.

But I (and let's be real, Akeha as well) didn't know Akeha's gender. They were either nonbinary or a man, and I wasn't sure which.

But I was rooting for non binary. Because I wanted the people who were saying the book contained nb representation to be uncontroversially right! And I really liked the idea of an nb character in a culture where you're expected to pick a binary gender as a sign of adulthood, and I thought it would be an interesting concept to explore.

It turned out that Akeha is a man. But the scene where he finds that out (The "I want. I want. I am.") scene was so goshdarned good, that it wiped away all my grumblings. And it fits with some of the other themes of the book really well-- but mostly it's for that scene. It was so good, that I cannot complain.

(I'm sure Yang could have done an equivalent scene for a nb!Akeha-- but the scene we got is good. I'm not gonna quibble.)

(Also, there was linguistic worldbuilding, and the way to my heart is linguistic worldbuilding.)

'The Black Tides of Heaven' by JY Yang

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