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Set in the 60s, Vera Kelley is a lesbian spy in the CIA who leaves CIA when they leave her hanging during a hairy time in Argentina. She loses her next job when the manager finds out she is lesbian. She turns to being a private investigator putting her spying skills to good use. This book touches upon the US intervention in Dominican Republic and how much it did to prop up a dictator while also being a mystery that touches on the foster care system and how screwed up it is. Really loved the atmosphere setting which felt very lived in and how difficult it must have been for LGBTQ+ folks to be surviving in the middle of it all and yet they did.

I LOVED LOVED this book. Queer love underneath a Bachelor like reality show. Mysterious mythical creature lurking in the background, people disappearing. Perfectly written feminist horror thriller. Unlike the other one I reviewed today, this one does not have people doing silly things and saying "oops" while dying.

@kingrat Thank you!!

It is quite surprising to note that the author is still working on their MFA at San Jose State university. The book is super compelling read. The story is about two sisters who have a bad experience as very young children in a home that they come back to after 10 years or so and confront their fears. There are ghosts & monsters.

The author transitioned after writing this book (so they go by M. M. Olivas now and not what this book club instance tells us). Do read as it's written by a Bay area author too!

locusmag.com/2024/11/spotlight-on-m-m-olivas/

I did devour this book. It was super compelling. The book covers a future world that feels significantly more miserable than what we live in today. It does cover how AI can be abused for domestic violence. Ultimately it is a positive outcome for the protagonist. I felt the end outcome was a bit contrived. Nonetheless if you want a distraction this is a good book.

For Native American Heritage month, i am reading a bunch of books by indigenous authors. This is a fantasy story where witches exist but are being hunted out of existence by witch hunters who are basically harbingers of capitalism. 7 spoons find the right group of women who are necessary to bring about the end of capitalism & the witch hunters.

The author tries to make this inclusive by having a trans woman as one of the protagonists but really why would a witch have to have something femme about them? It doesnt quite make sense to me really. Somehow it feels like this book is veering towards terf-ness by having such a narrow focus on who can be a witch.

Otherwise this is a very compelling read. Easy to keep reading and the trashing of capitalism is a plus.

@graue@bookwyrm.social Oh wow! I will add it to my reading pile!

The story is about a SFPD (lol) police psychologist who moves back to Nigeria after a racist encounter with the US police and starts helping his sister try to find out who is trying to frame the mega church pastor there. During the course of this we encounter colorism, outsized influence of church & rampant corruption. The book was really un-putdownable and I had to turn the pages to finish it.

I am deducting two stars for showing police as having a "few good apples" and ending too neatly with politicians & the criminal behind bars thanks to vigorous police. I also didnt like how the only Nigerian character with muslim name has a "funny" way of pronouncing words in English and how the lower class people language is shown to be pidgin and not in a respectful way.

The book features a world where people with testosterone get an incurable disease that makes them kill & eat all estrogen-having people. Meanwhile trans people are being persecuted for either having testosterone or wanting testosterone by the TERFs. I am not surprised at all that the Wachowiski sisters decided to make this into a movie. This is gonna be an AMAZING one.

It also ends in a very satisfying manner (with a cameo featuring the most famous TERF alive). I really enjoyed reading it especially the day after the 2024 elections. I am squeamish about reading sex scenes in books and this one has a LOT of them.

Loved this book. This is how you write people working in police without pretending like there are a "few good apples" and pretending like police is what keeps sanity. This book tackles heavy topics of child abuse in churches. I also learned about Larry Casuse who kidnapped the mayor of Gallup (Larry does not have a Wikipedia page) to highlight the plight of Navajo nation people who are tormented in Gallup and he was shot dead by the police. A+++

I really wanted to like this because it was a paranormal mystery set in Haight Ashbury featuring amateur detective who sold second hand clothing. Sadly, there was just too much racism & transphobia for me to get over. Granted this was published in 2009, but I do think we all deserve better than this representation of San Francisco.