Strange and terrific (contains multitudes)

This audiobook was awesome and very different. I expected something more clear-cut but very much enjoyed swimming in these shadows instead.

This is a story and characters who aren't neat or nice. There's no pre-determined path and no one can really be boxed as a particular archetype. Most characters are people of colour and the two main characters are explicitly dark skinned. The POV is unreliable and sometimes rambling, sometimes wistful, sometimes so angry she could charge at anything. She's also at times changeable, lost, fierce, loving and afraid.

Between urban fantasy, coming-of-age, first times, recovery, horror and mythology, the closest genre to shelves this work might be dark fantasy f/f queer-lit. It's a messy book without toppling over into gritty gratuity, though it has a good share of ghosts and gore, too. Best of all, it has a happy ending for our queer women romance - yet that, too, is rather complicated. The bulk of the story barely scratch the Minotaur's and focused instead on getting to know the main characters, even if it all ties up at the end.

The reader is also the writer and this always gives me a special joy and eagerness to listen and hear *their* version, how they render their own works. What stuck me first is that J.A. Rock is a tremendously talented reader: listen to the sample here and you'll hear what I mean. She has an eloquent speech and does wonderful voices. Each character have their unique rhythm, pitch and pattern which unfolds the story like a play. A dark, unreliable, uncertain theater piece.

All in all this was a weird, spooky story, equally disturbing and wonderful.

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