Needed polyamory and to be kinder to transfemmes

The good:

The dedication at the start of The Feast Makers is to the author, August Clarke, not to the present day August Clarke, but to "proto-August". Clarke has grown through the trilogy. I don't so much mean as a writer, as the writing is fantastic from the start of book one to the end of book three—I adore Sideways Pike's first person voice throughout this trilogy and how unapologetically extremely gay they are. But as a queer, Clarke has grown into himself, embracing lesbian non-womanhood, becoming confidently butch alongside his they/them butch protagonist, Sideways Pike.

I love the Scapegracers coven with my whole heart. And I was immensely satisfied with the ending, where our heroines fight fascism with the power of incredible violence.

The bad:

The only places where this trilogy is weak is where August Clarke misses opportunities to be more queer. Sideways Pike is not credibly monogamous—they are too much in love with every girl they meet, and the intimacy between them and the three other young women that make up the Scapegracers coven suggests a budding poly relationship. And yet, despite clear sexual tension between all four witches, Sideways pairs off with Jing, and the ill-fitting normativity of monogamy is imposed on the four. As a lesbian who wakes up in the morning next to her four lesbian partners, I can attest that group polyamory works pretty great, actually, you should try it, Sideways!

But the biggest issue in the trilogy is Shiloh, a transfemme witch who is introduced in book 1 and emerges as a major supporting character in books 2 and 3. Shiloh is a very believable character and I love them so much.

The first sign that Shiloh is a problem is that the top review on Goodreads casually degenders Shiloh as a "non-binary Achillean side character" (putting non-binary in front of Achillean doesn't make the use of Achillean less misgendering). The quotidian transmisogyny of Goodreads reviewers is not Clarke's fault, but it is enabled by how Shiloh is depicted in the books. Clarke's user handle on Twitter is "sapphomancer" and Clarke has self-described as someone who writes books about lesbians. This makes the choice of depicting the one transfemme in the trilogy as straight where the cis witches are bi or lesbian seem pointed and deliberate, as if Clarke is uncomfortable with the notion of transfeminine lesbianism.

There is a moment in Book 2 where I nearly dropped the series. The Scapegracers have been casting hexes on shitty, abusive men and boys that name them eternally "Chet" and prevent them from harming women and girls. Sideways takes in a homeless transfemme off the street, letting Shiloh stay at their place. The rest of the Scapegracers think Shiloh isn't to be trusted and convince Sideways to "Chet" hex Shiloh. Sideways does so, binding the male name "Chet" to Shiloh's being. The magnitude of this violent, permanent misgendering of a transfemme is never addressed.

The conclusion of book 3 affirms the necessity of violence to protect queers from fascists and oppression. When you are a marginalized woman, like Shiloh (and yes, Shiloh may be non-binary but they are meaningfully a woman, they present femme, they're on estrogen), you need to be able to defend yourself, and some of the people who will come to hurt you will be cis women. The world is full of women who want to assimilate into patriarchy through violence against those they see as lesser. Shiloh's biggest abuser is their serial killer mother. And the Scapegracers thoughtlessly strip Shiloh of any ability to defend themself from her.

The fact that the Scapegracers placing a "Chet" hex on Shiloh was an act of oppressive violence on a marginalized person, reifying rather than destabilizing gendered hierarchy, is never addressed in the trilogy. I doubt any of this was intentional but it sure deserved a trans woman sensitivity reader's eyes on it before publication.

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