The Black Tides of Heaven, JY Yang
I know that these are supposed to be stand-alone novellas, but honestly I would start with this one anyway. I didn’t like Akeha at first — they were so possessive of their twin, so reluctant to admit that maybe they’re not absolutely identical in the end, and I didn’t agree with his decision to stay away from Mokoya for so long. But nonetheless, as Akeha started to claim his own identity — first identifying as male, then going travelling, etc — I started to root for him, and in the end I was a little disappointed that this mostly felt like set-up for the second novella.
It’s a good introduction to the world, anyway, with its various social complexities (like people being genderless before whatever age they decide to declare what they choose, and people not choosing or at least not choosing entirely) and the magic. I would like to know more about both — about how the whole situation with choosing your gender and having your body altered magically to match arose, and more about the magic and Mokoya’s part in it.
But also I wish I had more time with Akeha, because I felt like I’d just really got into his story when it ended.
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