Overall, it came across as lacking any direction to its stories, or visually pleasing artwork.
And the one about the Indian guy whose ex-girlfriend probably time-traveled to encounter him at a party - what was even that story about? The artwork didn't impress me, either - while the backgrounds are done well enough, the characters themselves sometimes were disproportionate in design. Then, there was the one about the tourist (who may have also been a queen) and her actions didn't make sense. The others, well, frankly, left me going 'what is even going on', like the story about two friends catching up, and one barely giving the other room to speak, and them fighting on and off - it ended on a bizarre note. A couple of stories had some merit, like the one about the non-binary person who had a common ground of being queer and desi with a cartographer, or the one with the weird dog-with-girl-face hybrid (FMA vibes, anyone?) who wanted to have a say while her 'mistress' was going on and on. The stories are too different from each other, and are too subtle in their metaphors, if there were any, to have me be sure of anything that they were trying to say. Warnings: self-harm (bloodletting), body horror, mentions of transmisia, some nudityĪpsara Engine had me a bit interested from the first story, but most of the stories were too puzzling in what they wanted to portray that, overall, I came away from this book confused as to what exactly was the common thread through this anthology. Rep: queer women of color trans and non-binary characters I definitely recommend this collection, though some stories are uncomfortable, all are worth reading. The collection also contains stories of privileged and unhappy New Yorkers- "Come Back To Me", "Meena and Aparna" and "I can see it in you" all focus on women who seem unsatisfied with their lives. In "Love Song", a young girl has encounters with increasingly larger magical beings. They are both Desi, and together they build a dream city in which people they love, and people who look like them, can thrive. In "Swandive", a nonbinary master's degree student befriends a trans scholar at an academic conference.
In "Pleasure Palace", an older Southeast Asian woman on vacation tells a rude young American man a fairy tale, which may or may not be her own tragic past as a queen in exile from her own kingdom, and the death of her female lover.
My favorites were the ones in which these fantastic elements took over the whole story by the end. Almost every one contains a sci-fi or fantasy twist somewhere in it. This is a beautiful, strange collection of short comic stories.
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