Leaf 🍂 reviewed Brilliant Death by Amy Rose Capetta
Review of 'Brilliant Death' on 'Storygraph'
I enjoyed this overall, it reminded me of Howl’s Moving Castle but with crime families.
However, I’m a little bothered by the characterization of the one character as “nonbinary”. I know nonbinary has become a casual catch all phrase for everything outside of gender norms basically, and the author is themselves nonbinary, but the character being referred to changes back and forth between a shape that is unequivocally referred to as male and with he/him pronouns and one that is unequivocally referred to as a woman with she/her pronouns. This strikes me as very binary?? It’s literally just two gender options?? I guess I’d more accurately call the character genderfluid... I know this is a quibble, but it was uncomfortable for me to read expecting more exploration and rejection of gender binary, maybe more like my own experience, and then finding it so rigidly binary instead. :\