celinenyx
Written on Apr 12, 2019
Moonshine starts as a slice-of-life kind of story, following Daisy (a nod to The Great Gatsby, I'm assuming) as she gets a new job as an assistant. Daisy carries little trinkets made by her grandmother that she can pull on and do small magic with - but being a magician in Soot City is heavily frowned upon, and she is careful not to show her trinkets to anyone.
It takes a while for the plot to develop, and I feel that is why the book has a relatively low rating on Goodreads. At page 50, I still had no idea what the main hook/plot was, and this is a problem that will make many people put it down. I kept going, because I thought the reimagined 1920s setting was quite fabulous, including speakeasies and dancing, and I don't regret it. Once the story starts to unfold, it is well-paced and interesting, with some small twists that I thought were well-done and appropriate to the narrative.
Moonshine isn't just diverse, it is also just a good story which happens to feature people from several different ethnicities (though they're fantasy ones, they have resonances with real-life regions), a genderfluid person, a bi/pan poly character, a trans character, and a character on the aromantic spectrum. The best thing about this is that these characters are just there. Their sexuality is not a plot point. Their ethnicity doesn't determine their character. It was quite great to read fantasy that isn't built on the (rather boring) pillars of white Western heteronormativity.
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Trigger warnings: mentions of fascism/oppressive regimes, mention of having to flee from home nation, mention of human sacrifice. Contains a sexual relationship between a human and fae, and the fae cannot give verbal consent (they do not share a language). Trigger warning for shooting in a public space, gun violence, and death.