I am so enthralled with the very concept of this book in which the author uses her obsession with sea creatures as the basis of these fabulous life stories that use the sea creatures as complex allegories for her life. Even the title, referring to the point in an ocean where the light can no longer penetrate, relates to moments in her life.  As a memoir, it is insightful and tells the story of a unique life of Queerness and mixed-race identity.

I particularly appreciated how the author's experience of trauma and sexual assault were presented in such an unusual and poignant way.  All of this was done in the midst of providing rich details about marine ecosystems and creatures, some of which (like the octopus), we often hear about in other contexts, but some  of which I knew nothing about and found fascinating.  This is just such an unusual set-up and read. 

I highly recommend it.

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I really enjoyed Beyond the Cerulian Sea and so I was disappointed that I did not love this book.  I really don't like being spoon fed morality in my novels and this one left nothing up to interpretation.  The metaphors and symbology were just too obvious and the pionts felt like they were being rammed down my throat at some points.  I obviously think that having trans representation in fiction is important and powerful, but my underlying take away from this book was that only magical beings (read Queer) can take care of magical kids and magical beings can only depend and trust magical beings. I can understand where this mentality comes from, but I just think that there is a lot more nuance than what this books allows for.  I found it pretty depressing, rather than inspiring, and a letdown.  The first book took quite a while to grow on me, but once it did, I was all in.  This one had the benefit of my coming in really excited for it and just progressively getting more and more let down as it went on.

Do not recommend.

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Another post-apocalyptic novel, which really seems to be disproportionately recommended in recent times, this one was extremely graphic in depicting gratuitous violence. This was oddly juxtaposed against explicit descriptions of sexual encounters.  I was disappointed that I did not like it more since the premise of the futuristic world felt well thought out and plausible, though incredibly depressing. 

Set in the dessert of the American southwest, the complicated backstory includes litigation over water rights, complicated interpersonal dynamics, lots of characters with compelling and believable backstories, and  a nuanced world created with attention to details that I really liked.  Ultimately, while there was a lot to like in the story, I really disliked the violence, which I did not think was needed to advance the story and which reflected a deterioration of human decency at a level that was just too dark for me.  I found that I couldn't listen to this unless I was in the right frame of mind and definitely not before bed.  

Not recommended.
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This is a post-apocalyptic story from the genre I like to call Depressing AF Futures.  Like Station Eleven, Blindness, How High We Go In The Dark, and The Earth Abides, this book is bleak.  It was definitely well written.  The characters had depth and I loved their complexity and growth, but the storyline just brought one heartbreak after another.  It was another reminder that I don't want to stick around to see everyone I love die and everything I care about disappear.  I found my outlook on life to be significantly impaired while reading the book, unable to completely shake it from my mind.  Unlike Station Eleven, with its sudden world demise, this is a gradual fall into a post-civilization world where only the most hardened survivalists exist. It felt like it could really happen.  Being on the west coast, where one of the characters flees to while the protagonist stays behind in Florida, which is the first to succumb to the irredeemable changes in climate, it felt like this could be happening right now or next week anyhow, that this next hurricane season happens in the opening of the book.  The loneliness of the book, from its very beginning, is haunting.  Well written, I had a hard time putting it aside and yet I cannot say that I enjoyed it or was glad I read it.

​Not recommended.

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Other than the writing of this book being above average, I basically have nothing nice to say about this story.  It is steeped in rape culture and sexual terrorism--the entire backdrop of the story is about missing young girls, abducted from their community, with the message being that the only way they can keep themselves safe is by staying home or being under the protection of the men in their lives.  As if that wasn't bad enough, [SPOILER ALERT: STOP READING HERE] it add in the wrongful conviction of a gay doctor who was actually trying to help young girls.  A young boy who saves one girls from kidnapping goes on a lifelong quest to find and save other missing girls that is self-destructive, obsessive, and downright weird. 

It is a complicated murder mystery, with so much many misogynistic themes and general themes that even the twist ending that plays with the idea that it wasn't what it seemed the whole time wasn't anywhere near enough to save it.  I guess if you like a book about a serial kidnapper who evades capture amidst an unrealistic plotline that is hard to stay engaged with and follow, while also being unnecessarily shocking, then you might enjoy this read.  It was not, however, for me.

Not recommended.
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I was under what I now know to have been the quite mistaken impression that this was a trilogy.  I was sadly, sadly disappointed to discover at the end of this book that it is not in fact a trilogy.  Indeed, it is now planned to be a full series.  I am very aware that this is likely the new Outlander series, where I will get 20 books into a series that is promised to be a 21 book set, with no estimated release date for the last one.  I just don't know if I can emotionally invest at this level again.  I miss the solid trilogies: Hunger Games, Legend (which added a fourth book years later, but the trilogy stood alone), Xenogenesis, Discovery of Witches (I know she added more, but the original trilogy was also a set), and Anne of Green Gables (again, the first three culminated an ending and if you didn't know there was more, all would be good in the world). This was not a solid trilogy. This was a telenovela, designed to suck you in and then using the ridiculously stupid amnesia plot twist to leave you completely hanging at the end of the book. 

This was just such a disappointment.  It was particularly a disappointment because all three books were really intricate.  The plotting was so complicated that half-way through the second book, I went back to the beginning of the first book to read it again because I want to make sure that I was following the interwoven stories of the secondary characters.  These side stories are so compelling and I didn't realize how much they would tie into the main storyline as things progressed.  They are written like backstory, not foreshadowing, and what is included there is really rich in detail that is needed to understand the big picture.  In the middle of the third book, I also backed up and reread about 10 chapters for the same reason.  And if I am completely honest, I also backed up because I didn't want to get to the end. This was because I expected that it was going to be over.  Now, I feel like there was no reason at all to have pre-ordered the book and started reading it on the day it was released.  I definitely should have waited until the series was completed before I even started the first one.

Likely, if there is ever an ending to the series, I might update my recommendation here, but after being rivetted through all three books, completely captivated by the magic and the politics, as well as the love story in this complex universe that was created, I just cannot recommend something that ends on such a cheap cliffhanger.  I really just felt like this was designed to make me have to buy more books and for her to get a deal with Netflix or Max for a series that never ends.  It was just such a disappointment.
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You don't have to read very far into this book to recognize it is a train wreck ahead.  I didn't know exactly what type of a train wreck, but the author's ability to write with forbordence (which apparently isn't an actual word, but should be).  The foreshadowing is intense, if cloaked in mystery.  The writing is exquisite and enthralling.  I could not look away, despite the horror of the self-centered narrator-protagonist.  Without spoilers, it is hard to describe her midlife crisis related choices.  Even being in her head since it was written in the first person and her momentary glimpses of insight into the damage she was leaving in her wake, it as hard to understand her choices and impossible to find compassion--even when the strings of hardship from her life were woven together to explain how she got where she was.  Mostly, she demonstrated a level of narcissism that I found unsympathetic at best and often irritating, even infuriating.  The sex is explicit and tawdry, but the writing of it is alluring. I don't know quite what to do with the recommendation here, since I was captivated, have been thinking about it for a few days since finishing it, have talked to multiple people about it, and had a strong reaction to the content of it and yet at the same time, I can't recommend it because the character is so completely unlikeable, but in that complex way that narcissists can be charming and convincing, making their choices seem acceptable.  But, it is  novel!   So, do I really not recommend a book because I had such a visceral response to a made-up character?  The answer is yes, I really can not recommend a book because I just didn't like the main character, despite the quality of the storytelling and writing.  Finally, it feels like the author has a clear agenda to justify, even glorify, the choices made by the narrator.  Maybe I am reading more into this, maybe not, but unlike similar books (Normal People comes to mind), sometimes it felt like there was a lack of awareness by the author of what was playing out and a little too much emphasis on how avant-guard and "ultramodern" the situation is.  At one point towards the end, the narrator is proselytizing about her newfound lifestyle in a way that only a newly born-again believer can, trying to convince others that they have found the secret answer to the meaning of life, and it is hard to tell if the author is poking fun of the narrator or is indeed preaching this to the reader.  Does this add to the complexity of the novel? Maybe.  But did it make me wonder if I just got sucked into reading a really long piece of propaganda? Yes, yes it did.

P.S. I marked this as "romance," even though it isn't a romance, just because of the explicit sex scenes that as stand alone sections would appeal to folks in those who love a good erotic novel.
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Not recommended. 
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This is a fascinating read that certainly is not for everyone. It provides a unique perspective on the sex industry, including the author's time as a dancer and as a porn star.  The emotional abuse she experienced as a child led to physical and sexual abuse as an adult and ongoing mental health and addition issues.  In many ways, the books is self-aware an insightful, while at other times demonstrating the sometimes baffling nature of trauma.  While she never seems to see herself as having been exploited, it is hard not to read that into the story.  In fact, she is defensive of her choice to do sex work and articulates it in many ways as a choice that was empowering. At times she seems oblivious to the toll it took or how it related to the myriad of issues that she had.  Despite its drawbacks, it really is a fairly captivating read with a lot of explicit content--not just the assaults and abuse, but also the sex.  Proceed with caution, but while I can't fully recommend it, I also can't really not recommend it, either.

Not not recommended.

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 This book about domestic and sexual violence, writing by an American attorney, provides a detailed narrative that compiles information, data, and theory from a variety of disciplines and expertly describes how we disbelieve and blame victims of intimate violence, both in and out of the court system.  It does not read like a text book or legal brief, but rather provides case examples written in a succinct and captivating narrative.  The content is not more explicit than it needs to be and just does an excellent job of bringing together a lot of information in a good read.

Highly recommend

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This memoir was written by one of the co-authors of The Courage To Heal, which is perhaps the book that has impacted me the most in my life. Written in 1994 originally, I read this first in 1988 when it was first released and many of the passages framed how I think about child sex abuse.  That book is quite dated now, though sections of it are as relevant to survivors now as it was then.  The Burning Light of Two Stars is the story of the complex relationship between the author and her mother. That complexity is bound up in their experiences of child sex abuse, the mother's failure to protect her, and the work they did, although primarily the author did, to try to find a way to reconnect as adults, if not exactly to repair the relationship.  I found the read insightful and appreciated that it did not suggest that this approach is always or even often possible and that it did not shy away from the pain that reengaging in the relationship caused.  Highly dysfunctional families so often are portrayed in two-dimensional ways that I think harm survivors of abuse.  This book addressed her choice to remain engaged head on in a unique and powerful way.

Recommend.

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