Shira GlassmanRezensionen

Content warnings: identity theft, overuse of dialogue tags

This is a quick, cute, fluffy romance. It is so adorable, I kept giggling as I read it. The meet-cute is cute and the main characters are so sweet, yet they seem like real people - I would like to meet them! Can I be friends with Clara and Danielle?? Also, if you're a involved in online fandom, there are some things that you'll probably recognize as funny fandom jokes such as a mention of a movie called My Immortal *snicker* but they're generally subtle enough that they won't get in the way of the story for non-fandom readers.

Thoroughly recommended if you're in the mood for a quick, fun read.

Four and a half to five stars. Parts of this book were absolutely adorable, and what an adventure all around! How creative the traps, plans, and progress was, too. It was an absolute delight and so validating to have both main characters be Jewish, and outright -say the names of holidays-, and ones besides Hanukkah. Purim is mentioned via the Book of Esther, and Shulamit claims Rivka wants the story read again so she can make silly noises when the villain's name is mentioned. I laughed for about five minutes at that, both tickled by the humor and delighted to see myself represented. I made shriek-y quacking noises one year during the reading. Often in books and media, Jewish characters are alluded to. More accurately, they're the funny, quirky sidekicks who shriek about how they're barely Jewish. Lots of screeching about how it's on their dad's side so it doesn't count. I know the meaning behind the particular phrase and can sit down and talk to you about it, and it is beyond the scope of this review. The characters doing the screeching cannot. Come to think of it, I've never actually known of an author who was Jewish, who wrote the shrieking stereotypes. (pointed stare) I hate it. But here, in this book, the two main characters were observant Jewish, front and center. No over-explaining about anything was present. They didn't have to pretty much justify their Jewishness or Judaism, as I've often read in other books. They just were, and they were and it was important, and that was that

Shulamit has what is coded as celiac disease or maybe Crohn's. So, a chronically ill character, too! And she's openly gay! Seeing myself represented on the page in so many ways, unapologetically, was beyond wonderful. The names Glassman picked for her characters are actual Hebrew girl names. This was not a fantasy book with Westernized coding and names, which is so common, I could gag. No, this was a fantasy book that allowed Hebrew and Yiddish-speakers to...exist. How simultaneously soothing and empowering! I liked watching the friendship between Shulamit and Rivka develop. They balanced out one another. I handwaved and got used to entire chapters being backstory due to how they were introduced: the previous chapter's ending sentence indicated there would be a lot of information. In the world Glassman set up, and the structure of this novel, this worked. The ending fit neatly, and that's hard to do in some fantasy books. I was pleased to find out this book even has a sequel.

Very cute, but even knowing it was very short, I was surprised how fast it was over.

This book is just amazingly cute and fluffy! At the same time the adventures keep it interesing, and I love Glassmans way to describe the world and the charactes. Comparing dragon scales to avocado is just perfect. Did I mention fluffy? This book feels like being wrapped in a blanket on a rainy day with a cup of your favoirte tea ;-).

This story certainly has some of the more creative uses for ordinary objects in sex I've seen. ;-) There isn't much to this short story beyond spicy sex for a sweet cause, but what it does, it does well. I absolutely adored the personification of Chanukah ideas into these three fairies.½

So cute, so enjoyable. The characters felt very real and relatable, from being geeky to their internal monologue to the way they communicate with each other. So down to earth, like reading my friends and family on the page in ways I don't see in many other books. I loved Clara and Jasmine's sibling relationship.

I liked that this book had a kick-ass heroine "Rivika" who in the opening chapter saves the princess who rules the country. The princess "Shulamit" is forced to abandon her guards to find a lesbian lover due to their intolerance. This is the first Hebrew based fantasy I'd ever read, so that was interesting. The book is really short less then 50,000 words, so it was hard to fill in the back story to the two main characters and have a complicated plot going at the same time.

Absolutely adored it. Geeky and sweet and hot at the same time! Full review here: http://www.loveinpanels.com/prose/cinnamon-blade

***WHO SUCKED ME IN***
Danika Leigh Ellis on YouTube in their My Top 17 Books of 2017! (Mostly Bisexual/Queer!) published on 2 jan. 2018

Very cute and fluff-filled!

This book is pure fluff with no plot. I mean that. There is no overarching storyline, no beginning/middle/end, no theme. There is something like a moment of distress toward the very end but it's shoe horned in, with no setup or foreshadowing, to add some drama that fizzles before it begins.

It's cute, it's friendly, it feels like the author went down a social media list and then an LGBT list and checked things off to be sure everything was included.

If that's what you need in this shitty, dark, pre-apocalyptic world, congrats, you found utterly superficial, happy fluff. Personally it fell flat for me but it's ultimately very readable and friendly.

The third book in the Mangoverse series. The writing / plot gets better with every book, and the central characters (lesbian Queen Shulamit, bisexual chef Aviva, warrior woman Rivka and her husband the wizard Isaac) are as delightful and lovable as ever. In this story, Shulamit sets out to solve the mystery when a priceless violin is stolen from Esther of the Singing Hands, a travelling musician. At the same time, she has to deal with raising her six month old daughter Naomi, arbitrating between two jewellers who each claim to have invented the same clasp design, investigating the possibility of illegal shape-shifting magic being sold in her city, and learning to understand a young trans boy who is a key witness in the case. Watching Shulamit and Isaac’s clever detective work is a lot of fun (and a reminder that Isaac, despite being a great guy who is absolutely loyal to his wife and their queen, is Slytherin as fuck and NOT someone you want to get on the wrong side of).

This is a happy, heartwarming queer fantasy novel. It’s all about love, friendship, unconventional families and the joy and relief of finding a queer community … and we can’t forget the shapeshifting wizards.

A really down-to-earth, sweet f/f short story with fandom references.

I didn't like it as much as I could have, but it was still nice.

This is an adorable fantasy-lite quest story with a lot of interesting tropes woven together to make something quite different. Lesbian queen Shulamit goes looking for a sweetheart, acquires a body guard who is a woman living as a man, and manages to solve a number of problems in quite a small amount of time. True to the fairy tale origins of the story, it is a cheerful and upbeat ending.

Setting is explicitly Jewish. Language differences between Shulamit and the bodyguard, Rivka, appear to be indicated by judicious use of Hebrew and Yiddish. A helpful glossary at the back cleared up which are which for me.

This was such a cute little book! I only wish it had been longer

Very cute, fluffy, sunshiney, set in Florida, and there's a cat.

i'm not mad, but i was... bored

My edition of Tales from Outer Lands was published by Torquere Press. The author has since rereleased it as part of Tales from Perach.

This collection contains two stories, which I’ll write about separately.

“Rivka in Port Saltspray”

This takes place a year and a half after Rivka left her home, so I think it’s maybe a year and a half prior to the events in The Second Mango. Rivka is stuck in Port Saltspray with no way to get her dragon-horse to Zembluss, where she’d been hoping to fight in a civil war and earn a much-needed paycheck. A man named Waterweed seems to be the answer to her problems: he wants to hire her to fight in a competition for him. The prize, he says, is his beloved’s hand in marriage - because he’s missing an arm, he’d never stand a chance on his own.

This was a bit predictable, but still enjoyable. Rivka was my favorite character in The Second Mango, so it was nice to see her again. She hadn’t managed to make a name for herself yet and was in dire straits - nearly broke, stuck in a corrupt town, and in danger of losing Dragon, her loyal companion, if she couldn’t earn some money fast.

I loved that Rivka spent so much of the story basically looking out for others, both unconsciously or on purpose. She’s very much a “protector” sort of character. Not even her terrible financial situation could get her to compromise her morals, and I was really glad that she asked the questions I felt she needed to ask - I had suspicions about one particular character and was worried that this would be one of those “the main character doesn’t see the trap coming until it’s too late” stories.

Rivka’s analyses of the various fights were interesting, although I found myself wishing that the fights had been more vividly described. The absolute best part of the story, though, was probably when Rivka and Stella had some time alone together and, even though they didn’t speak the same language, figured out how to communicate via their shared religion.

All in all, this was pretty good. If I remember right, this story was what prompted me to buy a couple of Glassman’s works in the first place. I had heard that it contained an asexual character. If I interpreted things correctly, that character was probably Stella. The way her aunt described her made me think she was probably aromantic:

“‘No, she really doesn’t ever want to get married!’ said the aunt. ‘I even thought, you know, maybe she doesn’t like a man, then she can have a female companion. I had someone like that once. But no, not even that… she says she’s complete with family and friends.’”(28)

It was a nice little detail, although I had sort of been hoping for a bit more from the story. Ah well, at least I enjoyed getting to see more of Rivka.

“Aviva and the Aliens”

This takes place about 7 months after the end of The Second Mango. The people of Perach are preparing for Passover. Aviva is getting ready for the royal seder, putting away ingredients in her kitchen, when she and her entire kitchen are abducted by aliens. They’re tired of their flavorless ship food, and they want Aviva to cook them a good meal. However, if Aviva isn’t careful, she might end up being forced to cook for them forever.

The first story was about 30 pages long, whereas this one was about 15 - very short. It was bizarre and silly, too much so for my tastes. If the Mangoverse is going to be odd, I’d much prefer it to stick to fantasy oddness. Locust-like aliens abducting a random human in order to make her their new cook just didn’t seem to fit. I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if the story had ended with “it was all a dream,” but no, as far as I could tell it was all supposed to be real.

It also didn’t help that the story’s logic didn’t hold up very well. The aliens’ reasons for abducting Aviva didn’t make much sense. What if the random person they chose had been a terrible cook? How did they know that Aviva’s definition of tasty food would fit their definition? What had they planned on doing after Aviva ran out of ingredients? The aliens’ reason for letting Aviva go again wasn’t much better.

Of the two stories, I only really liked “Rivka in Port Saltspray.” It’s probably for the best that Glassman’s newly released collection contains more stories, since I don’t think I’d recommend this two-story collection on its own to anyone except big Rivka fans and Mangoverse completists.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)½

The Second Mango is the first book in Glassman’s Mangoverse series. I’m reviewing the Torquere edition. The author has since gotten the rights back from that publisher and rereleased it, and I don’t know if the two editions differ in any way.

The Second Mango stars Shulamit, the new queen of Perach, and Rivka, a female warrior for hire who travels disguised as a man. Shulamit’s father died two months prior to the start of the story, and since then she has both been trying to deal with her grief and find herself a lover - a difficult task, since she’s a lesbian and the only other lesbian she’d ever met was Aviva, who’d been her first and only lover and who had left her without explanation. Rivka agrees to help Shulamit find a woman who might love her and who she might love in return. Their journey brings them to a temple filled with nuns who have been turned to stone by an evil sorcerer. Rivka and Shulamit are the only hope the nuns have of breaking free of their curse.

Several aspects of this book intrigued me: the Jewish fantasy setting, the lesbian main character, and Shulamit’s food sensitivities. I enjoyed Shulamit and Rivka’s discussions comparing their two cultures - they both celebrated Chanukah, for example, but associated different foods with the holiday. I didn’t understand all of the Hebrew and Yiddish words the text was peppered with, but the context usually gave me some idea of what was being said, and I googled whatever else I wanted to know more about.

As far as Shulamit’s food sensitivities went, I can’t recall ever reading something dealing with similar issues. The closest I can think of, at the moment, is C.J. Cherryh’s Foreigner series, in which Bren, the human main character, has to be careful about what and how much he eats, because he can’t tolerate the same things his atevi hosts can. Shulamit’s biggest problems were 1) finding out which foods were the problem and 2) convincing everyone that she really did need to avoid certain foods (wheat and poultry) and that her sensitivity wasn’t just in her head or evidence that she was a spoiled princess hoping for more attention. Aviva, the person she eventually fell in love with, was the only one who believed her and made absolutely sure that her food never even touched surfaces contaminated by wheat or poultry.

I liked how sweet and fluffy the overall story was. The beginning of Shulamit and Rivka’s adventure was a lot of fun, and I particularly enjoyed the bittersweet flashback to Rivka’s earlier life, defying her uncle and gradually falling in love with Isaac, the wizard who secretly taught her swordplay.

Unfortunately, I did have a few issues with the book, mostly centered on Shulamit. It seriously bugged me that, only two months after her father’s death, Shulamit’s biggest concern wasn’t finding her footing as the new queen and ensuring her country’s continued stability, but rather running off to find herself a new lover. Shulamit herself felt a bit bad about this later on in the story, but that didn’t negate the fact that she’d done it.

Granted, she was young and sheltered, but she still came across as flightier and, well, hornier than I’d have liked. She told Rivka that she needed to join her in the search for a potential lover for her because she wanted to make sure that the woman was someone she could love in return, but I got the impression that she’d have given any pretty lesbian Rivka managed to find a shot. During the course of the story, she tried to find a potential lover at a brothel, hit on Rivka at least once, almost landed them both in a trap due to her attraction to a pretty stranger, and found herself attracted to a pretty nun in statue form. All of that, combined with my assumption that Shulamit had probably just been too focused on her own emotions to notice what was bothering Aviva enough to make her want to leave, made it difficult for me to enjoy how her romantic storyline turned out.

My other issue with the book was that the writing felt simplistic, which meshed oddly with some of the sexual content. It also made Shulamit come across as being even younger than she might actually have been. I can’t remember if her age was ever stated, but for a while there I assumed she wasn’t much older than maybe 16.

Despite my issues with the book, I’m glad I already own a collection of Mangoverse stories. I’m looking forward to reading them, especially since I already know that one of them features Rivka, my favorite character in The Second Mango.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)½

No conflict.

This story is more a description of an event. We don't get to discover anything about the character or her situation, it's all laid out for us linearly and in the direct thoughts of the character. There is no conflict, no impediment other than a brief thought that the main character might not be perfect at playing the violin after 20 years. That may have worked a little if the crush was shown as being judgemental about that kind of thing, but she was practically perfect in every way.