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queer_bookwyrm's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
4 ⭐ CW: violence, death, animal death, blood, racism, racial slurs
Rust in the Root by Justina Ireland is a historical fantasy based on the Great Depression/Dust Bowl era. Just like her Dread Nation duology, Ireland has killed it (pun intended)! I'm loving the historical revisionism with a fantasy/horror element. Like her previous duology, this book tackles institutional racism, but also confronts the very real fact that some black folks also help to uphold these structures.
We follow Laura, a lesbian mage who just wants her mage license so she can become a great baker, raveling wonderful and tasty treats for important people. In order to do this she has to apprentice under a licensed mage, and joins the Bureau of the Arcane's Conservation Corps, Black Auxiliary. This government group of mages are treated like an expendable clean up crew, since black folks practicing the mystic arts are considered to be less important than Mechomancy, the type of magic white people wield to power mechanical constructs.
Joining the Auxiliary turns out to be more than Laura bargained for when she and a group of mages are sent to Ohio to fix the Ohio Deep Blight, an area the Great Rust has made difficult to live in and difficult to ravel in. What they find is that Ohio is no ordinary Blight, and that something they thought had disappeared in history is back and killing black mages for power.
I loved Laura's character. She's snarky and smart, and hopelessly attracted to pretty ladies. She turns out to be way more powerful than she knew she could be. The magic system is very cool. It's based on African root working, and has different disciplines for working the Dynamism: Cerebromancy, Faunomancy, Floramancy, Illusion, Pavomancy, Petramancy, Sanamancy, Figuramancy, Necromancy, and Wytchcraft (the use of all the disciplines together). In this story, the Klan used Necromancy to control, kill, and exploit enslaved Africans.
I love having more historical fiction following Black people that isn't about slavery. We also get a couple of gay male side characters, but romance is not really part of the plot. I kind of wish we had a second book to follow up with Laura after everything happened. I don't want to spoil things, so just go read this book!
Rust in the Root by Justina Ireland is a historical fantasy based on the Great Depression/Dust Bowl era. Just like her Dread Nation duology, Ireland has killed it (pun intended)! I'm loving the historical revisionism with a fantasy/horror element. Like her previous duology, this book tackles institutional racism, but also confronts the very real fact that some black folks also help to uphold these structures.
We follow Laura, a lesbian mage who just wants her mage license so she can become a great baker, raveling wonderful and tasty treats for important people. In order to do this she has to apprentice under a licensed mage, and joins the Bureau of the Arcane's Conservation Corps, Black Auxiliary. This government group of mages are treated like an expendable clean up crew, since black folks practicing the mystic arts are considered to be less important than Mechomancy, the type of magic white people wield to power mechanical constructs.
Joining the Auxiliary turns out to be more than Laura bargained for when she and a group of mages are sent to Ohio to fix the Ohio Deep Blight, an area the Great Rust has made difficult to live in and difficult to ravel in. What they find is that Ohio is no ordinary Blight, and that something they thought had disappeared in history is back and killing black mages for power.
I loved Laura's character. She's snarky and smart, and hopelessly attracted to pretty ladies. She turns out to be way more powerful than she knew she could be. The magic system is very cool. It's based on African root working, and has different disciplines for working the Dynamism: Cerebromancy, Faunomancy, Floramancy, Illusion, Pavomancy, Petramancy, Sanamancy, Figuramancy, Necromancy, and Wytchcraft (the use of all the disciplines together). In this story, the Klan used Necromancy to control, kill, and exploit enslaved Africans.
I love having more historical fiction following Black people that isn't about slavery. We also get a couple of gay male side characters, but romance is not really part of the plot. I kind of wish we had a second book to follow up with Laura after everything happened. I don't want to spoil things, so just go read this book!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Racial slurs, Racism, and Blood
Moderate: Violence
sammymilfort's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Racism, Blood, Grief, and Colonisation
lim's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Racial slurs, and Racism
Moderate: Animal death
Minor: Suicide and Vomit
astropova's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Really interesting magic system!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Racism, and Violence
Moderate: Hate crime, Sexism, and Blood
Minor: Genocide, Homophobia, and Slavery
professor_jango's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Racism, Slavery, Xenophobia, Colonisation, and Classism
Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, Hate crime, Homophobia, Sexism, Violence, Blood, and Grief
tigger89's review
adventurous
dark
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Justina Ireland has done it again. As in her previous series, the world building is top-notch, with constant references to real-world events encountered through the lens of her own alternate history. For example, the Great Rust stood in for the events immediately preceding and concurrent with our own Great Depression. While obviously nothing quite so magical had happened in our own world, the impact on the economy and mental state of the country was similar. Some of the references were jarring. For example, when I neared the end and a character described having seen a tree with "strange fruit" hanging, I stopped reading for a second and said, oh no. It was most definitely a Billie Holiday reference, and the author did not pull punches with the eventual depiction of said tree.
The magic system was interesting as well, though I feel that the"cool protagonist kids can use every power, unlike the boring people who only use one type of magic" theme has been done before in YA. Maybe that wasn't what the author was going for, but it was unclear, because most of the characters spent the majority of the book barely able to use their magic. We hardly got to see anyone other than our main character ravel! I would've liked to explore deeper, especially at the intersections between types of magic.
I enjoyed the way the story was told, alternating traditional chapters with fragments of mission reports, diary entries, and so on. The scrapbook pages, however, did not work for me. They were very interesting photos, and I can see why they were inspiring for the author, but they felt shoehorned in. I've seen this gimmick used before to better effect(Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children(the first one) immediately comes to mind), so it overall fell flat for me. I think I might have appreciated it more presented as an appendix of sorts, rather than integrated with the story.
I was appreciative of the casual queerness in this book. The main character is sapphic, but doesn't have a romantic side plot, she just is that way even though it "doesn't matter" to the story. This is something you'll sometimes see with straight characters but it's more rare for queer characters, especially in YA. There's also two secondary characters who are gay men in a relationship together.
The magic system was interesting as well, though I feel that the
I enjoyed the way the story was told, alternating traditional chapters with fragments of mission reports, diary entries, and so on. The scrapbook pages, however, did not work for me. They were very interesting photos, and I can see why they were inspiring for the author, but they felt shoehorned in. I've seen this gimmick used before to better effect(Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children(the first one) immediately comes to mind), so it overall fell flat for me. I think I might have appreciated it more presented as an appendix of sorts, rather than integrated with the story.
I was appreciative of the casual queerness in this book. The main character is sapphic, but doesn't have a romantic side plot, she just is that way even though it "doesn't matter" to the story. This is something you'll sometimes see with straight characters but it's more rare for queer characters, especially in YA. There's also two secondary characters who are gay men in a relationship together.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Animal death, Genocide, Blood, and Colonisation
Minor: Homophobia and Slavery
purplepenning's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.75
I'm in awe of the intelligence and organized creativity here! It's an alt-history fantasy with mystery and horror elements in service to a story about exploitation, industrialization, strength, community, and social justice. Very cool magical system based on West African and Caribbean traditions, clever magical interpretation of mechanization and industrialization, great use of historical organization and political structures, well-drawn characters that feel true to the time but relevantly contemporary, plus there be dragons!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror and Racism
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Gore, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, Gaslighting, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Minor: Cursing, Genocide, and Slavery
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