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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
carlyoc's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
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? It's complicated
4.75
Note: I do NOT recommend the audiobook for this work because every chapter ends with a captioned historic photograph and I felt like I was really missing out by not seeing them. Some audiobook platforms might provide a pdf of the images but mine did not and I couldn't find it online.
Another amazing fantasy alternative history by Justina Ireland. The premise: what if the great depression was caused not by a stock market crash, but by the clash between science and magic. In Rust in the Root, the Prohibition refers to a ban on unlicensed magic rather than alcohol. Many of the unlicensed mages are Black people practicing the root work and folk magic of their ancestors. Laura is one such mage, who dreams of revealing up decadent desserts for celebrities with the okra and jacaranda seeds that she transforms into magical workings. Unfortunately, her only path to a license is to work for the government to help fix the blight (aka the 1930s dust bowl) caused by magical imbalance in the world. But the real cause of the blights is more sinister than she has been told.
I particularly appreciated the allusions to the poem/song "Strange Fruit" by Abel Meeropol and famously performed by the likes of Nina Simone and Billie Holiday, whose imagery was creatively re-interpreted in the climax of the book.
Another amazing fantasy alternative history by Justina Ireland. The premise: what if the great depression was caused not by a stock market crash, but by the clash between science and magic. In Rust in the Root, the Prohibition refers to a ban on unlicensed magic rather than alcohol. Many of the unlicensed mages are Black people practicing the root work and folk magic of their ancestors. Laura is one such mage, who dreams of revealing up decadent desserts for celebrities with the okra and jacaranda seeds that she transforms into magical workings. Unfortunately, her only path to a license is to work for the government to help fix the blight (aka the 1930s dust bowl) caused by magical imbalance in the world. But the real cause of the blights is more sinister than she has been told.
I particularly appreciated the allusions to the poem/song "Strange Fruit" by Abel Meeropol and famously performed by the likes of Nina Simone and Billie Holiday, whose imagery was creatively re-interpreted in the climax of the book.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Racial slurs, Racism, and Violence
lim's review
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
booksthatburn's review against another edition
The worldbuilding is jam-packed, with slim room for the characters to actually do or say anything. It’s clearly well-researched, but feels determined to name-drop as many historical events as possible with their corresponding magic twist in this chronology.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Racism, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, and Alcohol
Minor: Racial slurs
purplepenning's review
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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