Notes on Diversity:
Ah, it's like this book was written just for me! A FAAB genderqueer protagonist!
UGH. ALL MAH FEELS.
So, yeah, Miranda is genderqueer (genderfluid might be a better word for her*?). And Ariel, too! Which I always felt like was probably true, actually, Shakespeare.
AND. Foz Meadows includes in her portrait of the fairy realm many fairies of color, even as they are described in fantastical ways. Moth might have skin like a moth's wings--"whites and browns in a calico patchwork"--but her kinky black and silver hair clearly signal she is a person of color. Queen Titania, likewise, has kinky hair and her "skin is the colour of burnished copper." That's right, the most powerful person in the story, the fairy queen herself, is coded as Black. Puck, too, has horns but is also brown-skinned. The preponderance of brown fairies normalized the idea of fairies of color within the story itself.
First a very small spoiler and content warning:
If you are triggered by incest, you may want to tread carefully with this book. Meadows is careful to state that nothing actually happened between Prospero and Miranda, but that that island was desolate and lonely, and that when she came into adolescence his looks lingered. She definitely felt unsafe. There was definite squick (none of it, course, any fault of Miranda's; the text is clear on this point). There was a definite sense that something could have happened without her and Ariel's joint intervention. Just a heads up.
Review:
Ok! Now, without further preamble, the review itself!
CORAL BONES by Foz Meadows, is a novella which follows Miranda, from Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST**, after her return to Europe. Miranda sails away, marries Ferdinand, and that's supposed to be happily ever after, yes? But what if no. What if being raised by a form-switching fairy on an isolated island steeped in magic leaves Miranda with an altogether different understanding of the world and of herself.
What if the reason she left the island in the first place is not, precisely, because she was madly in love with Ferdinand?
What if there is more than one brave new world out there for Miranda to explore? What if there is more than one brave new Miranda for Miranda to explore?
For Miranda, all of these are questions of gender, and all of these are questions of role expectations, and all of these are questions of agency all at once. It's really a story about self-determination and self-acceptance, which is very much my jam. But Miran-Miranda (as she comes to refer to herself) is extremely smart, and her allies--Ariel and Puck***--are clever and helpful and respectful. They are both so well-drawn; each are utterly recognizable within the frames of their Shakespearean origins but have been brought to life again as more realized and more weathered creatures. They have worries. They have entanglements.
Truly, I wish this novella was longer. Let me clarify that I don't think it needed to be longer; the story was well-paced and well-developed. It had a complete arc. I just want more! It ended, and my heart wasn't ready to move on. But what happens next? What happens now that Miran-Miranda is at Titania's court? What happens next?
I wanted it to be longer partly because here is a main character that thinks and feels and reflect on gender, who embodies gender and experiences it, so very much like I do. And that is incredibly rare. In describing her fluctuating experience of gender to Puck, Miran-Miranda says:
"My heart is a moon, and some days I am full and bright within myself, a shape that fits my name, and then I fade, and mirrors show only a half-light shared with a silhouette, an absence my form reflects; and then, in the dark, I am dark altogether, until I regrow again. Why should such a thing be any more difficult to grasp than the fact that some think me dead, and yet I live? The contradiction is only in their perception of what I am."
I don't know that I've ever read anything that captures my experience as a genderqueer/genderfluid person as honestly or with as much poetry as this. (This also gives a sneak peek at Meadows' writing, which has lovely Shakespearean flourishes and wordplay throughout).
Beyond that, while CORAL BONES is essentially Miran-Miranda's coming-to-terms tale (coming-out-to-self? Is there a better term for this narrative?), the ending is so full of promise and action that I am desperately curious about the adventures that Miran-Miranda is sure to have after the final line. Just as in THE TEMPEST the ending posits that this is a new, exciting chapter for her. And I would love to witness it.
I am kind of a Shakespeare nerd. And I'm genderqueer. And I used to work at Renaissance Faires where, as a child, I dressed as a Puckish type fairy. Literally I am *the* target audience for this novella. But, truly? I don't think you have to be any of these things to love this book. Miran-Miranda's tasks and journey to the fairy court have tension and stakes. The plot moves. The writing is clever and not overly Shakespearean, just enough to give nods. You don't even have to be familiar with THE TEMPEST or MIDSUMMER. The novella presumes no prior familiarity with the source material; you can simply pick it up and go, which I think is one of its great strengths. If you are at all interested in feminist fantasy or in trans/non-binary fantasy, or in really cool fairies, I strongly recommend this fabulous short read.
____
*Miran-Miranda uses female pronouns throughout.
**I remember Meadows tweeting about an idea for a genderqueer Miranda story and I BASICALLY LOST IT because a) I adore Foz Meadows and b) THE TEMPEST is my favorite Shakespeare play. I'm a little obsessed with it.
***Puck's reworking here is especially ingenious given the way it ties THE TEMPEST and A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM together. I loved him here and generally dislike him in the play, but he was true to form. I got the sense from the novella that he has a peculiar and idiosyncratic sense of loyalty that fits so well with the idea of him.
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![Coral Bones (Monstrous Little Voices Book 1) by [Foz Meadows]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51mYz9Pm-XL._SY346_.jpg)
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Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2016
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