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Whispers in the Woods by K. C. Carmine

For some reason I could not get an image into this post.

($2.99 or Kindle Unlimited) Tomek slowly falls in love with a leszy (leshy, plant-person) that also happens to be a boy. However, being raised in a homophobic house, he has trouble realizing these feelings. This is a piece is literary, not an erotica, but it is monster-themed. [purchase link]

Normally I don't like Fantasy Racism because it's always used as a clunky metaphor for racial tensions with really unfortunate implications (I'm looking at you, Zoopotia, Black People Are Literally Predators). However, this work doesn't really do that. People don't like monsters as a whole thing separate from racism, it's its own brand of bigotry. It has parallels, sure, but they're different things.

I also REALLY appreciate the setting. I know I'm an American that writes books that take place in the US, but I am sick of every book I read being by an American or Englishman set in the US or England (or fantasy equivalents).  Specifically, I love reading books set in Eastern Europe. The little details about the setting are the stars of this piece, from playing on rug beating frames to getting legally drunk at 18.

My main beef with the book is that it takes this sort of To Kill a Mocking Bird method of approaching Coming of Age, formatting it like a memoir with scattered, clear memories over a long period of time, but it just barely doesn't stick the landing. For one, its cast is way too large. The girls (and Julian) cannot be told apart by anything other than name, and so little time is spent on them that sometimes a new character just pops up in the memory, the only introduction being "we met her between the last scene and this one"

This book would have benefited heavily from the girls (and Julian) either being cut from scenes in which they don't do anything or cut altogether.

I know I'm spending a long time on this, but this is ultimately *just* a drafting issue. Too many scenes, too many characters, not enough time spent on any of it. The story behind the structural problems is just fine, and in fact is difficult to not find inspiring.


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