This is, in my opinion, another shining example of a book by a cis queer author who does not appear to think about transness or trans metaphors critically at all whatsoever, which is why this got bumped down to three stars when I was originally going to give it four.

First, the good stuff (ie, why I was going to give it four stars originally). This book has the barest whiff of a plot, but that didn’t bother me nearly as much as I would’ve expected. The characters are (generally) so well-developed and lovable that I flew through the first half without even noticing that barely anything of consequence happens. Any point of tension is quickly resolved (I wish the whole Rosemary mystery had amounted to…anything, really), and it ends up feeling like a really long “beach episode”. Surprisingly, I liked it! I loved how much thought went into the world-building, and in particular the complications of having species with wildly different cultures interacting on a daily basis. I thought it was generally well done.

What upset me more than anything is the treatment of Ohan. Chambers makes a point that Ohan uses they/them pronouns because of their identity as a Pair. Then, when Ohan is Waning and refuses to accept the cure because it would go against their sense of self, Chambers has Sissix go on an upset rant to Ashby about the situation whilst using he/him pronouns for Ohan the whole time, and when Ashby points it out she says that it “finally occurred to [her] that Ohan is…a sick man who needs our help.” This is rhetoric that trans people have to hear constantly, like pretty much verbatim, and yet we just…never acknowledge how horrible this is?

And of course there’s the end of the book, where Corbin—who is barely a character—completely overrides Ohan’s wishes and bodily autonomy and gives them/him the cure anyway, and we never talk about this again. There is a single scene from Ashby’s perspective later where Ohan says they/he wants to stay, and also Corbin is in the room. Why on Earth do we not get a POV from Ohan after this whole thing?! Ohan, like Corbin, barely feels like a character because we get so little from them throughout the book, and honestly just gets abused by the narrative until Chambers decides she doesn’t actually want to kill another person so she backtracks in the most insane way possible.

As a trans person, reading all that took me right out of the cozy space vibes and made me go what the f@#%?! And, to be clear, I do not think that this was Chambers’ intent—unfortunately, I think she’s just oblivious, and never stopped to consider how this arc may be read with real world context in mind. I was also barely a person when she originally wrote this, though, so maybe times were just that much better then…

— Random space aside no one but me will care about: she describes a tidally locked moon as having permanent day/night sides. A tidally locked planet would have this, but presumably the moon is orbiting a planet, not a star (because why else call it a moon), so this is nonsense. (Our Moon is tidally locked, and we see the same face be both bright—full—and dark—new. Day and night, if you were on the Moon on that side. This irked me for no reason. Anyway.)