Pantomime

[cornerofmadness]

Pantomime by L.R. Lam

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A 3.5 read (pacing issues) that I rounded up because over all I liked the world and I liked Micah.

This world seems to have grown up in the shadow of a distant more advanced culture that disappeared. There are artifacts of power (vestiges) scattered about that almost no one knows how to fix any more and they are pricey (this becomes important later)

Gene was born into a family of wealth (think aristocracy) and had a good enough upbringing with two major exceptions. One it's a world where women are nothing more than wives/mothers and Gene is about to be a bargaining chip for more money/power. Two Gene is fully intersexed and is developing more masculine but being raised female. When her mother makes a decision that horrifies Gene, they run away.

Right to the circus (living the dream) Gene presents themselves as Micah Grey and the circus folk take them as male. Micah stays when one of the vestiges a ghostly thing starts talking to them, hinting at that past culture and about what is to come, such as the return of the chimera (and the circus does seems to have some chimera folk in it)

Befriending Aenea, an aerialist, Micah begins to train with her to learn to be an aerialist as well. The other most influential person in the circus to Micah is the head clown, Drystan, who like them came from the ruling class.

Naturally Micah begins to fall for Aenea but there are obstacles (not the least of which is Micah's intersexed anatomy) Their ringleader/circus owner is becoming more and more an abusive drunk. Not to mention Micah's family isn't going to just let their child disappear so people are looking for them.

The world is richly drawn as are the characters. What made me set this aside for a while was the pacing. For the first 50% of the book we flip back and forth from present day to Micah's past. We're being given context for their abilities and why they ran and then flipping to the training sessions. Both felt like a little bit too much so even though I liked the book I went and read a few other things before coming back but once we hit the 50% mark we stop that and the pacing evens out.

I am curious to see more. I liked Micah and Drystan especially. It'll be interesting to see what comes next.



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