where's my south philly novel??? huh???
Jun. 22nd, 2025 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
isunshowermost recent read: mia mckenzie's skye falling. this was a pride month rec at the library, author's local, it's set in west philly. uh... i didn't LOVE it, but it was certainly better than the last couple books i picked up because they were set in the area.
the book follows skye, a travel agent who meets the product of her egg donation, and she gets attached to this twelve-year-old out of sort of guilt, sort of selfish obligation, and accidentally learns a lesson about where home is and that she has to, you know, move on from the people who have hurt her and forgive some and forget others.
pros of this book: a gentrification plotline seems like a requirement for any book set in west philly and this one actually worked. underscoring the changing neighborhood actually made skye's feelings about "where is my home? where do i fit in? i have to make this for myself" feel more pressing, even if the execution was a little bit... a little bit of a caricature. (do high schools these days have "activism club"? my high school had a "womens' student union", is it like that?) i enjoyed the main love interest, i enjoyed the best friend character, and i enjoyed that skye's relationship with her mom and brother remained a little complicated.
cons of this book: the spanglish. i... do people actually talk that way? i am not bilingual, i do not speak spanish, but the way skye and viva switched back and forth did sometimes feel like the way fanfiction writers get memed on for writing bilingual people. i also didn't like the way skye's relationship with her ex-best friend tasha was handled. like, yes, sometimes you fuck up with a person and they leave your life forever and that's your fault. that's life! that's true! but it felt to me like that whole situation got a lot of attention and then no attention at all. skye's realization that she had been the one at fault there got almost glossed over, like, she moved right on with her life and we didn't really get closure on that storyline in any way. skye's character development generally felt like the author just flipped a switch. like, okay, skye is self actualized now! she's (metaphorically) been to therapy! everything's fine and she totally doesn't have anything else to work through!
anyway, why are all the hot new literary books set in west philly? we have messy queer people in south, too. i know, i live with one! i NEED a messy south philly romantic comedy or something. like books set generally in philly are great but when the characters almost exclusively act in west philly and i can count on my hands the amount of times i've been to west, it does not Feel like a local book to me. they don't even spend meaningful time in like, center city. skye goes to the airport a few times, I Guess.
the book follows skye, a travel agent who meets the product of her egg donation, and she gets attached to this twelve-year-old out of sort of guilt, sort of selfish obligation, and accidentally learns a lesson about where home is and that she has to, you know, move on from the people who have hurt her and forgive some and forget others.
pros of this book: a gentrification plotline seems like a requirement for any book set in west philly and this one actually worked. underscoring the changing neighborhood actually made skye's feelings about "where is my home? where do i fit in? i have to make this for myself" feel more pressing, even if the execution was a little bit... a little bit of a caricature. (do high schools these days have "activism club"? my high school had a "womens' student union", is it like that?) i enjoyed the main love interest, i enjoyed the best friend character, and i enjoyed that skye's relationship with her mom and brother remained a little complicated.
cons of this book: the spanglish. i... do people actually talk that way? i am not bilingual, i do not speak spanish, but the way skye and viva switched back and forth did sometimes feel like the way fanfiction writers get memed on for writing bilingual people. i also didn't like the way skye's relationship with her ex-best friend tasha was handled. like, yes, sometimes you fuck up with a person and they leave your life forever and that's your fault. that's life! that's true! but it felt to me like that whole situation got a lot of attention and then no attention at all. skye's realization that she had been the one at fault there got almost glossed over, like, she moved right on with her life and we didn't really get closure on that storyline in any way. skye's character development generally felt like the author just flipped a switch. like, okay, skye is self actualized now! she's (metaphorically) been to therapy! everything's fine and she totally doesn't have anything else to work through!
anyway, why are all the hot new literary books set in west philly? we have messy queer people in south, too. i know, i live with one! i NEED a messy south philly romantic comedy or something. like books set generally in philly are great but when the characters almost exclusively act in west philly and i can count on my hands the amount of times i've been to west, it does not Feel like a local book to me. they don't even spend meaningful time in like, center city. skye goes to the airport a few times, I Guess.
