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Life feels like it's been absolutely off the charts lately. Some of that is, of course, because of what's going on globally in politics. But on the other side, is that I've simply been rather unwell since the middle of May. So even though I got the arc for this book from NetGalley many months ago, it's come down to the wire when it comes to actually reading it and getting out my review. But maybe that was actually for the best? Somehow it feels like it was exactly the right time to read this absolutely incredible story by Tashan Mehta.

Mad Sisters of Esi starts by talking about how time and stories are circular rather than linear, and I think that both within the world of the novel and in real life, that this is true. While I do think that the sometimes mundane nature of modern life in a globally connected place space and time may feel linear, it's my view that time is certainly far more circular than most of us have the power to contemplate.

But the fact that we often perceive our time as incredibly linear is what I think lends this story some of its power. We travel through the black sea alongside all of the numerous characters that take shape within the narrative. We are also looking for our sister. We are also looking for the whale of babel. And while we go on that journey together with these characters, much like the characters, time loops around over and over again. We jump forward and backward and sideways in both directions. The reading experience is incredible and I'm not sure that I was expecting to feel this level of catharsis by the time I reached the end.

I love stories that play with character perspective and time in interesting ways, and Mad Sisters of Esi does those things. The author has crafted a situation actually where there isn't even really an end. Because even for us, with the time that we process as linear, death isn't just an end—for some people, it's not an end at all—it's also a beginning.

What an absolutely wonderful novel. I highly recommend it. I am in absolute awe.

This book was incredibly frustrating from start to finish. I actually kind of regret that I spent time reading the whole thing.

The author repeats themselves constantly without really saying anything of substance, they tried to pack five bajillion topics into what is supposed to be an introductory book, and at the end of the book they openedly admit that one of their key goals of the book was to list what research still needed to be done--very clearly not something for somebody learning about the topic for the first time at all. The author actually recommends completely different book as an introduction to the topic at the end of the book.

And that doesn't even get into how many times the author tried to explain Japanese terms with English words...to the presumably Japanese reading audience.

I didn't read this book to learn about the topic to begin with, so that's fine on my end, but the fact that there's going to be somebody who picks up this book to try to learn about being asexual or being aromantic and that they're going to just get a bunch of English jargon and research from North American and European scholars with an author telling them that there just needs to be more research done, is upsetting.

I have a hard time even recommending this book for the use that I had for it, which was simply to learn more about terminology in Japanese. Bleck.