Akiva Reads

by Bogi Takács

Warning: some body horror. It didn't affect my enjoyment, though.

The flashbacks and multiplicity of perspectives were confusing, the first time around---I had to read it twice in a row. On the second read I got it and quite liked it, though I would agree with other reviewers that the world-building is stronger than the plot. An Orthodox Jewish community has to figure out how to accept a non-binary person when their survival is at stake.

This is surprisingly not-queer for a story about a person who's considered non-binary by her community, but it made sense in the context. Of course Chani's unexamined first assumption is going to be "oh, a man and a woman, they can get married now!" It fits with her character and with Orthodox culture. I can see the community, down the road twenty or fifty years, having to reckon with the expanded gender possibilities that are arising in this story---it's just not happening yet. Because change is hard.