Akiva Reads

by Jen Wang

sweet and innocent, an effortless mix of historical fiction and fantasy/folktale royalty, right up until the end. the end was nice, and i don't know what other ending i would want for a ya book about gender identity and expression, but i think i was living too much in the real world, and let's be honest, living in a monastery is pretty much the best possible outcome for Sebastian in the real world. they'd more likely be in prison or dead. i do recommend this book!

ETA: apparently the reason it comes off as historical fiction lite is that the dad was originally Leopold II of Belgium. he and the country got a name change in the second edition. still, yiiiiiiiiikes. that certainly was A Choice.