Akiva Reads

by C.L. Polk

I got the impression in the first two books that everyone's in their 20s; it's more apparent in this one that Robin is actually 40-something and has 40-something concerns. Nice.

There's a lot left out about what it means, culturally, to be nonbinary in Aeland, which is weird because all the other worldbuilding and politics is so lovingly detailed. Robin at one point decides that a small footprint implies a woman left it; Zelind corrects her that it could have been "she or khe," and Robin readily agrees and then says something like "but khe'd be listed as female in the army records." So... there are nonbinary people but no binary trans people, there's at least some institutional transphobia, but Zelind is never misgendered even by kher abusive, assimilationist family.