Pantomime: 01/30/17

Pantomime by Laura Lam is the first of the Micah Grey series. Micah Grey is the stage name of an intersex circus performer. Micah was raised female but the older they get, the more conflicted they feel.

The plot is interwoven between the present day where Micah is learning how to perform and with the past that forced them to leave. It's life in the circus without the fetishizing of characters as in Blood and Circuses.

As this is a circus in a fantasy world, the world building is done both through the places the circus stops to perform, and through the flashbacks to Micah's pre-circus life.

The atmosphere of this book reminded me quite fondly of Lord Valentine's Castle. Here though, the transformation of Micah isn't one of magic and their goal isn't to return to a life stolen. Micah's transformation is self created out of a desire for autonomy and a need to come to terms with being both male and female in a society that doesn't recognize a spectrum of genders or biological differences.

Five stars

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