Skyward

Sure, she jokes that her ship with huge guns should really be classified as a fighter ship, a murderbot even. But no, the ship disagrees: with a partial fungal database, the stealth features must have been intended for swiftly foraging across the land. Fuck yes, finally some good mushroom loving representation in fiction, where mushrooms are cool and neat to check out - not mind controlling monsters.

I think a former classmate recommended the author to me. At first, I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it. YA can be really cringey, and there were the seeds that could have been hard cliches. A part of me worried it was going to be an attack on titan or hunger games. In the end, the story really matured to be unique along with commentary on classism. I could tell how committed the author was to building an immersive world and I found the flight combats surprisingly engaging. It wasn’t too overtly romantic either which was a relief. Still, it would be nice to have some queer trans rep given this is supposed to be a far flung future.

Fans of the murderbot diaries might enjoy this too. It’s not an incredibly difficult read but is very lengthy to keep you company for a while.

I’m dreading that the first two audiobooks are audible exclusives. The rest aren’t though!