Incredibly beautiful art, but the use of visual archetypes is pretty repetitive and cliched. But this story intrigued me and worried me, and I can't quite untangle the threads and arcs around gender, imperialism, and Judaism in this text.... ( )

Really beautiful drawings. The phallic and yonic symbolism was fun and, at times, witty. I felt that there was a lot to be said about women fighting women, jealousy and "slut-shaming," overlooking the flaws of the males in the story, and ultimately deciding that the past crimes of men didn't really matter after the fact. It was gorgeous to look at and caused me to think--two things that I greatly appreciate! ( )

I love to play library mystery date every so often, checking out a book about which I know absolutely nothing beyond the cover image. This one worked out fairly well.

A group of female emissaries from a rather puritanical interstellar empire arrive on a new alien world to set up a base to study, educate and integrate the natives. The creator sidesteps most of the historical baggage of colonialism and missionary proselytizing to concentrate on the mounting sexual tensions between two of the women and the only somewhat human male on the planet, a corporate researcher with a more hedonistic approach to life. It's sort of a Betty/Veronica/Reggie love triangle by way of [b:The Beguiled|34625020|The Beguiled|Thomas Cullinan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1496100069s/34625020.jpg|3351630].

Things go awry when the native population turns out to be more alien than the team can handle.

p.s., After finishing my review, I read the actual book description and was surprised to find this was by the same person who did [b:The Oven|25080918|The Oven|Sophie Goldstein|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1437956727s/25080918.jpg|44767317]. I picked that book up as a library mystery date a couple years ago and was very disappointed. Now that I'm aware, I can see similarities in the two books, but this one works much better for me. ( )

A beautiful and haunting story of colonialism (I was going to say "colonialism gone horribly wrong," but that's just what it is, right?) on an alien planet. There's something that rubs me the wrong way about it, though - is it the pseudo-love-interest dropping his cliche plot points all over the story? I think that's the big one. ( )