Read #2, October 2023: Pretty much the same feelings as first time. Obviously I didn't get the second (or third) at the time, but I'm looking to fix that by the power of eBay. It feels like much longer ago than 2015 that I last read this, but I guess 2015 was a long time ago (!?).

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Read #1:

This contains mild spoilers, but only if you have absolutely no idea how Micah and Iphigenia are connected, and it's not hard to guess.

I liked Pantomime so much, but the end was hard to read. I'm still not totally decided about whether the violence was shocking because it really did come out of nowhere or because it was in keeping with the rest of the book and I was shocked because I cared so much about the characters. The scene where Micah for some reason decides that the only way he can explain his condition quickly is to take off all his clothes was honestly as hard to read for me as the deaths.

I just gave up on The Other YA Fantasy Novel With Trans Characters, [book:Eon: Dragoneye Reborn|2986865], and I was thinking that the main problem I had with it was that it was all about magic and I don't really read fantasy anymore. That's not quite true, though---Pantomime is fantasy (albeit with a steampunk edge), and I really enjoyed the fantasy elements.

It would be hard to overstate how great the LGBTI representation is in this book. Laura Lam did an awesome job, y'all. Micah wonders at one point if he likes Aenea in a straight way or a gay way. Just... ( )

Not bad, interesting main character, but I thought it was a bit slow. ( )

The main reason I was interested in this book is because I had heard it had diversity of sexuality and gender, which it did! There are lesbian, gay, and bi characters, and the main character is intersex and gender fluid and/or trans (a bit unclear since the people in the book use different labels than we do). However I wasn't always happy with how these identities and characters were handled. There were some negative tropes in plots and characterization, and there were some scenes that talked about the protagonists body in a way I found insensitive. Despite my criticism I appreciate that the author decided to include this kind of diversity in their story.

The worldbuilding and setting are very creative, but not something I personally enjoyed. I dont really like books about the circus for some reason, and I had trouble remembering what the different place names referred to. The alternating chapter setup was a bit tricky to understand at first but I figured out what was going on pretty fast. The summary on the back of this book is crap. I feel like the publisher was trying to trick people into reading an LGBTQ book and setting up the protagonists identity as a plot twist. Disappointing that the publisher decided to do this since there is a distinct shortage of books about intersex people.

I gave this book a low rating because of the issues I had with it, but if you like a kind of steampunk setting and circus and magic stories its worth checking out.

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teen fiction (gender identity/LGBTQ character). I picked up this book specifically because I had heard it had a great LGBTQ protagonist, but got bored with the pacing. By the time I got to chapter 6 (around page 52) I'd had enough. I get that Micah's past is a big plot twist, but I really don't see why it needs to be a BIG PLOT TWIST. He should just be, and then we can read about what happens to him after he joins the (probably dark and possibly magical) circus. But I never got that far because the story was still slowly and not that interestingly leading up to the revealing of his secret.

I would much rather have had an interesting story in which the character incidentally happens to be ___, rather than a story that is supposedly interesting because he is ____. ( )

Yet another young protagonist with something extra challenges the big world. And yet another overly long first novel, but that's not the worst, the worst is the doggerel that isn't even up to doggerel standards and the painfully bad Pantomime of the title. Seriously, Laura, since you can't do poetry or plays leave them out or speak of them indirectly. Otherwise not complete trash, but it really didn't need to happen. ( )