9/10/24 8:42pm
gonna start liveblogging A Coup of Tea by Casey Blair
When the fourth princess of Istalam is due to dedicate herself to a path serving the crown, she makes a choice that shocks everyone, herself most of all: She leaves.
In hiding and exiled from power, Miyara finds her place running a tea shop in a struggling community that sits on the edge of a magical disaster zone. But there's more brewing under the surface of this city—hidden magic, and hidden machinations—that threaten all the people who've helped her make her own way.
Miyara may not be a princess anymore, but with a teapot in hand she'll risk her newfound freedom to discover a more meaningful kind of power.
reading this for a Thing for the website ;) plus it seems a bit like can't spell treason without tea, which i liked well enough
tag is bats reads acot
9/10/24 8:51pm
see thiiiisss is what i'm looking for in cozy fantasies & mysteries. the decadence! really going in on the descriptions, lovingly describing whatever the gimmick is. giving the sensory as much importance as the plot, because it is important
granted, it's a lot easier to do that with food & drink, but that's no excuse imo
9/10/24 9:05pm
we have confirmed that not all witches are women, but magic is stored in the pussy, apparently:
Not all witches are women," I say automatically. Our current understanding is that all witches are born with female reproductive organs, but that isn't the same.
we kinda have another instance here of when an author wants to be trans inclusive but hasn't really unpacked all their shit yet? like it's good you acknowledge that organs don't equal gender, but when you're still framing them as "female reproductive organs" you're kinda missing the mark on trans inclusivity. and that's without even getting into how this affects intersex people
9/16/24 8:12pm
miyara is very kabru-coded. they would get along, i think
9/16/24 8:44pm
wait wait wait what do you mean the tea test is now??? this was supposed to be a three-month process??? was there a secret time skip i don't know about???
9/17/24 3:49pm
okay, so this is a different tea test from the real tea test...?
9/17/24 4:14pm
girl not the almond extract
9/17/24 4:30pm
almond And apricot? you do you i guess lol
9/17/24 4:33pm
hm. missed opportunity for Decadence. granted i wouldn't have necessarily been fully on board since i viscerally hate almonds, but i would have appreciated what it was going for.
come to think of it, there hasn't been much Decadence since that first scene i praised it for. disappointing.
9/17/24 5:42pm
ooo, i like the concept of the elder tree. it lures you in with the promise of wisdom then eats you. that's so cool
9/17/24 5:52pm
yay gay people 🎉
9/17/24 5:54pm
we also have to deal with the whole "these characters clearly hate each other but that just means they're really into each other!" bs. there's a way to pull that kind of thing off but having another character just say "no that totally means she likes him i know because reasons" is definitely not it
9/17/24 6:56pm
there's a certain quality to the systemic injustice subplot that i can't quite put my finger on, and i'm not sure i'm qualified to even really comment on? it's this like... idk. this outsider of the privileged class comes into a community & is seemingly the only outside of the mistreated race who Really Cares about racism & she's gonna come in and use her privilege to tell off all the bigots and Solve Racism. and yeah she should use her privilege to help, it's good that she does, but something about the way it's portrayed here feels off. i think it might be partly a timing thing? like has she even been here a week at this point? & there aren't many named gaellani that she spends time with. like in the council scene there's a big group of gaellani but we don't learn any of their names or anything about them except that they're here i guess. and like lorwyn & deniel do call her out on "hey you don't fully get what's going on" but it doesn't feel like it sticks? if that makes any sense. like it feels like this is the gaellani's struggle but the gaellani's role is downplayed, in a way? some of which feels unavoidable because this is a first-person pov from someone who isn't gaellani, but some of it doesn't?
when i'm done i wanna look up some reviews by poc to see how people with personal experience with systemic racism feel about this book
9/17/24 7:24pm
we have trans people 🎉
so i guess the nonsense back in chapter 2 was meant to be like foreshadowing? but like. you didn't need to do it like that. he can just be trans. it's fine. and having his transness be implicit from what we know of biological factors versus him getting to just be out on his own terms is. hm. 😐
9/17/24 7:36pm
also hey where is this book going. i guess it's going toward the tea test? but with the other subplots going on it's hard to see this going to a satisfyingly conclusive place. it doesn't feel focused, & it doesn't really pull of the episodic feel either. i know it's book 1 in a series, but i feel like even in other book 1s i've had a better grasp on the vibes
9/17/24 7:38pm
you know the whole tea ceremony thing is allegedly really important but we really do just gloss over the actual ceremonies huh
9/22/24 6:48pm
i should probably get back to a coup of tea. i'm not really feelin it rn but there's not all that much left and i wanna finish this by the end of the month at least
9/22/24 7:27pm
maybe you should bring ostario though? like it seems like the better idea. you'd avoid the risk of having to deal with any more bullshit your word vs. kustio's stuff if you just bring the investigator with you to catch him in the act?
9/22/24 7:43pm
WOW IT'S ALMOST LIKE YOU SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE HEAD INVESTIGATOR WITH YOU you fucking dummies!!!
9/22/24 7:48pm
iii think you might be stepping over the line here miyara. i do not think you get to talk down to a person from a minority group that's being discriminated against about how they're "making themself the victim" in the face of that systemic discrimination!
9/22/24 8:14pm
book is done. i think the best way to describe it is... hollow. the bones are there. but it lacks the proper meat.
