Read some more books lately

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
I enjoyed this when I read it at first, especially the humour about every culture thinking they're more civilised than other cultures, and how you never feel like you fit in when you're the "barbarian"...but the writing was dense in a way that was difficult to get through at times, and I felt like it didn't go far enough with the anti-imperial themes? It said anti-imperial things but never showed in concrete ways why imperialism was bad, or why people suffered, or why people would suffer to overturn it. I am not certain I will read the sequel.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
This was amazing. This was creeping sense of horror with a huge serving of gratuitous creeping mold and fungi, plus solid witty observations of racist people doing awful racist things like killing people, because yes racism kills, and it was political while still being dreamy and poetic and hopeful and a fun story. I liked that the main character was vain and flighty but also caring and earnest. I would recommend this novel to everyone and their mother.