I DNF at 2% because I cannot read third person present tense. I won't review this on Goodreads or Amazon since I didn't read far enough to get a feel for the book.

I'm not really sure where I got the idea that this was a horror but I was very wrong. That's not to say this isn't a great fantasy but it's definitely a fantasy. This was actually a really great fantasy to be exact. The magic reminds me a tiny bit of Liv Grossman's The Magicians minus the college and other world. The system is similar with the idea that magic is pain and using it isn't all it's cracked up to be.
I also really loved how diverse this book was. I mean the mc is a queer nonbianry person and most of the side characters are trans or queer in some other way. Its rare to see a book that is so sure of exactly what it is but this books manages that. This is definitely one I can see myself reading and recommend over and over again.

I really struggled to get into this one. The writing style felt like it kept me at arms length from the characters and the plot felt meandering.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Awakened by A.E. Osworth is a mixed third and first person-POV Trans contemporary fantasy. When Wilder awakens their powers one morning and discovers that they can now understand and communicate in any language, they are taken in by a coven of Queer witches. But when an AI turns malicious and starts to go for the teen witch in their group, everything is at risk of falling apart.

A.E. Osworth is not interested in playing by the rules of respectability politics or ignoring the reality Trans people face in America. There’s brief mentions of the banning of drag queen story hours and multiple mentions of transphobia. A Queer bar is also one of the main locations in the setting as well as a home owned by a transwoman and her trans daughter. There’s a trans woman with a beard and a Nonbinary lead and overt Queer sexuality threaded throughout. In essence, this book is a celebration of the diversity of the trans community and refuses to hold itself back, which is awesome.

Mary Margaret was probably my favorite character. She’s that typical, sarcastic seventeen-year-old that is determined to do things her way and won’t let other people tell her what to do, even if that means not making the best decisions. Her and Wilder’s initial meeting also involved her stating she’d come out at fourteen while Wilder came out at twenty-five, which has a lot of layers to it (growing up in a time where it’s more accepted to be trans, some people grow up in environments where it’s more difficult, some people take more time, etc) and you can kind of feel that she is a bit dismissive of Wilder taking a bit longer, but I didn’t really take it as malicious. It felt like something a teen would say. Mary Margaret also goes onto Tinder a year before she should, putting her in contact with the malicious AI, which targets her. She shouldn’t have been on Tinder in the first place because it’s an adult space, but in many ways, she is an adult (including being emancipated) and thinks of herself as such.

The AI stuff does get uncomfortable and fairly creepy. It feels like it’s spying on the characters and some of the communication between it and Mary Margaret are a lot of people’s worst nightmares when looking in online dating spaces. What gets really interesting is that Quibble is determined to misgender the AI but Wilder defends gendering it correctly because they are a community of trans magic users. I think it opens up a very complex conversation because it’s never OK to misgender someone on purpose, but can AI have a concept of gender? Is it just copying how humans speak?

Content warning for depictions of transphobia and misgendering

I would recommend this to fans of trans fantasy looking for a contemporary fantasy with covens and readers of witchy fantasy looking for a book that celebrates the trans community

This was a fun, chaotic ride with a premise that immediately hooked me—trans witches taking on an evil AI in a magical battle against late capitalism. The story has a lot of heart, and I appreciated its humor, big ideas, and exploration of identity. While the writing style didn’t fully work for me, I still enjoyed the creativity and the themes at play. It’s always exciting to see more trans stories by trans authors, and I’d love to see what this writer does next.

Pretty damn fun read. I was a bit waffley about it at first because it leans heavy into the Random Capitalization for Important Spiritual Things and there's a bit of info dumping that comes with power reveals, but this really picks up when an AI gains sentience (and, in turn, the ability to use magic), and the group has to figure out how to treat it as it starts to test its boundaries and turn towards darker magics. Great ensemble story and a neat idea wrt the AI in particular.

While I really wanted to love this book because the premise really grabbed me, but I had a hard time enjoying the very muddled third person narration and the endless telling not showing. It feels like this book was completely unedited and rambling, plus the way it's told made it hard to care about the plot or the characters. Any point where I could be curious about a character's feelings or intentions it immediately switched, often in the next paragraph, to that character's POV to explain it, leaving nothing up to reader interpretation and creating no sense of mystery. I can see a world where this premise meets it potential, but unfortunately you'd need an entirely different writing style to pull off anything that can match the promise of the story as marketed. I love a trans story about trans people by a trans person, but this one just isn't something I can see most readers enjoying and there are few people I would recommend it to.

Trans witches fighting against an evil AI? This could not be more relevant. A lighthearted tale about found family and magic, it hits all the right spots that are needed now more than ever. Definitely recommended.

this book is trans as f*ck 💕🏳️‍⚧️

it is full of trans joy and trans sorrow and trans hope and trans magic and it is an absolutely stunning read. i went into this book mostly blind, and i would encourage you to do the same. just know that if you are a fan of the found family trope and you also feel a simmering rage towards meta right now, this book is for you. it comes out on april 29th. if you are a trans person or you love a trans person, read it 💕

[review will be uploaded to instagram @shelfconscious.library]

A coven of trans witches battles an evil AI in the magical coming-of-middle-age romp about love, loss, drag shows, and late capitalism. ​

Going into this, I didn't know what to this. I certainly wasn't expecting it to be so funny and full of heart. "Awakened" was both adorable and hilarious. It felt alot like a queer version of the avengers. I really liked the dialogue and the the play on some philosophical themes, especially related to identifying who you are. Having a trans author's perspective is important for this conversation.

It was a good time and made you think. I can't wait to see what else Osworth writes.