Think Galactic- When the Moon was Ours

For the August meeting of Think Galactic, we discussed When the Moon was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore. A YA story in a fairy-tale or magical-realist mode, it's the love story of a girl who grows roses from her wrists and a trans boy who paints magical moons. When the Moon was Ours is also the most recent Tiptree Award winner, so we were pretty jazzed to read it. Brief notes and possible spoilers below:

• Most of us liked it on a "glad to have read it" to "definitely loved it" continuum.
• Some of us had a hard time getting into some of it because of disbelief-suspension issues and trying to figure out which parts of the world were, in-world, "real". Felt like it jumped back and forth between concrete and not a lot.
• "Enough with the pumpkins!"
• I think we went the whole discussion without referencing the Great Pumpkin? Go us?
• We noted a great deal of repetition; it's a very short myth and then repeatedly unpacking it.
• We really liked the "non-2.5-kids-families" story.
• Nice ending!
• Talked a bit about "death by analogy" and trying to figure out when not to read the magical elements allegorically.
• Are the moons...spherical? Or flat paintings? If they're flat, how lit up? If spherical, how can they be waning/crescent/etc?
• We liked Aracely, but really couldn't figure out why the reveal didn't come years earlier.
• We liked the discussion of bullying mixed with magic stuff.
• Also really liked the examination of small-town dynamic of needing, but also fearing, people who are different.
• Orange & Olive salad is, reportedly, real and not gross.
• We liked the examination of prejudice from within vs. without a family.

• Links made to El-Mohtar's Honey Month.
• Because some of us are suckers for cultivar discussions, much love for the "many types of pumpkins".
• We had this discussion just after the whole Google tech-bro anti-diversity screed thing, which was giving us cognitive dissonance while reading this lovely, accepting book.
• Somehow, we tied in some discussion of The Moral Conflict of Law & Neuroscience by Peter Alsace, and also this Lego Alien Scene.

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