Palimpsest
Book description
In the Cities of Coin and Spice and In the Night Garden introduced readers to the unique and intoxicating imagination of Catherynne M. Valente. Now she weaves a lyrically erotic spell of a place where the grotesque and the beautiful reside and the passport to our most secret fantasies begins…
Why read it?
1 author picked Palimpsest as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This is an ambitious story about a sexually-transmitted otherworldly city, and Valente expertly delivers on that concept.
When this book was first published in 2009, it was rare and controversial to have bisexual main characters and multiple sapphic trysts in a speculative novel. It was, therefore, one of the first weird, sapphic books I ever read, and I was absolutely delighted to discover it.
While thoroughly weird in content, the prose is poetic and lush, and the overall strange, beautiful tone of this novel has stayed with me throughout most of my adult life.
From Ephiny's list on speculative books with sapphic main characters.
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