#The Bruising of Qilwa | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

transbookoftheday · 3 months

Text

Trans Books By Authors Of Color

Here are some trans books by authors of color you should read:

Book titles:

Lark & Kasim Start a Revolution by Kacen Callender

The Witch King by H.E. Edgmon

The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang

The Wicked Bargain by Gabe Cole Novoa

Just Happy To Be Here by Naomi Kanakia

The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya

Lakelore by Anna-Marie McLemore

Drag Me Up by R.M. Virtues

Unwieldy Creatures by Addie Tsai

Three Kings by Freydís Moon

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimons

391 notes · View notes

aroaessidhe · 1 year

Photo

Aromantic Adult Books - High Fantasy (mostly)

ARO WEEK 2023

KAIKEYI / historical fantasy/retelling / aroace MC

MOONSHINE / 1920s-ish fantasy / major side character who has some POV is aro bi

THE LANGUAGE OF ROSES / fantasy novella / aro MC

AN ACCIDENT OF STARS / upper YA/adult portal fantasy / secondary MC is a polyam married aro woman

A DAY OF FALLEN NIGHT / high fantasy / apparently one of the MCs is aroace, haven’t read it yet!

CITY OF STRIFE/ISANDOR SERIES / high fantasy / last cast includes multiple aroaces, demiros & greyros

THE WOLF AMONG THE WILD HUNT / fantasy novella / centres a QPR between and aroace & enby

THE ORACLE STONE / NA high fantasy / one of the three MCs is aro pan

THE BRUISING OF QILWA / fantasy novella / MC is aroace

*as a note, some of these only briefly explore aromanticism, and/or explore the ace part of the aroace character more. If you want more details on how much things are explored, see my database!

#aromantic #aromantic books #aroweek2023 #arospec awareness week #aro books #KAIKEYI #THE LANGUAGE OF ROSES #A DAY OF FALLEN NIGHT #CITY OF STRIFE #ISANDOR #THE BRUISING OF QILWA #asaw #aro week #aroweek #aro week 2023 #ok after i made this post i saw the author of the oracle stone call it upper-YA......sure i guess #i mean a lot of this is on that crossover level

1K notes · View notes

queerliblib · 1 month

Text

THE MADNESS BEGINS. Sixteen gay-as-hell books compete for the ultimate prize: bragging rights.

Last year's Queer Books March Madness was dominated by underdog @joydemorra's Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites. Will another sleeper contender snag the (extremely metaphorical) trophy, or will a heavy hitter like Gideon the Ninth claim the title? YOU DECIDE.

Voting for Round 1 is up in our Insta stories from 10 AM 3/17 to 10 AM 3/18 (EST). Votes in the comments ✨will not count!✨

All the nominations are from our bracket are available for free through QLL’s Libby collection. Check 'em out and get reading: https://tinyurl.com/QLL-MM24

Want to support our mission of by connecting LGBTQ+ people with literature, information, and resources that celebrate our community? Donate at the link in our bio!

<3 HAPPY MADNESS. 🏀📚☄️

31 notes · View notes

literary-illuminati · 6 months

Text

Book Review 63 – The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia

This was the last WFA finalist for best novella I was able to get at the library, so I will I suppose just have to accept that I am not going to have an informed opinion on the category. The book is, well – Jamnia’s only other work listed on Goodreads is “Positive Interactions with At-Risk Children: Enhancing Students' Wellbeing, Resilience, and Success”, and you can really kind of tell. Not a bad book – there really is a lot of good stuff here – but subtlety is just nonexistent. Though I suppose better a plot that telegraphs itself from a hundred miles away than one that feels like the author was coming up with it as they went.

The story takes place in a ‘free and democratic’ city state established after a successful war of independence from a struggling and unstable empire, and now a not-particularly-enthusiastic sanctuary to refugees from the rest of the empire. Firuz is one of those refugees, with the added issue of being a mostly-trained blood magic adept, the proximate reason why they and their family had to flee in the first place. Disguising the exact sort of magic they practice, they get work as an assistant healer to the one of (and soon the) only free clinics in the city, doing their bits to try and help the refugee populations through the plague ravaging the city. The meat of the plot is about their investigation of the source of a second strange disease that begins spreading among the refugee population a year after the first plague dies down – looks a lot like anemia, though the word’s never used – and how they try (and just totally fail) to balance their relationships and family against the good they do working in the clinic.

The book is just very earnest, and awkward, and trying to do altogether too many things at once for its length. Also the fantasy!Iranian refugees are called ‘Sassanians’. Which, like, come on. That’s literaly calling your fantasy!France ‘Gaul’.

The medical mystery was fun – strange diseases! Dissections and autopsies! Hiding the magic that’s the only hope you have of figuring out what’s happening! - but it was too strangled for space competing with family drama and a subplot of Firuz adapting and teaching another natural blood mage and just general ruminations to really shine. Which is to say there were exactly two named characters who could possibly be responsible, and it was almost instantly obvious which of them it was.

Which left the book needing to be carried on those interpersonal relationships and character dynamics. Which were like, fine? But every character basically had their key traits and the point of their arc announced on the page – the only character written with any real subtlety or layers was the eventually revealed villain.

The book’s very much queernorm – the protagonist is nonbinary and their kid brother is trans and spends about half the book lashing out as he struggles to cope with his dysphoria. Absolutely no one cares. The brother does get hatecrimed on account of being an ethnic minority and a refugee though, which I admit is a mindset about what bits of reality need to be softened I struggle to wrap my head around. More annoyingly (and, like, actually important at all) it is kind of disappointing that it cuts off any real worldbuilding about sexuality or gender; there are three major cultures in the book, and we go through the entire thing without learning anything much about any of their standards or expectations of femininity or masculinity. The brother’s dysphoria is portrayed as a purely physical ailment – you could replace it with some exotic variety of chronic pain and his role in the narrative would remain functionally unchanged.

Which just seems like a profoundly wasted opportunity to me – it’s fun that there’s one pronoun set that’s used exclusively to refer to the divine! But also I desperately want to know what the differences in cultural understanding between the usage of the two different neopronoun sets used to refer to random tertiary characters are, y’know? If you’re going to devote such a relatively big chunk of wordcount to this stuff then, like, dig into it.

Anyway yeah – as a debut effort, this is really very good. But I’m pretty surprised to see it on any best-of-year lists.

#book review #the bruising of qilwa #naseem jamnia #sff

24 notes · View notes

freckles-and-books · 1 year

Text

Currently reading

In this intricate debut fantasy introducing a queernormative Persian-inspired world, a nonbinary refugee practitioner of blood magic discovers a strange disease that causes political rifts in their new homeland

#books #currently reading #fantasy #naseem jamnia #the bruising of qilwa

81 notes · View notes

contracat25 · 2 years

Text

Ooooh August is looking good! Alright we are already part of the way into this month, but as there are again a lot of fantastic sounding books coming out here are some of my most anticipated. Also the longer I have time to think about these the longer the lists get ... Oops. (This isn't even including the handful of really exciting sequals coming out this month.)

How to Get a Girlfriend When You're a Terrifying Monster by Arie Carno

The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia

The Feeling of Falling in Love by Mason Deaver

These Fleeting Shadows by Kate Alice Marshall

In the Event of Love by Courtney Kae

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

Unwieldy Creatures by Addie Tsai

High Times in Low Parliament by Kelly Robson

A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland

#Booklr #upcoming releases #Upcoming books #2022 releases #2022 books #Queer books #Queer ssf #Romance #How to get a girlfriend when you're a terrifying Monster #The Bruising of Qilwa #The Feeling of Falling in Love #These Fleeting Shadows #In the event of love #the book eaters #Unwieldy Creatures #High Times in Low Parliament #a taste of gold and iron

149 notes · View notes

drowninginabactatank · 8 months

Text

The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia (Rainbow Crate edition).

This gorgeous edition features: naked hardcover designed to look like a spell book with custom gold foil Farsi proverbs, exclusive dust jacket, signed bookplate, gold gilded edges, custom end papers.

I cannot capture in photos just how beautiful this book is in person! ✨️

#the bruising of qilwa #naseem jamnia #rainbow crate #queer fiction #bookblr #book reccomendation #bookish 📚#Farsi #signed #mine #about mx

10 notes · View notes

haveyoureadthistransbook · 5 months

Text

The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia

goodreads

In this intricate debut fantasy introducing a queernormative Persian-inspired world, a nonbinary refugee practitioner of blood magic discovers a strange disease that causes political rifts in their new homeland. Persian-American author Naseem Jamnia has crafted a gripping narrative with a moving, nuanced exploration of immigration, gender, healing, and family. Firuz-e Jafari is fortunate enough to have immigrated to the Free Democratic City-State of Qilwa, fleeing the slaughter of other traditional Sassanian blood magic practitioners in their homeland. Despite the status of refugees in their new home, Firuz has a good job at a free healing clinic in Qilwa, working with Kofi, a kindly new employer, and mentoring Afsoneh, a troubled orphan refugee with powerful magic. But Firuz and Kofi have discovered a terrible new disease which leaves mysterious bruises on its victims. The illness is spreading quickly through Qilwa, and there are dangerous accusations of ineptly performed blood magic. In order to survive, Firuz must break a deadly cycle of prejudice, untangle sociopolitical constraints, and find a fresh start for their both their blood and found family.

Mod opinion: I haven't read this book yet, but it sounds interesting.

#the bruising of qilwa #naseem jamnia #polls #trans lit #trans literature #trans books #lgbt lit #lgbt literature #lgbt books #fantasy #nonbinary #own voices

5 notes · View notes

wearethekat · 1 year

Text

March Book Reviews: The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia

Recommended by @aroaessidhe on her aro books post. Bonus points for being a tordotcom novella, which I've found to be relatively reliably good. Refugee Firuz works for a free clinic in the city-state of Qilwa, helping less fortunate refugees as they struggle to care for their own family. But anti-immigrant sentiment is growing, and Firuz must face a mysterious new plague while also hiding their taboo blood magic.

I liked the original worldbuilding and setting here. It's always nice to see something that's not vaguely European set, especially when it's this detailed. It's almost too much worldbuilding for a little novella-- for instance, there's a lot of detail about the incidents chasing Sassanians from their own country and traditions around blood magic that don't get much space to breathe. Possibly Jamnia is planning to set multiple books in this world.

This was also a book where things happen to the protagonist, rather than the protagonist acting on their surroundings. It's a matter of personal preference whether this works for you, but I found it was fine in the limited length. Oh, and a note on representation-- it's explicitly stated that the protagonist is aroace, but this doesn't impact the plot much and there isn't much in-depth discussion. The book is much more centered around the protagonist's and particularly the younger brother's gender identity.

An interesting vignette of a story. I'll be interested to see what Jamnia writes next.

#my book reviews #march book reviews #naseem jamnia #the bruising of qilwa

16 notes · View notes

lgbtqreads · 2 years

Text

Asexual Awareness Week Roundtable

Happy Asexual Awareness Week! I’m thrilled to be celebrating it with some great ace authors, who’ve gathered together for a roundtable moderated by author Rosiee Thor! I’ll let them take it away! *** Happy asexual awareness week! I love this week every year–not only is it an affirming celebration of people who share my identity, it’s also a great time to take a look at the growth we’ve seen in…

View On WordPress

#Ace #AdriAnne Strickland #aroace #Asexual #Beyond the Black Door #Carly Heath #Claudie Arseneault #featured #Finn #Naseem Jamnia #RoAnna Sylver #Rosiee Thor #The Bruising of Qilwa

26 notes · View notes

transbookoftheday · 11 months

Text

💚 Trans Aro Books To Read For Aromantic Visibility Day 💚

("Godly Heathens" isn't out yet, but you can preorder it or request an ARC on NetGalley.)

98 notes · View notes

aroaessidhe · 1 year

Photo

Aro books by authors of colour!

ARO WEEK 2023

DEATHLESS DIVIDE / historical zombie fantasy / aroace MC (dual pov, she’s a side character in book 1)

THE LAST SESSION / contemporary/dnd-fantasy graphic novel / one of the MCs is aro

SAL & GABI BREAK THE UNIVERSE / contemporary sci-fi / aro probably-ace MC, mentioned briefly but he talks all the time how annoying it is when people assume he & gabi are dating

NOT YOUR BACKUP (sidekick squad #3) / YA superhero sci-fi / aroace-spec questioning MC

SO MANY BEGINNINGS / historical little women retelling / while it’s not super explicit, Jo is probably aroacespec, her ‘relationship’ reads as a QPR

KAIKEYI / adult historical fantasy/retelling / aroace MC

THE BRUISING OF QILWA / adult fantasy novella / MC is aroace

ELATSOE / contemporary fantasy/paranormal / aro-coded ace MC

COME DRINK WITH ME (TALES OF THE THREAD) / adult historical fantasy / short story series centred around platonic relationships from an aro perspective

see also: It Sounds Like This, Summer Bird Blue, If It Makes You Happy, Take Me To Your Nerdy Leader

*as a note, some of these only briefly explore aromanticism, and/or explore the ace part of the aroace character more. If you want more details on how much things are explored, see my database!

#aromantic #aromantic books #aroweek2023 #arospec awareness week #aro books #DEATHLESS DIVIDE #THE LAST SESSION #THE BRUISING OF QILWA #ELATSOE #TALES OF THE THREAD #SAL & GABI BREAK THE UNIVERSE #SO MANY BEGINNINGS

350 notes · View notes

pesbianlanic · 1 year

Text

march 2023 reading

books in bold are especially recommended! i had the pleasure of reading some absolute bangers this month.

Gilded by Marissa Meyer - 5/10. i dunno. i loved the Lunar Chronicles, which is the main reason i picked this up. while i enjoyed a lot of the horror-lite world-building, there were parts of it that confused me. i also thought that the pacing and the ending were off. i’m going to read the sequel in hopes that it gets better. we’ll see.

Empty by Susan Burton - 7/10. hard to get through. but i appreciated the writing and her insights.

On A Sunbeam by Tillie Walden - 8/10. beautiful art and cute gay story. what’s not to love?

Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller - 9/10. y’all. i am obsessed with this. i want to live inside sam j. miller’s mind because OH MY GOD this was amazing. we love queer-centering anti-capitalist speculative sci-fi about a world after climate change! literally want a tattoo inspired by this book immediately.

Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence by R.F. Kuang - 10/10. i was once again entranced by Kuang’s prose, world-building, and commentary. i’ve been thinking a lot recently about the *apparent* inevitability of imperialism and capitalism, so this was very cathartic.

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon - 9/10. an enchanting and powerful book. i will be thinking about this one for a long time.

Our Colors by Gengoroh Tagame - 8/10. i always love gay coming-of-age stories.

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo - 8/10. i think i preferred Ninth House, but this sequel still holds up! it’s fun, bloody, mysterious, and magical.

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters - 9/10. i enjoyed this novel. it was an interesting exploration of gender and parenthood, and it made me go down a rabbit hole investigating queer temporality.

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir - 10/10. DEVASTATING! I NEED ALECTO THE NINTH IMMEDIATELY. I WILL NOT BE NORMAL ABOUT THIS BOOK

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens - 2/10. the more i reflect on this book, the more i wish i hadn’t wasted my time reading it. a few reasons why: (1) the characterization of the two Black people in this book seemed racist in a song of the south way. (2) i think i’m losing my patience for straight people lit. i think i’m becoming heterophobic. (3) kya gave me mary sue vibes (don’t get me started on her poetry). (4) the ending was rushed and cliche, and i skipped most of it. (5) also, SPOILERS but kya did turn out to be the murderer in the end, so where was my murder scene hm???? i wanted to see that asshole get killed. it gets a 2 for its excellent descriptions of nature, because that is clearly delia owens’ true wheelhouse.

The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins - 9/10. excellent exploration of US-backed anticommunist violence (mass murders), its personal and devastating effects for the victims and survivors, and how it shaped the world we live in today.

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White - 10/10. holy shit. this was everything my queer, religiously traumatized ass needed. this is the kind of queer representation i’ve been waiting for. beautiful, messy, horrifying, cathartic, and inspiring all at once. i will be following AJ White! i’m so excited to read The Spirit Bares Its Teeth later this year.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata - 8/10. this was a really interesting exploration of work culture, non-conformity, and the ways that essential workers (such as the titular convenience store woman) are looked down upon by society.

Dolly Dingle, Lesbian Landlady by Monica Nolan - 8/10. a fun, modern take on lesbian pulp fiction of the ‘50s/’60s! don’t expect anything too deep or artistically aspirational, because that is not the point. it’s just an entertaining, gay, easy read.

The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia - 9/10. a beautiful, magical, queer book that examines the complexities of immigration, empire, and violence in the guise of a blood magic fantasy novel.

The Silence of Our Friends by Mark Long - 6/10. as a telling of the author’s father’s real experiences in the ‘60s, it’s personal and compelling. however, this graphic novel mainly centers white people grappling with racism (because we don’t have enough stories about that /s). could be appropriate for introducing young (white) kids to the history of the Civil Rights Movement and issues of racism.

bonus - a book i stopped reading:

The Library of the Unwritten by A.J. Hackwith. the premise of this book was intriguing and sounded like exactly the kind of thing i’d enjoy reading. however, something about the characterization and dialogue grated on my nerves. the main character, claire, especially annoyed me. also, when i see 8 ellipses within the span of a few paragraphs, i start to get peeved. it made me want to reread Good Omens as a palate-cleanser with similar vibes. maybe i’ll try it again at some point, but for now this book is not for me.

goodreads shenanigans here

#jules tries to read books again #books #blackfish city #nona the ninth #babel rf kuang #babel #hell followed with us #the bruising of qilwa

10 notes · View notes

literary-illuminati · 6 months

Text

The Bruising of Quilwa is fun enough so far, but it will never stop confusing me how common the general type of 'this is a book about refugees and ethnic prejudice and discrimination and people dying of the plague in dirty hovels because they weren't full citizens. Also the setting is queernorm and the protagonist is nonbinary and asexual and literally no one at any point has a problem with this, because Representation is Important' is. Just creates worlds of oddly specific brutality.

#like damn this militarized agricultural society has absolutely zero enforced gender roles at all? damn #the bruising of qilwa #naseem jamnia

32 notes · View notes

tachyonpub · 9 months

Text

#world fantasy award #naseem jamnia #the bruising of qilwa #sam j miller #boys beasts & men

3 notes · View notes

demisexualnathanvuornos · 2 years

Text

Canon AroAces 205/?: Firuz-e [they-Firuz] Jafari from The Bruising of Qilwa (2022) by Naseem Jamnia

#the bruising of qilwa #bruising of qilwa #firuz jafari #firuz-e jafari #they firuz #naseem jamnia #nocticola art #canon aspec list #aroace #asexual #aromantic

9 notes · View notes