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A review by octavia_cade
No Man's Land by A.J. Fitzwater
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I love this! Land Girls and shapeshifters... set in rural New Zealand during WW2, it's the story of a young woman who goes to work on a farm while the men who would usually have that job (including her twin brother) are off at war. Farm work is nothing like what Tea's used to, and it's all complicated by the fact that she seems to be turning into an eel. Which is a summary that sounds really bizarre on the face of it, but it doesn't register, in No Man's Land, as more than slightly strange. It's not that other events are even weirder (though some of them are), it's that this is a quiet, almost reserved story about family, found and otherwise, and the transformations reflect that: connections to each other and to the land, and how they are aspects of the self to be embraced, rather than an exhibition of monstrosity to be othered into disappearance and/or compliance. It's just very, very well done... and the cover is gorgeous.