✓ shares the best books of all-time ↠ The Second Mango (Mangoverse Book 1) by Shira Glassman · eBook or Kindle ePUB

Queen Shulamit never expected to inherit the throne of the tropical land of Perach so young. At twenty, grief stricken and fatherless, she's also coping with being the only lesbian she knows after her sweetheart ran off for an unknown reason. Not to mention, she's the victim of severe digestive problems that everybody thinks she's faking. When she meets Rivka, an athletic and assertive warrior from the north who wears a mask and pretends to be a man, she finds the source of strength she needs so desperately.

Unfortunately for her, Rivka is straight, but that's okay Shulamit needs a surrogate big sister just as much as she needs a girlfriend. Especially if the warrior's willing to take her around the kingdom on the back of her dragon in search of other women who might be open to same sex romance. The real world outside the palace is full of adventure, however, and the search for a royal girlfriend quickly turns into a rescue mission when they discover a temple full of women turned to stone by an evil sorcerer. The Second Mango (Mangoverse Book 1)

such a great read :) Put a young jewish, kind indian, naive queen and a german like tomboy knight woman searching for a lesbian partner for the queen above, in a tale that will eventually leads them to save a bunch of petrified women and you have this book. Sound odd?
But the story was good, with good characterisations and fast pacing. The last 20% of the story was a bit of a melodrama, so 4 stars here only. But I still recommend this quick reading. Shira Glassman Aside from having an adorable cover, this book had me from the first page:

Once upon a time, in a lush tropical land of agricultural riches and shining white buildings, there was a young queen who spent the night tied up in a tent, panicking.

Apparently, a visit to a bawdy house got you kidnapped.

As the story continues you meet wildly different characters with complex backstories, and religion that is integrated and appreciated in everyday life.

It's fresh, it's unique, and it's a great start to the series.

The Second Mango is a delightful fantasy tale about a young queen and her bodyguard whose quest to find a girlfriend for the queen leads them to try break a curse on a temple of women who have been turned to stone.
Both Queen Shulamit and Rivka are lively and likeable characters. While the themes of the book are issues that will resound with many older teens and young adults, the book never feels preachy or an issues book, for example Queen Shulamit's food allergies are part of the plot, not just something that happens to her.
The story is pacy and you will find yourself unwilling to put it down.
The Second Mango is a great debut and I can't wait to read from the author. Shira Glassman writes self described fluffy queer Jewish princess fantasies (ok, I may have reworded slightly but I think I've kept the essence of it). The Second Mango introduces the reader to Perach, a secondary world fantasy realm where everyone just happens to be Jewish. I mean that in the most positive possible way when creating a fantasy setting completely separate from real world history, why not set it up exactly as you choose? It's subversive in its own way, because every time I was tempted to trip over the concept, I thought about all the similar fantasy settings that never get questioned or challenged when they silently echo dominant real world cultures without presenting any logical basis for why they should. But perhaps I digress too much into literary theory.

The Second Mango is a fairly straightforward quest adventure, where a young, newly installed queen goes off on a quest to find a girlfriend. There is just enough heteronormativity in the setting that her quest leaves her advisors and courtiers baffled and confused, but not so much that everyone won't cheerfully accept the outcome when she succeeds. The quest is aided by a masked gender bending swordswoman and her shapeshifting horse dragon, with barriers and challenges being offered variously by scheming innkeepers and misogynistic sorcerers.

The book is very young adult in feel, not so much for the age of the protagonist, but for the relative straightforwardness of the plot. Characters are pretty much who they present themselves as, challenges are relatively straightforward and solvable, and the plot twists are foreshadowed well enough for a pleasant reading experience without being obvious enough to spoil it. The prose is on the explanatory side than the immersive side, and various aspects of character identity (such as food sensitivities) are solidly rooted in contemporary discourse rather than being given a oblique in world presentation. For the target readership of this series, I assume this is a solid feature, not a flaw. If the phrase fluffy lesbian Jewish queen with food sensitivities finds true love makes your heart go pitter pat, then you are solidly in the target demographic for The Second Mango and I strongly recommend it to you. The Second Mango is a fairy tale that tells the truth, based on women forming strong friendships and falling in love, rescuing each other and themselves, and saving the day. (Special note: seeing chronically ill characters being supported, believed, and loved will always be important. It shouldn't be as rare and refreshing as it is, but that doesn't change how good it is to see here.)

The characters in this book and its continuing series discover many different kinds of strength: to fight, to rule, to have faith in the most frightening of times, and faith in oneself. They remind us, and especially young, marginalized readers that we can do the same. It can even be fun! I've read several of this series out of order, not a problem here and they're all easy, enjoyable reads that leave you feeling reassured, refreshed, and brave.

We need books like this, especially now. Kindle I'm not exactly sure how many stars to give this book. Four seems a little too high, but it deserves much better than a three, so I'll go with that. I enjoyed this book and thought it was a fun read. (I love fantasy books that are fun! So often they're depressing and dark and bleh this was so wonderfully fun and positive!) I enjoyed the fact that the main character was lgbt+ and had food allergies you never see food allergies in books! I had never read a fantasy book that used Judaism as the religion for the world and thought that was a nice, refreshing change.

But I can't help wishing that there was to the story. More depth to the characters, depth to the storyline. I wish there had been depth to the main character, too. Her sex drive overshadowed anything else about her personality and made her less rounded and developed than the secondary main character. (I found Rivka a lot interesting than Shulamit.) A sex drive is fine, but when it's brought up continuously, I can't help wishing that Shulamit's other traits were made important. They're there, like her intelligence and love of learning, but those things seemed almost like secondary traits. I guess what I'm saying is that there was so much potential here but I don't think the book quite hit it.

I think what originally turned me off when I first started reading the book is that it's written in the style of Middle Grade, but the main character was obsessed with sex. This was disconcerting, especially at first the style didn't quite match the content. (The book's not really explicit, thankfully, because that would have really strange alongside the fun, young ish writing style.) I'm glad I stuck with the book, though, because the main character does grow and begin solving problems rather than just fretting over finding a woman. (Character growth! Yay! I always love some character development!) It was strange that she was a queen and did very little queening and didn't seem to take the role particularly seriously, but it is a fun read so that was something I could let slide even when it wasn't particularly believable.

This sounds like a negative review, but I promise I did like the book and I'd recommend it to anyone who's looking for fun, lgbt+ fantasy. I have a feeling that as the series progresses the writing is going to keep improving, so the potential I'd hoped to see here will be met there. The fact that this was such a fun read overpowers anything negative about the book, so I'm going to give the rest of the series a try. :) The Second Mango (Mangoverse Book 1) this was such a cute, fun, magical read that had me hooked from page one! I recommend it entirely! The Second Mango (Mangoverse Book 1)