O Human Star, Volume Three

Review for all 3 volumes. I liked this. I was originally going to only read volume 1 for a book club but ended up reading all three because I liked it enough. It's a sweet story.

The part I liked best was the core narrative about AI robots becoming people. And this weird story of one of the main characters being resurrected twice, in very different forms. Really interesting! I also liked Sulla's story as a trans character, triply awkward also as a teenager and a home-schooled kid. It felt very personal and real without just being an author stand-in.

I also liked the hunky daddy and the cute love story he had with the twink. A different book would have been much pornier and I would have enjoyed that. Instead this is a sweet gentle version of various kinds of self discovery and love. Also a cozy version of the movie Ex Machina or maybe the Animatrix: Second Renaissance.

The superhero part didn't work for me. Why can Sulla fly? It seems to be part of the author's original vision, they reference Astro Boy in one of the end notes. OK fine. But I liked the other parts of the story a lot more.

I didn't love the ending. The hunky daddy ends up transitioning to a female version at the end. At least, I think so? It's confusing because early on when we learn his younger self was a girl he gets all upset and says something like "did I ever give any sign I was trans?" The transition later came from out of nowhere. Or maybe I missed the entire point of the story, that is possible

BTW it's very hard to figure out how to buy this to read easily. It's a free webcomic you can still find online. Or you can buy PDFs on itch.io.

Update: we had a great discussion about this at our book club. There's a lot of depth in this story, particularly in the dual transgender allegory of boy / girl and robot / human.