The Runaway Restaurant / Tessa Yang / 2022

The Runaway Restaurant / Tessa Yang / 2022

This collection is sold as speculative fiction about searching for homes or being displaced. That is true and given the range of subject matter--shipwrecked princesses, cosmetic cyborg experimentation, the search for a runaway teen--i didn't expect the stories to cohere so singularly, especially as I read them intermittently on my kindle, on the bus, waiting in a doctor's office. I often found myself with the same wordless feeling that felt so familiar to me. After some living and reading, I realized it was the same feeling I get when I feel painfully in my brown queerness. A parentless pair of siblings who steal to survive; teens with X-men-like powers incarcerated with some of the powers eventually eradicated. It's queer, even when it's not. Tessa perhaps isn't the type to market herself as a primarily queer author, but there's something undeniably queer for me about these stories in their out of placeness. By nailing this feeling, it made me feel less alone and a little shocked that Tessa knew about my little private interior feeling (of course she did, she's a smarty pants). I truly hope The Runaway Restaurant finds its audience of weirdos and wordies and more.