What an absolutely wild, soulful, hilarious, confusing ride of a book!

This is my first try at a 'genre-bending' novel that played around so consistently with form and I won't lie, it was both exciting and disorienting. Think This Is How You Lose the Time War but on crack and with transgender main characters (!!). But I think the disorientation adds so much to this story - it was like a breath of fresh air to not immediately understand everything about the universe(s) we're thrown into, and to just trust the author to do her thing and let the story unfurl.

Acrasia is also such a compelling, witty main character that, despite feeling lost at times from the non-linear storytelling, I wanted to stick around anyway to hear all of her endless footnotes and references. More than once I was grinning to myself over the playfulness of not only our MC but the form of the book itself, particularly in representing her cousins and any other time-space-bending parts of the story.

I cannot wait for the physical release to see how this maps over onto page, and would buy a copy in a heartbeat as this is definitely a book worth a second read. It was also great to look up Violet Allen after finishing Plastic, Prism, Void to realise I'd just (this month) read and loved her short story The Other One in the Out There Screaming anthology.

A book that's great if you love sci-fi (as I wouldn't ever consider this a romantasy) non-linear narratives/forms or if you're looking to get out of your reading comfort zone.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Original rating 4.5 but rounded up to 5 on NetGalley.

Loved how prescient and incisive this was, while also being absolutely hilarious. What Allen does with form here is superb and the book never felt confusing to me even through all of the twists and turns the narrative takes. Would absolutely recommend this in a heartbeat to anyone who wants more from their fiction than just a collection of cookie-cutter tropes and placid diversity. This is the real thing, baby.

Plastic, Prism, Void is a time jumping, perspective hopping magical girl story with a darkish twist. The prose is indescribable and unfaltering, ensorcelling the reader with every turn of phrase. As for the characters, they are an absolutely delicious shade of grey; the epitome of moral complexity and lovability.
This was an absolutely scintillating read, and I absolutely be sticking around for more of Violet Allen's work!!
Thank you to LittlePuss Press for providing this book for consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Plastic, Prism, Void is a wild ride of a romance sci-fi literary fiction adventure through form and one messy relationship. Acrasia is a magical trans girl who comes across as pretentious. Opus is a mech-piloting trans guy. They were enemies, but then that changed, and then their universes separated. Now they're back in the same place again, but Acrasia's schemes to keep Opus there might be finally going too far.

I love the publisher, LittlePuss Press, and the blurb fascinated me as (apparently) a romantasy with shades of House of Leaves. Plastic, Prism, Void takes the textual form experimentation of House of Leaves, the sci-fi romance of This Is How To Lose The Time War, and mixes them both with a healthy dose of pretentious references and a complicated relationship between two trans people with weird baggage. It took me a little while to settle into the style and the way the narrative jumps around in time and voice and format (and the advance copy I read on a too-small screen didn't help so I think the physical book will be much easier to read), but then I became invested in the central relationship. I like the way that, despite everything else going on, it boils down to people who didn't like each other but then fell in love and now can't work out if they can sustain something when they're both in the same place. So, despite the fluid, mind-boggling narrative, it is also something strangely relatable.

I'm sure there's great swathes of this book that I didn't get, but that feels like some of the point of it, with Acrasia and Opus's banter often being about whether or not they get each other's references (made more complex by the multiple universes). This is a book that is pushing boundaries in a fun way and you don't need to understand every sentence to have a good time with it.

Plastic, Prism, Void is unlike anything I've ever read. While I was reading this, I saw one of those daily book questions of: 'if your current read was a drink, what would it be?' and my answer for this book is: a multi-layered cocktail that is set on fire.

Plastic, Prism, Void is disorienting and nonlinear. The main character is not likeable; she is 'spiky', incredibly pretentious and talks constantly in classical + pop culture references. It is chaotic. But this book is fully aware of what it is and who the characters are and by the end, I even found a rhythm in the mid-sentence time jumps. This is definitely not for everyone, and heads up - this is only Part One*, but if you like experimental books, books that play with format and the fourth wall, go pick this up. I look forward to Side Ω.

*Some people might call this a cliffhanger ending.