PINK OLIVE - eBook Direct

PINK OLIVE - eBook Direct

An artist creates because they want to say something. The Constelis Voss series and all of its ensuing books, Empty of Nothing, Indigo Voss, and now Pink Olive, are about many things - queerness, pain, joy, family, nostalgia - but at their core they are about the author Kira Leigh. They are about his journey and the parts of himself and his friends he imbued into our beloved gang of superpowered misfits particularly ex-mobster assassin Alex Voss and the cute but secretly brilliant Olivia "Olive" Lawrence.

Indigo Voss served as a way to map out Alex Voss's trauma and create a way for him to avoid his inevitable fate in the Constelis Voss books because time travel shenanigans.

Pink Olive takes that trauma and becomes a reckoning of that trauma. Framed by Olive's power of time manipulation, the story skips around to different parts of the past, even touching the future. It starts as a story about saving the world and saving Alex. But it changes and morphs alongside Olive's perception of time.

Pink Olive becomes about how Alex and Olive save and forgive each other. It becomes how the author saves and forgives himself.

We see two parallel journeys that started on a space station in a far future but soon it becomes clear that they are the same journey and they end at the same destination.

It is a meditation about recognizing your trauma, seeing the fallout of your trauma responses, and forgiving yourself.

These books have always been about getting through to the other side with trauma, to survive it and live with it.

This one in particular features a profound breakthrough of the author finding his way to the other side of his pain. It becomes a joyful exaltation that you, the reader, will survive it too. You may have been broken but you can be fixed again. You can fly again. You will be okay.

The whole series from Constelis Voss: Color Theory to here should be read so people who need this message can absorb it. Not enough people who suffer trauma know that they can survive it, but Kira Leigh proudly proclaims with Daft Punk and Kate Bush somehow blasting in the background that you can. You can do it. Please read this book!

There’s an odd sense of finality to this book, to where we’re along for the ride with familiar characters through familiar settings from the Constelis Voss series, although through a different, pink-tinged perspective.

Alex got a sense of closure in INDIGO VOSS, but this book is different, and Olive is a character we needed to inhabit to get this different perspective. There are scenes that are downright difficult, like ones from her childhood, or trying to balance a relationship with the invincible Alex skipping rocks at the end of the world when Olive just doesn’t want to let go. Not yet.

There’s a power to how this book takes trauma, utilizes the superhero tropes and idea of time traveling as an attempt to reconcile with said trauma and try to forge ahead into a better future. I’m not going to lie and say this is a fun, easy read, because it’s not. That isn’t to say it’s not entertaining, because it is, but know it feels like Olive is, at times, grabbing you by the ears and clacking some gum while she stares into your eyes and unloads, all while telling you that you aren’t alone.

I can’t recommend this enough.

I can't describe how much I loved this book and the other books by Kira as well. Her raw vulnerability throughout Pink Olive sculpted this book into one of the most important pieces of writing to ever grace my eyes. I love that the characters are wild and silly, yet completely relatable at the same time. The metaphors, the parallels, the craftsmanship of the prose are a true testament to Kira's innate storytelling ability, and I am HERE for it. Her exploration of sexuality, vulnerability, morality, and the dark recesses of the human mind leave me hanging on her every word. Pink Olive and Kira's other books would make a fantastic addition to anyone's bookshelf, seriously. I highly look forward to future releases.

Pink Olive was a gift; I found it an incredibly therapeutic read. It spoke to the despairing little girl in me who felt irreparably broken, incompatible with the world, and doomed by her past.

I'm going to miss Alex and Olivia, but the beauty of this conclusion brought me to tears. They helped reformat my brain a bit, and they'll always be my superheroes, fighting brainworms day to day.