I did say I love me some bugs in the last review. Hope you didn’t think I’d miss any chance to gush about Dani Finn’s Fly by Night. If you’ve read any of Dani’s other romantic novellas, you already know what you’re getting, at least in the broad strokes.
Hells, I kind of already summarized my opinions in one skeet.
When I started Fly by Night I was expecting glorious bug smut and some classic Dani usefully-useless-lesbian romance.
While that was all very much there, I also got a novella about finding hope, meaning, and love in a world that promised to deny such things at every turn.
— Phenn Sans Shame🏳️⚧️ΘΔ (@phenn.gay) March 21, 2025 at 8:48 AM
Dani has this peculiar ability to paint vibrant and morbid canvases with their words. To depict worlds ranging from cruelly uncaring to actively persecutory. Worlds which remain jump as cruel from start to finish.
Somehow, Mx. Finn does all that, then has the fucking gall to leave me feeling hopeful. Every. Damn. Time.
I don’t think I can stress this enough. In 8000 words, Dani interrogates lesbian dynamics in a patriarchal world, trans femme sexuality & lesbianism, disabled relationships, overcoming physical incompatibility, and finding hope in all things. And they did it in a novella about a moth and a butterfly.
Not anthropomorphic, anthropomorphized, yes, but they are literally a moth and a butterfly.
It should not be possible to finish a novella knowing the characters will be dead in a matter of days or weeks, to witness lovers frankly discussing if the children they will never know can even hatch, to say, “Since we’ll never know, I choose yes.” and leave me feeling hopeful.
But Dani Finn keeps doing exactly that.
Reminder that this and many other recently reviewed books are available as part of the Queer Lights in the Darkness Bundle on Itch.io!
