Just finished "Nell O'Dell Hates Quests" by Emily B. Martin. Quite a cozy fantasy story overall, with wonderful illustrations by the author herself.
I was worried to see a goblin on the cover and figured that even parodies of classic fantasy tropes usually end up being fairly racist in nature due to the standard fantasy races' racial alignments being thinly veiled eugenecist ideas, but I was pleasantly surprised to find Martin not just doing the "this is the one good goblin" trope but actually taking on racial alignments fairly thoroughly.
The flaws she gave her heroine were believable and well-grappled-with, and although the resolution was a bit too liberal for my tastes, the part about the internship was great. There was one facet of the ending that really bothered me, though. I was prepared to accept-but-not-like a "government is reformed somewhat" ending, but it ended up way more uncomfortable than that. I'll post a follow-up with spoilers about details.
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