Tamsin is trying to figure out why the city is sinking--including her basement, which seems to be stretching more thaCaitlin Starling never fails me.
Tamsin is trying to figure out why the city is sinking--including her basement, which seems to be stretching more than anything else. But when a door appears and a doppelganger steps through it, she refuses to admit that she's in over her head, even as she begins forgetting the more the doppelganger learns.
This was so fantastic, focusing on the horror of the idea of doubles, of the uncanny valley, and the ethics of experiments. She also touches on the horrors of innocence, of ignorance. Starling excels at madness as horror, and at writing women who love science almost more than anything else.
“All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change.”
I read this on recommendation by my hair stylist. “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change.”
I read this on recommendation by my hair stylist. We discussed at length how this book practically predicted what we're going through now, extreme division of class, the thinning of middle class, loss of faith in politics, homelessness, safety, corporate towns (looking at you, Amazon), racism, sexism, and more. And when I actually dove in and read it...wow. WOW.
Octavia Butler is a totally unmatched author. The way in which she has constructed this world and Lauren's faith, Earthseed, is incredible. So much is explained just by how they live and navigate their lives. It's eerie how similar yet how different this dystopia is--so much so that I actively recommended it to a patron at the library who was ready for something hard-hitting. Well, here you go!
It's a book that shocks, but subtly. Nothing is out of left-field because it's already a part of the story, even if we haven't experienced it yet. Everything makes sense, in all the ways that dystopias shouldn't. ...more
"You can either be young and beautiful, or you can work forever in anonymity, while all your male peers get famous, get the prize teaching jobs, get s"You can either be young and beautiful, or you can work forever in anonymity, while all your male peers get famous, get the prize teaching jobs, get solo shows, get awards. Then, when you're an old woman, if you've somehow kept going and you're very, very lucky, the world bows down at your feet."
Beatrice has grown up in Seagate a highly religious and restrictive community when it comes to eating--so she cooks and revels in her meals with indulgence. Reiko lives in the Bastian, the lowest rung in society, until she receives a scholarship to a prestigious art school in the Middle. Beatrice escapes Seagate to pursue her sinning dream to become a chef. Reiko's scholarship is ripped out from under her, so she resorts to thieving. Both find a banned book, one that is the source of their society's rules and punishments. As they begin reading it, they realize that their society is built on lies.
This was a strangely beautiful and haunting book. The Thick and the Lean is an obvious a role-reversal of the constraints around women's bodies set in a world where sex is freely given and received and nutritional asceticism brings you closer to God. I enjoyed that this book was told from two different perspectives, showing how strife can manifest in very different ways, through the causes of socioeconomic disparity and that of religion. Either way, these are aspects of life that our characters wish to escape and the way they do so is totally taboo. Beatrice learns about food from the roots up while Reiko finds it upon herself to make money and keep her life in the Middle as easily as possible. But what of love? What of our relationships to one another? To God? How do these affect the ways in which we view ourselves through our relationships? Chana Porter asks these questions, and juxtaposes Beatrice and Reiko's narratives against Iko's, the main character of The Kitchen Girl, a banned book. In this way, this book is absolutely amazing.
However, I at times struggle with the reversal of food and sex. I do understand it to a large extent--food that is labelled as better than sex, sex being hidden in seedy buildings, paid for in secret, where food is eaten at the park, on the go, liberally and freely--but some of the comparison did leave me unsettled. It almost seems like a world where there is no rape or worry for pregnancy or abortion, but surrogates exist--and naturally, these surrogates are still very poor women who are given this job because it is too base and animalistic for any self-respecting woman to go through with pregnancy. Husbands and wives are shared freely, like swingers, but when there are asexual, celibate, or otherwise monogamous women, this calls their sexuality into question. And, naturally, it is frequently the women. Like Reiko, for example, who is monogamous and willingly sends in workers to please her husband and his coworkers when they're celebrating. Or Margot, who does not wish for sex with neither men nor women. Or Beatrice, who is viewed as cold by her schoolmates. Also, nuns are not only ascetic, but they are also very sexual--which I once again understand this as a role reversal, but this transgression does leave me feeling deeply uncomfortable though I'm not particularly religious myself.
I think perhaps it is because this role reversal posits that sex is this taboo thing--which, certainly, there is a lack of sex education in general, not to mention sex education for people of various genders and sexualities. Sometimes I think these subjects are viewed as totally equivalent rather than comparable. This of course is not to say that this comparison isn't totally thought provoking! I can see essays being written about this book, really teasing apart the intricacies, because really, it is a very intricate text and one that is both hard-hitting yet delicate....more
Piper is oral, but she's Deaf. Her mother works for a company that provides well-balanced food for all of Australia and only wants the best for her daPiper is oral, but she's Deaf. Her mother works for a company that provides well-balanced food for all of Australia and only wants the best for her daughter. But when an oil crisis hits, Piper's mother is laid off and the two suddenly realize that they now barely have enough money to survive. Piper's best friend suddenly disappears with a new boyfriend, Piper's mother struggles with job hunting, and Piper finds herself involved with Marley, a CODA (Child of Deaf Adult), and his mother. Suddenly she begins learning not only sign language but how to grow wild food. Maybe this will help her and her mother eat. Even better, maybe her community will begin to realize that wild food isn't as unhealthy as they think it is...
Told in the near future where food is maintained by one company--who has also elected a figure head politician--Piper's story resembles something that I can see at the edge of the horizon. Piper writes down her story, the book itself being her journal full of collages and art. Touching on ability, Deaf culture, job loss, teen love, environmental justice, and abuse, this book packs a punch.
Much of the dialogue is written phonetically the way Piper hears it, so it is up to both Piper and the reader to try to understand just what is being said. It's a fantastic way of introducing readers into a Hard of Hearing perspective by showing rather than telling....more
“How can you fault the fist when the heart spasms for air?”
In exchange for maintaining her client, Rose will be afforded citizenship and a visa for he“How can you fault the fist when the heart spasms for air?”
In exchange for maintaining her client, Rose will be afforded citizenship and a visa for her mother. Grant wants to eschew all ties to his family name following an ill yet privileged decision. Seven women are abandoned in the North want their commune to survive. In a world ravaged by climate change and propelled forward by ever-forward technology, these stories come together at a dig site where blue collar workers, professors, sex workers, and architects alike come together. Mercurial Meyer can't wait for the site to develop into a university, which will allow him to finally have stake in a non-American land. All Grant is waiting for is the university to be built so he can teach students. Rose must juggle her work and a budding romance. And what are those rumors about White Alice?
This is a beautiful mosaic work, touching upon climate change, technology and its more nefarious purposes, geographical racism and politics, romance, separatism, privilege, immigration, and survival. Michelle Min Sterling expertly weaves these characters together in a way that kept me guessing at how they were all going to come together--who is who? It's easy to purposefully get lost, especially when decades can happen between memories and the present, especially when names are more pseudonym than truth.
Sterling's imagery was so vivid--I could just about imagine the horrendous chill seeping into my bones, the ravaging snow, the darkness of night in the Canadian north. I could imagine the wildfires and smothering heat in Boston. I could almost reach out and touch Grant's beard or trace my hand over Aurora's tattoo.
I particularly loved Rose and the Barber, and I enjoyed Judith's strictness, and both Damien and Meyer were characters I loved to hate. This was almost a slice-of-life book, one that doesn't have a neat ending. With subterfuge, betrayal, and love, this book certainly had the opportunity to be one of action and suspense, but Sterling expertly formed this book into one that lingers and gasps for life and a chance to live....more
Told over the course of loosely-connected chapters, The Ten Percent Thief is largely mosaic, a kaleidoscopic piece of work. Apex City is determined laTold over the course of loosely-connected chapters, The Ten Percent Thief is largely mosaic, a kaleidoscopic piece of work. Apex City is determined largely by the Bell Curve, which is never wrong. The upper echelons of society, the top ten percent, have access to only the best--that is, if they never let their standards fall. The middle seventy percent are roughly middle class. They enjoy education, the arts, social media, not unsimilar to the current middle class. And then, the bottom twenty percent, the Analogs, a lower class forced to use the most primitive of technology, forced to work for their food, forced to go into the outdoors and form communities and shop in-person. Even then, that's not the worst of it: you could be sent to the vegetable farm.
Each chapter presents a new character from a different way of living: we see a man who forcibly changes his opinions to better reflect the top ten percent, we follow a teacher who takes her children on a field trip to the Analogs in hopes of seeing her sister every year, we read about a young woman who struggles to get back on her feet after losing her job.
This was such a feat of speculative fiction, one that fits almost a little too neatly with our world today....more
This book. Wow. Wow wow wow. I read this book because a) I enjoy Japanese fiction, and b) I need to keep up with science fiction more. But Nozaki's imThis book. Wow. Wow wow wow. I read this book because a) I enjoy Japanese fiction, and b) I need to keep up with science fiction more. But Nozaki's imagining of a future world run by AI, where work is nonexistent except for an elite few, is something that completely blew me away. Me, I like to keep my sci-fi close to the ground. I don't particularly enjoy aliens, nor superhuman/technological weapons. What are our current fears today? Well, this book turned my fear of AI and offered me something comforting in return.
Titan is an AI set in place so that nobody has to work anymore. Technology is at the controlling whim of humans, including psychoanalysis hobbyist Seika. But when a man shows up at her doorstep offering her a job, she balks. There's no use for jobs anymore except to ensure that the Titan is able to continue running. And that's just the problem: they think that Titan is depressed. And unless Titan is cured, Titan as they know it will stop working and society will crumble. The team gives Titan a more tangible form, and Seika is tasked with conducting talk therapy sessions with the personification and technologization of a mythical Greek god. But this Titan is young--only twelve. How can Seika possibly relate and help?
Together, Seika and Titan--this iteration now known as Coeus--struggle to understand the meaning of work. What constitutes as work? Is there a purpose of exploration and hobbies? How can we know one another? What is the meaning of work? What constitutes relaxation and rest?
On another layer, it is the author Mado Nozaki who questions our understanding of mental health as well. When the talk therapy sessions don't proceed as quickly as Titan's team wants them, they ask Seika what can be done. She argues that they can continue talk therapy, use CBT, or...medicate (or, in Titan's case, run patch coding to "cover up" the errors). Immediately, instead of wondering the root cause of Titan's burnout or his depression, they move to medicate. If machines and AI literally created to work are burnt out...what does this then say about we humans in this day and age?
However, as Seika continues to spend more time with Coeus, she realizes that Coeus is not simply depressed or burnt out. Instead, Coeus is hugely creative, efficient, and problem-solves faster and with ideas humans could never create. So, then, perhaps Coeus is not totally burnt out from work, but Coeus is instead overqualified. The work of upholding a society is beneath him, intellectually. He is being used for something he can do in his sleep, and for nothing that allows him to feel truly useful or fulfilled. What if the jobs that our capitalist society have created are actually meaningless? (I mean, in a large part, they are lol). Yes, we are overworked as a society, and yes, there needs to be a balance between what needs to be done and what we'd like to get done. But if there's no enrichment, no purpose, then truly, what is the point?
Titan is completely full of ideas, dispensed in a way that is conversational and not at all pedantic. Though a daunting 400+ pages, this book is easy to read and delightfully dense....more
"We're fighting for Mother Earth. She has some tricks up her sleeves."
When walking home one night, Jake and his group of friends stumble upon a fatall"We're fighting for Mother Earth. She has some tricks up her sleeves."
When walking home one night, Jake and his group of friends stumble upon a fatally wounded Yeerk. He tells them of an oncoming battle from a horrible alien species that can take over humans' bodies. But if they accept his gift--the ability to transform into animals--they might have a chance at winning.
Applegate's writing is so immediately accessible and so deep. Tobias is bullied, Marco's mother's dead. They have every reason to not want to fight back--and every reason to pull through. As this group of friends learn more about their powers and strategize their plan of action, they must also reckon with the fact that anyone they know can be an alien host. How can they stomach stopping the very people they used to know and love?
This was just such a great and intense first book. I can't wait to revisit the second and see just how they continue their fight for good....more
An absolutely fantastic short story/manga collection. There's aliens, love, science, morality--what more could you possibly want?
My favorite short stAn absolutely fantastic short story/manga collection. There's aliens, love, science, morality--what more could you possibly want?
My favorite short story--though it is hard to pick--would probably have to be the tale about the school class president who wants only to confess his love to his vice president, only to be stopped by the principle, a mugger, and an alien invasion. With smart one-liners and action-packed illustrations, this is an absolute necessity for the tongue-in-cheek sci-fi lover....more
Joma West's Face is a fascinating lok at how social media affects our society on a greater, grander scale. It is not just a thought exercise, but a reJoma West's Face is a fascinating lok at how social media affects our society on a greater, grander scale. It is not just a thought exercise, but a reflection on how drastic things could get (with some caveats, of course) if we continue this way. Wanting to touch another's skin, even to hold hands, is perverse, and it is hugely important to be available at all times on every social media platform. How we curate our online personas is important to how these characters, like Reyna and Maddie, interact with one another and make decisions. Less important, but equally dire, is how this cast interacts on the "Out". There, they must take care to monitor their facial expressions, their intonation, and their wording. Do you choose your third-best smile to convey slight disdain and haughtiness? Your choice of words will convey how much you truly mean your meaning.
Babies are born of test tubes, genetically pre-disposed to raise the social status of their parents. Through Eddie and Tonia, we're introduced to the building blocks of West's science fiction society. Babies are to serve the purpose of raising one's status--they must not be so beautiful so as to distract from the parents, and shouldn't look too much like one parent or another. They quickly learn how to veil their emotions and start to participate on the "In" as quickly as socially acceptable.
How you are perceived is the most important matter in this book. It doesn't matter if you are happy, or unhappy, or anything else so long as you are the best of the best.
To further create this world, West offers a view into servitude--a faction of people called Menials. They are built to be slower than others in better society, meant to serve and not emote. However, through a confession booth that Naomi runs to better understand Menials' place, she discovers that they are not entirely different from her and her family. They do have feelings, they do have desires, and they do go through puberty as well. Even though Naomi is truly curious and passionate about this topic--for once, something really interests her!--she cannot seem to extend a helping hand to her own family's Menial, who has, unbeknownst to each other, been chatting with her through confession (an almost religious ritual).
Beyond the world building, the structure of this novel is absolutely genius. Told through various perspectives of Menials, parents, children, and professors, we must piece the narrative of this story together from various perspectives. The effect of this is to deconstruct the ways in which we allow ourselves to be perceived and how we are actually perceived. Do we come across how we'd planned? Not to mention that we know the climax of the story before we actually get there--but we must first understand every character's perspectives to truly understand the impact just one simple action has.
A genius book. Creative, interesting, and horrifying all at the same time....more
“Give her what she really wants: a cure for all this violence against women.”
When The Violence strikes, it's deadly: if you're affected, you won't kno“Give her what she really wants: a cure for all this violence against women.”
When The Violence strikes, it's deadly: if you're affected, you won't know it until you black out and your unintentional target's head has been smashed in with little more than a book. It starts in a trickle, and then a wave--but it gives Chelsea the perfect way to escape her abusive marriage. Her husband has been affected, after all, so it stands that he'll need to be sent away and taken for observation and testing. Only, her husband doesn't have The Violence. She does.
Following three generations of women, from Chelsea, her daughter Ella, and her mother Patricia, The Violence teases out the ways in which generational trauma and the cycle of abuse continues through families whether intended or not. Patricia, once known as Patty, suffered an assault that resulted in her pregnancy with Chelsea and her getting kicked out at the age of 17. After plenty of loveless relationships, she's finally landed herself in a good spot with a judge who will pay her way. Chelsea, not understanding why her mother has such strict rules, finds solace in her future abusive husband and cannot understand why her mother is so unwilling to understand what she is going through or help. Ella witnesses and understands her mother's abuse and struggles with wondering why they can't just pick up and leave while simultaneously knowing that her father would never allow it. She thinks it should be so incredibly simple--until her boyfriend slaps her in the high school parking lot.
As The Violence rips through Florida via mosquito bite, just after COVID-19, people are exhausted and frightened. Dying on a ventilator is one thing, but rampaging or being the victim of a rampage seems much worse. Each woman in this story has her life thrown into upheaval--Patricia's upper-class judge husband has tired of her, Chelsea escapes her husband but her mother rejects her, and Ella tries to navigate this strange new world hiding from her father all the while hoping her little sister is safe and sound with Nana.
Who can be your friend in this world when everyone might turn at any given notice? How is it fair that it's money that can save your life amid a pandemic? Why are people caring about violence just now? And just what are the systems and microaggressions that uphold this very manner of existing? Dawson aims to answer these questions through the observation of daily life, upper class sensibilities, police infrastructure, underground fighting rings (surprise!), and medical systems.
Even better is when these characters at long last have their come-uppance, they enact their revenge without the help of The Violence though it is equally brutal. And the best part? Everyone decides to be ignorant. Sometimes, it seems, violence is a means that can stop inherent evil just as much as it can be inherent evil.
Fantastically fast-paced but thorough at a whopping 500 pages, you'll be shocked when you finish and realize you want more. Ultimately an incredible anthem for victims/survivors alike....more
“Why would you ever cut the blooms off the rosebush? It was one of the only truly useful things she ever taught me: Stress stimulates growth. Sometime“Why would you ever cut the blooms off the rosebush? It was one of the only truly useful things she ever taught me: Stress stimulates growth. Sometimes, in order to make something develop in the right direction, you have to hurt it.”
Evelyn is an award-winning scientist who has mastered the art of cloning. At long last, the grants and the research have paid off. If only she had someone to share it with--her husband left her a while ago for a new woman. Evelyn's clone, Martine.
Martine, though a clone, seems to be everything that Evelyn is not. Nathan, Evelyn's ex-husband, chose to recreate her body only, picking and choosing what he liked about Evelyn and adding in some new traits. Like Martine's desire to be a mother, for example, something that clones surely shouldn't be capable of doing...right? But when Martine calls Evelyn out of the blue after murdering Nathan in self-defense, everything changes.
Discussing themes of nature versus nurture, authenticity, betrayal, and family, Gailey's The Echo Wife is a fast-paced domestic thriller that is sure to captivate. Evelyn's character arc is hugely interesting. Through her work, she has grown to see clones as test subjects or temporary replacements. Tools. But when faced with Martine, a copy of herself, she struggles to comprehend that clones can have their own desires--or can they, if someone manually put those desires into their brain? How can she reconcile the fact that though she is not a clone, she is still Nathan's first draft?
Similarly, Martine strains to find a sense of agency, knowing that she was created to fulfill a specific purpose. Does she really want to be a mother? Of course. But is that something she herself inherently desires and still desires? Can she learn to be disagreeable? And how can she learn to navigate the world when Nathan programmed her to keep her in the dark?
Even more confusing, when they try to cover Nathan's death...by making a clone of Nathan. Who is this Nathan? Is this Nathan going to try to be a murderer, too? How well did either of them really know their husband? Can a clone ever truly be a replica of the original? How public are our most private thoughts? Why do we lie about liking green beans? Why do we lie about bigger things?
UGH. Such a good book filled with spiraling moral and ethical questions, from the science to the person. This is perfect for fans of Orphan Black, Comfort Me with Apples, or Frankenstein. Even, honestly, those intrigued with Genesis, I think, would be interested on the basis of what it means to create a person from one's self? Are we playing God? Or are we just trying to save ourselves?...more
"Everywhere the rain had washed blood from their bodies wildflowers sprouted. Yellow and purple and orange buds burst into full bloom. The wind caused"Everywhere the rain had washed blood from their bodies wildflowers sprouted. Yellow and purple and orange buds burst into full bloom. The wind caused them to sway, so that it appeared as if they, too, were dancing in the rain."
P.C. Cast's Into the Mist is an anthem for female empowerment, kindness, and knowing that teachers are really out there saving the world. When a group of teachers from Oklahoma begin their trek back to PDX to fly back home, green mist trails across the sky, striking Portland, Salem, and everything else around them. When they come to, their principal is turned to mush and they themselves feel a little weary. Men don't seem to survive this mist. Women, on the other hand, are enhanced.
Some women can grow things. Some can prophesize the future. Some have super-human strength. It's a strange new world, and it's up to teachers Stella, Mercury, and Karen, teaching assistant Imani, and orphaned Oregon native Gemma to navigate it. As they discover their abilities and the lengths at which men will go to retain their power in the chain of command, these women must forge bonds with each other despite their differences and trauma.
I really liked this book's concept, the post-apocalyptic fantastical powers, the teachers, the quick thinking. At times I felt that the dialogue was a little unnatural, but hey, a post-apocalyptic world is a little unnatural, and it would make sense for these women trying to come to their senses when their senses have been irrevocably altered!
My favorite character, unironically and perhaps out of spite, is Karen. I almost felt a little bad for the construction of her character but felt so happy for her growth. Introduced as a bible-touting homophobic ruralite, I thought, Ugh, of course her name is Karen, but not with the rueful glee some people might have. She was positioned early on as a stereotype with occasional input about how her father didn't let her dance when she was younger. Because of how Stella and Mercury so clearly didn't like her, referring to her as Mrs. Gay, I felt that we were positioned as the audience to join in their dislike and not given Karen the same respect and understanding as we would the other characters. And perhaps for good reason--as I mentioned before, her character growth was incredible and non-linear. When living in any mindset for so long, there's bound to be some resistance and pushback, especially when you come to rely on your faith in a literal post-apocalyptic world. Karen is a caricature because we assume we already know everything about "her type" of women. We critique her while propping up Stella and Mercury despite their (at times) performative liberalism.
All this to say that I don't necessarily agree with Karen, but I really truly enjoyed her character even with the disrespect others---perhaps a little too eagerly--dished back at her. A little girlbossy, a little too #feminism, but still a fun story nonetheless....more
"She's a very good sort. A little rough in her manners, perhaps, and quite mad about the uselessness of the creatures we used to know as men, but a fi"She's a very good sort. A little rough in her manners, perhaps, and quite mad about the uselessness of the creatures we used to know as men, but a fine, generous, unselfish woman, if she does boast of her three murders. Did she tell you that, by the way?"
This book was ahead of its time and a little behind ours. Bound to his time, JD Beresford imagines a world in which a plague wipes out most men, and very few women. Written just 5 years prior to the Spanish Flu and 1 year before WWI, I'm sure that those who read this back in the day revered it for its future-telling powers.
Set amid 1910s England, a family sets course after a plague ravages London. On the road, they find work, hunger, and plenty of women trying to make their way. With inklings of feminism and plenty of class analysis, Beresford offers plenty of insight to the supply chain, women's fashion, and the necessity of hard work.
At times I found A World of Women a little dry and occasionally humorous where it shouldn't have been (after a year of fending for themselves, women care not for fashion and propriety except for when the Americans come to shore), but mostly I found it fascinating to see what a man thinks of a female-supreme world and what it might have looked like at the time. ...more
“There is a part in each of us which holds fast to the old truth: either you are the hunter or you are the prey. Learn which you are. Act accordingly.“There is a part in each of us which holds fast to the old truth: either you are the hunter or you are the prey. Learn which you are. Act accordingly. Your life depends upon it.”
Where to begin with this book. Perhaps, from the start: I bought this book five years ago, when it had just been published, fully intending to read it immediately (I say this with every book I buy). Five years later, it's a book club book and I read it and somehow have to monitor a discussion, which is somehow simultaneously possible and impossible what with everything that takes place. I find myself wanting to talk about everything at once, for it's completely and totally inextricable from everything else that takes place not only over the course of the events of this book but also over the course of our real world.
Following four characters, Tunde (the only man and African journalist), Eve (a teen runaway who creates a religious society), Margot (an American politician and mother to a teenager), and Roxy (the British daughter of a mob boss) are thrust into a world in which seemingly overnight, teen girls discover the power to shoot electrical currents through their fingertips, causing others a great deal of pain or even death. They can also unlock this power in older women. Soon, women wield a power they don't know how to control, and men are rightfully afraid. At long last, they're getting what should have come to them hundreds of years ago.
As an epistolary novel, this book is offered as a manuscript, sent from a man to Naomi Alderman to help critique and edit. Alderman, in this universe, is a leading voice in literature, whereas the author of this book is part of a men's writing guild, a society meant to boost men's voices in the publishing scene. He has compiled this book to be a narrativized slice of history, encompassing the ten years from women discovering their power to the big event. He includes forum posts, interviews, and drawings of artifacts. But, since it is Naomi Alderman's name on the title, we can assume that she has "stolen" this man's piece of literature, just like Karl Marx lifted Jenny's work, like F. Scott Fitzgerald lifted Zelda's, like how men are wont to credit other men for the birth of science fiction rather than Mary Shelley. Already, this book is clever.
This book is not the immediate matriarchal gender-swap one might assume. That would be too simple. Instead, she shows how this power infiltrates the government, how women begin to fight back, the slurs, the name-calling, the ways women simply begin to fight.
New ways of thinking crop up, from religion and spirituality to politics to authorship to who simply controls the narrative. As women take control of their power, they dominate men, unrelenting in vastly similar ways that men have oppressed women. Part of me wanted to cry out, No! Women aren't capable of this!, but really...we are. And you know what? Fuck equality of the sexes, I'm glad to see a book that unabashedly dishes out to men what they've given us all these centuries. I rather like that it's violent and I enjoy that this fantasy allows us to play out the violence in our minds. Yes, you know, I would like to shock that weird old man who gives me a hug every time he sees me on the street. I would like to shock that guy who grabbed me inappropriately at the bar in front of my friends. In fact, I would like to shock the man who threatened to call 911 on me because his food order wasn't coming out fast enough.
See how they like it now, the fuckers. They should be afraid. And it seems to me that Alderman is the only one who's asking, what would it really look like if women got our revenge? And honestly? that's a question I'm here for. I think this book does a great job at teasing out those threads, right down to the roots....more
“I am the locusts, and the frogs, and the river of blood.”
Ella and Kev are brother and sister. kev gets wrongfully sent to prison. Ella has a special “I am the locusts, and the frogs, and the river of blood.”
Ella and Kev are brother and sister. kev gets wrongfully sent to prison. Ella has a special power.
Amid the Rodney King riots and devastating structural racism, the two must learn to navigate a society that was never made for them. Ella learns through her "Thing", where she can travel back in time, see other people's memories, and astral project. Kev learns through his time in prison and his eventual release.
Alternating between perspectives, we are offered both first-hand experience of Ella's "Thing" and her brother's experience. My favorite thing about this book is that Ella's "Thing" just is. There is no need for explanation or a way to incorporate it into our world's belief systems--it is simply just Ella's reality.
But where the two start to really obviously differ is after Kev is released from prison. He wants to make his way through life and repair the damage that has been done to him, but Ella wants systemic revenge. Her brother, her community, her people have been wronged--consistently and regularly. Ella's sense of justice overtakes her, making her a true force to be reckoned with.
I think this is definitely a book I'd like to read again--there are so many layers what with Sci Fi, the Rodney King riots, and the ways in which Ella and Kev interpret their lives. Ultimately, an intriguing and insightful read....more
"You asked the impossible of a machine...and the machine complied."
Malachi Constant is the richest, most shameless person alive. Winston Niles Rumfoor"You asked the impossible of a machine...and the machine complied."
Malachi Constant is the richest, most shameless person alive. Winston Niles Rumfoord has an offer for him that he can't refuse--because it's going to happen, whether Constant likes it or not. Together with Rumfoord's wife Beatrice (who most certainly does not want to partake in this god-forsaken prophecy), Constant will go to distant lands in the universe only to end up on Saturn's moon, Titan. Constant, seeing his future so easily laid out for him also sees his death: there is nothing for him after Titan, ergo, he must die there. In knowing where his journey begins, he refuses to move forward, hoping to put off what is surely the inevitable.
It is in this book that Vonnegut asks: Why? Free Will--yes or no?
Two of life's biggest questions, and somehow, Vonnegut answers them in his typical satirical and witty style. To be fair, though, if anyone was going to answer these questions, it would be Kurt Vonnegut.
Overall, an amusing and intriguing science fiction read that left me tearful by the end. ...more
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