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Book Review: A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker
An eerily prescient book that came out in September of 2019 that looks at a future where stay at home orders in response to both bombing attacks and a deadly virus mean performing music live for a crowd is illegal.
Summary:
In the Before, when the government didn’t prohibit large public gatherings, Luce Cannon was on top of the world. One of her songs had just taken off and she was on her way to becoming a star. Now, in the After, terror attacks and deadly viruses have led the government to ban concerts, and Luce’s connection to the world—her music, her purpose—is closed off forever. She does what she has to do: she performs in illegal concerts to a small but passionate community, always evading the law.
Rosemary Laws barely remembers the Before times. She spends her days in Hoodspace, helping customers order all of their goods online for drone delivery—no physical contact with humans needed. By lucky chance, she finds a new job and a new calling: discover amazing musicians and bring their concerts to everyone via virtual reality. The only catch is that she’ll have to do something she’s never done before and go out in public. Find the illegal concerts and bring musicians into the limelight they deserve. But when she sees how the world could actually be, that won’t be enough.
Review:
I wouldn’t have been too surprised if this vision of a dystopian future was written during the height of the pandemic then came out recently. What intrigued me about this book was that it was published in September of 2019. It both predicted stay at home orders and density rules and imagines what would have happened if they’d never been lifted. In an interview in Marie Claire, Pinsker graciously states that this is simply a risk of writing about the near future. Indeed, she’s correct. Near future scifi is about paying attention to the current and predicting where we might end up soon – whether dystopic, hopepunk, or somewhere in-between. Pinsker certainly had her finger on the pulse of both risks and what responses to those risks might be given our technology.
She was a note that hadn’t ever known it fit into a chord.
page 213
While the book is certainly about the risk/reward balance and how to live in a satisfying way, it also is drenched in music and musical references. It was obvious to me that Pinsker is a musician, and I wasn’t surprised at all to look it up later and see she’s an indie rocker. If you’re a musician who wants to see music accurately represented in fiction, just stop reading this review now and go pick up this book. It’s the best integration of music from a musician’s perspective I’ve ever seen in a fiction book.
Another element of this book that is a wise storytelling choice is the dual perspective from Luce and Rosemary. Luce remembers the Before very well. The bombings and pandemic ripped away her success just as she was taking off. Rosemary barely remembers the Before, because she’s about 15 years younger than Luce. She remembers a baseball game at a stadium. But mostly she remembers being in the hospital with the Pox. Luce is able to remember all that was good and not actually that dangerous about Before. But Rosemary is able to see the parts of Now that are good – and there are parts that are. For example, the ability of rural people and people who can’t travel to go see Graceland (and other cultural places) in Hoodspace. There’s one scene in particular where Rosemary argues with Luce about how Hoodspace isn’t all bad that reminded me of some people speaking excitedly about being able to go back to conferences just the way they were before, while people with disabilities tried to get them to listen to the fact that joining things remotely meant they weren’t being left out any longer and how much they didn’t want to lose that. Without spoilers, an important part of the plot is Luce and Rosemary having to figure out together how to take the best from both and make a better future.
An important theme of the book is the balance of staying safe with still being able to live a fulfilling life. Who gets to decide what’s too risky? What actually is too risky? And isn’t that something that’s fluid? Are things that were once risky always risky? And aren’t things that were once safe sometimes too risky for a time? This is definitely a book that comes down on the side of part of life is taking some risks.
Now she understood how much she’d missed; how much had been taken from her in the name of safety and control.
page 268
While this isn’t a book about being queer, it is a book by a queer author full of queer characters. Luce and Rosemary both are attracted to women. Their relationships are mentioned when relevant to the plot but there’s no big coming out arc for either. Also, you can tell this was written by a queer person because Luce and Rosemary are not automatically attracted to each other just because they both happen to be women who are into women. Love to see that. A flaw I often see in books with queer characters by straight author is this idea that all women who are into women are automatically attracted to each other. That’s….not how it works. So I found the representation to be quite authentic. It’s just people living their lives who happen to be queer.
I also want to mention that Luce is Jewish, originally from an Orthodox community that she became ostracized from due to her sexuality. The author is herself Jewish, and I trust people to represent their own faiths and cultures well. I will say, much like the queer representation, there was one scene where Luce thinks about Rosh Hashanah’s in the past after seeing some people throwing paper into the river, and I found it very moving.
Overall, this is a scifi book about a dystopian future written by a queer, Jewish musician. It thus brings authentic representation to all three of these and tells a universal story about balancing safety with risk and using technology to accentuate our lives.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 384 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Library
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
Book Review: The High House by Jessie Greengrass
Summary:
Perched on a sloping hill, set away from a small town by the sea, the High House has a tide pool and a mill, a vegetable garden, and, most importantly, a barn full of supplies. Caro, Pauly, Sally, and Grandy are safe, so far, from the rising water that threatens to destroy the town and that has, perhaps, already destroyed everything else. But for how long?
Review:
I haven’t really been in the mood for dystopian literature since March of 2020, preferring a bit more escapism in my reading. But the cover of this book featuring that gorgeous egret really drew me in when I was browsing NetGalley. And I thought that maybe a book about a dystopia brought on just by climate change would be different enough to still work for me. Plus I had my fingers crossed it would involve birds after featuring one so strongly on the cover. What I found was a book about trials different enough from our own that it gave me distance and yet with meaningful moments that took my breath away with their relevance. It was like eating a very delicious chocolate cake and then sometimes getting mouthfuls that are even more delicious because they have surprising ooey gooey pockets of liquid chocolate.
“All I can think is that what’s different now is that no one can claim this is progress.”
(loc 1308)
The High House is a coastal summer home inherited by an environmental academic named Francesca. In spite of being coastal, it is, as the name implies, on high ground. She can see what’s coming, even though others won’t listen to her. So, while she keeps trying to bring about change to prevent it, she also secretly sets up the high house for her stepdaughter Caro and her son Pauly (who is 14 years younger than Caro). She also hires on the local elderly groundskeeper who is very wise in the old ways, Grandy, and by extension his university-aged granddaughter, Sally. I thought the book was going to be mostly set in the now of these folks living together after the flooding. But really it was largely these characters looking backward at the years just before the event, and through the event. How they came to be the way they are now. Sally, Caro, and Pauly all take turns narrating.
It’s difficult to explain how beautiful this book is without spoiling it. It’s no like the ending is a surprise or a twist but rather it takes reading the book in its entirely to get what the book is saying. And what it is saying is just simply gorgeous. In a sad way. I suppose what I can say is that this book depicts complex grief without ever really saying that’s what it’s doing. And it’s exquisite.
And the birds. Pauly loves birds, and it’s his knowledge and genuine love of them that lets everyone else know a bit of what they’re talking about when they talk about the birds. The heron on the cover is a bit of a flaw in cover design, because the birds that are actually important to the story are a pair of egrets. is They have a very important role that, again, was devastatingly exquisite. (We don’t see any harm come to the birds, and it’s a bit up in the air if any does).
This was a gorgeous book that I found comforting the way a sad movie can sometimes be. I stayed up far too late to finish it, because I just simply couldn’t look away. If you love nature and question what can remain for humans after large changes, pick this one up and let yourself get swept away.
5 out of 5 stars
Length: 272 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: NetGalley
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
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Book Review and Giveaway: Life First by R.J. Crayton (Series, #1)
Summary:
Strong-willed Kelsey Reed must escape tonight or tomorrow her government will take her kidney and give it to someone else.
In this future forged by survivors of pandemics that wiped out 80 percent of the world’s population, life is valued above all else. The government of “Life First” requires the mentally ill to be sterilized, outlaws abortions and sentences to death those who refuse to donate an organ when told.
Determined not to give up her kidney, Kelsey enlists the help of her boyfriend Luke and a dodgy doctor to escape. The trio must disable the tracking chip in her arm for her to flee undetected. If they fail, Kelsey will be stripped of everything.
Review:
I have a confession to make. I was supposed to review this in 2016 but somehow my review copy never made it onto my Kindle or my 2016 ARCs folder. It was only when I was cross-posting to last year’s Accepted ARCs post that I saw it listed and wondered what had happened to it. Apparently it got hung up somehow in the cloud instead of ever delivering to my kindle. My apologies to the author for the delay but I must say the timing of reading it was rather impeccable. With new threats to the bodily autonomy of women coming in 2017 I found the dystopian future to be even more haunting than I might have in 2016.
Set in a near-future where the population was decimated by plagues and environmental issues leading to starvation, the title alludes to a new movement and indeed, rule of law, in the United States. In a landmark case, a woman who after the population decimation chose to have an abortion is prosecuted in court. Her defense is that you wouldn’t force someone to donate blood or a body part to save another person’s life so why should you force a woman to bring a fetus to term? The court agrees that it is a logical fallacy but instead of protecting abortion chooses to make it the law to donate body parts and blood when needed. (There are other impacts too, such as everyone must take statistics classes and decide whether or not to risk their life to save another’s based on the statistical likelihood of success). Everyone is given a life monitoring chip and is registered in a database and bodily matches found so they may be called in when needed. The main character is called in as a kidney donor, but she’s afraid to donate since one of her best friends became paralyzed as a result of her donor surgery.
Those who disagree with this policy have seceded to their own country in what used to be Florida. Kelsey and her boyfriend Luke plan her escape there but of course, not everything goes as planned. There are a lot of twists and turns that bring forth more moral issues that I can’t really get into without spoiling the book for others. Suffice to say, I work as a medical librarian, and I found the medical ethics issues raised on top of the bodily autonomy ones to be quite well-put and thought-provoking.
I must give a quick trigger warning that there is a graphic attempted rape in the book, which was definitely disturbing and not possible to simply skip over, as it was a key plot point and lasted for a while. However, I do think that it suited the book and the issues being raised and was not out-of-place. Essentially, if you’re disturbed by the attempted rape and not by the rest of the book then I have some questions for you about your ethical lines.
Overall, this was an engaging read that left me immediately curious about the next entry in the series. Twists and turns took it places I wasn’t anticipating it going and I encountered more medical ethics issues than I thought I would in the read. Highly recommended, particularly to those who have enjoyed other women’s issues dystopian futures such as The Handmaid’s Tale.
4 out of 5 stars
Length: 262 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: kindle copy from author in exchange for honest review
Giveaway!
This giveaway is now over. Congrats to our winner!
There was 1 entry via blog comment, so she is our winner. Congrats to Amanda McNeill!
Thanks to the generosity of the author, one lucky Opinions of a Wolf reader can win a copy of this ebook.
How to Enter:
- Leave a comment on this post stating why bodily autonomy matters to you.
- Copy/paste the following and tweet it from your public twitter. Retweets do not count:
Enter to win LIFE FIRST by @RJCrayton, hosted by @McNeilAuthor http://buff.ly/2kgFf4F #scifi #womenauthors #giveaway - Repost the Instagram giveaway announcement and tag my Instagram.
- Tag one of your friends on the Instagram giveaway announcement.
Each option gets you one entry. Multiple tweets/Instagram posts do not count as multiple entries.
Who Can Enter: International
Contest Ends: February 23rd at midnight
Disclaimer: The winner will have their book sent to them by the author. The blogger is not responsible for sending the book. Void where prohibited by law.
Play Review: 1984 at the American Repertory Theater
It’s impossible to talk about a theatrical adaptation of a book without discussing spoilers, so if you haven’t ever read 1984, you might want to go pick up a copy and read it and come back to this review later.
(And by might want to I mean my god, reader, how have you not? Get thee to it!)
The American Repertory Theater (ART) is a really cool theater in Cambridge, MA (right in Harvard Square) that brings a lot of brand-new and often experimental theater to the area. Previously I’ve seen The Heart of Robin Hood (before it was a Broadway play, so when it was still in its developmental phase) and another adaptation of a book–Wild Swans (review). I keep an eye out for plays coming to the ART that might appeal to my husband and I. When I got the email about the new adaptation of 1984, I forwarded it to him, and he immediately confirmed yes, let’s get tickets.
We’ve both read 1984 but not in around 10 years. My husband immediately noted the precisely 101 minute running time. I had forgotten the torture room is room 101 in 1984. I’m glad he noticed this. There were other send-ups to it throughout the play.
When you arrive for 1984, the ushers notify you that there are strobes, gunshot noises, and also no intermission or readmittance. We were expecting the first two but were a bit thrown by the last. Since we both just had a nasty bout of food poisoning, we were a bit anxious about no intermission or readmittance. We joined literal throngs of people at the bathrooms, who were all also anxious about the whole thing and then found our seats.
I would be amiss not to mention that about 2 weeks before the show, the ART called us and told us that during pre-production they discovered that one of the (cheap in the back) seats we’d originally bought was going to be obstructed by some tech needed for the show. They gave us new better seats, in the center and only a few rows back. A great upgrade, for free. In any case, let’s get down to the actual show.
1984 is a production that truly embraces the futuristic, tech-heavy dystopia depicted in 1984 the book. It incorporates technology from the instant it starts, and from the moment patrons walk into the building, there is a sense of ominous foreboding. The entire 101 minutes is done on one stage with a single incorporated set change (which was amazing, and I will get to in a minute) and with 9 actors.
The set originally consists of a room with a table and some chairs. There is paneling at the back of the room. Half of this is see-through glass, so you can see characters coming to the door in the middle. On one side of the room is the ominous telescreen, which you can actually see glowing periodically. There is another door near the telescreen. Over all of this is a giant screen that is used to incorporate really cool tech. At first I thought it was pre-recorded film being shown on this screen, but later it becomes evident that at least some of it is being shot live via CCTV on various areas of the stage. As an example of how this screen is incorporated, at the beginning of the show, when Winston starts writing in his journal, the screen shows the words being written upon the page.
This single set is used to show Winston (the main character) at home, at work, and later in the countryside. I particularly enjoyed how the show just goes for it with the countryside. They declare they are in the country, there are sound-effects of birds, and then it’s really easy to believe they are in the country. My husband enjoyed the glowing yellow lights and sound-effects of a train chugging the show uses to transition here.
Those who have read the book will realize that the earlier scenes of Winston at home, work, and in the countryside end up being recollections and thoughts while he is in prison with the Ministry of Love being tortured periodically in room 101. We weren’t sure how they were going to handle this transition without an intermission, but it was awesome.
Throughout the beginning of the play, Winston and Julia go through a door on the side of the stage to the room of safety that they rent out that supposedly has no telescreens in it. When they are in the room, the audience views what is occurring via the screen on top of the stage through what appears to be CCTV. When it is revealed that they are caught (which is super spooky how it is done in the play), pieces of the set either lift up or slide to the side (I can’t remember which) to reveal behind the wall at the back is the actual bedroom set. So this is where they have been going to actually act out the bedroom scenes. The secret police who come in to arrest them also change the set. It is violent, brutal, and awesome. They ultimately change the set to be what appears to be an empty stage but then when Winston is brought into room 101, bright lights reveal white everywhere. It’s a glowing white room, which is perfect for the eeriness of the torture.
What about the acting? The acting was so good throughout the various set changes and tech that I didn’t really notice it, which I personally think is one of the best complements you can pay an actor. If you get so sucked into the world that you forget acting is even going on, then it’s good acting. I will add that multiple characters play various roles, and I didn’t notice, which is also a complement.
So let’s get to the most…memorable/impactful part of the show. The torture scene towards the end. I thought this was splendidly done. I am not one who ever really forgets that I’m watching a play, so I didn’t have the visceral horror I would have if I was seeing pictures or videos from actual real live torture, but the combination of the set and the costumes of the torture assistants (they’re wrapped in white suits that remind me of the yellow suits in Breaking Bad, if you’ve seen that), and the interrogator’s entire presence generated a real feeling of dread and horror.
If you are concerned about the “torture,” basically the interrogator gives an order (ie “fingers”), the people in white grab their instruments and come up to Winston. There’s a big sonic boom while the lights flash out, then the lights turn on and the results of torture appear, in the case of fingers, it’s blood on Winston’s fingertips. It was good, but it was obviously theater.
That said (bare in mind there was no readmittance) right around the first torture (there are three), people in the audience started bailing out. I heard later that around 20 people bailed out. I personally saw about 7. But, I will say, this was about 10 minutes from the end of the play, so it’s also possible at least some of them just really needed to use the restroom (this is a play without intermission right after most of us went to dinner). I heard later that one woman in the audience actually threw up in her purse, but to be fair, she could have been sensitive to strobes, and there are a lot of strobes in the show. My husband and I were generally flummoxed by the number of people bailing. Did they somehow know nothing about the plot of 1984 before they went? Were they that easily disturbed? It’s torture, but again, it’s theatrical torture. I know there’s nothing the ART can do about people walking out, but it did irritate me some just because it was distracting. However, it is also a hilarious story to tell people, and most people I’ve mentioned it to just think it makes the play sound more bad-ass (which it totally is).
We really only had a few points of feedback after the show. First, we wished that the scene when Julia and Winston are in the countryside and start to undress to have sex for fun and fight Big Brother that way had taken the undressing further. Given the violence, big booms, and large tech in the show, as well as the general point in the scene about Big Brother being afraid of orgasms, we felt that leaving shirts on just didn’t take things far enough. Additionally, we were both a bit disappointed that there were no actual rats in the show. We get how difficult it can be to wrangle animals, but I did think there’d be at least some video or disturbing images of rats, and there is not. To be fair, our ability to be freaked out by rats is really mitigated by living in Boston. I see at least one rat a week when I’m commuting. And they’re big ones. Finally, we thought that the clock in the room reading 1:01 was a bit too cute.
Overall, this is really cool experimental theater. Attending it won’t be like any other play you’ve attended. Come prepared to be a bit anxious for 101 minutes and maybe dehydrate yourself a bit ahead of time so you can last the full time without intermission. Personally, I think this is a beautiful adaptation of 1984 that really lives up to the spirit and intent of the book, while using modern tech and trends to keep it relevant.
Book Review: UnSouled by Neal Shusterman (Series, #3) (Audiobook narrated by Luke Daniels)
Summary:
Connor and Lev are on the run from the Juvenile Authority but for once they’re running to something. Or rather, someone. They’re looking for a woman Proactive Citizenry has tried to erase from history, hoping she’ll have some answers about just how the world got to be the way it is. Meanwhile, Cam, the rewound boy, is plotting to take Proactive Citizenry down in the hopes of winning the heart of Risa.
Review:
This entry in the series really fizzled for me with the far-fetched ideas and shaky execution of a complex plot finally becoming too much for me to really enjoy the story.
On the one hand, this book is more of the same. There’s multiple characters in vastly different situations who will clearly all come together at some point in a convergence that should read like fate but oftentimes just reads as too convenient. On the other hand, the action this time is interspersed with some flashbacks to the scientist who discovered unwinding, and how it went from something to be used to save lives to something to keep adolescents in line. This plot was interesting, but its reveal was awkwardly handled. The flashbacks are from the perspectives of the scientists, just as we switch around among the perspectives of the teens in the story, rather than letting them naturally discover what happened. It’s a change that could have been used to build up more tension and excitement but instead just makes the pace awkward and changes the feel of the story from one told primarily by teens to one routinely interfered with by adult perspective.
The big reveal of how unwinding came to be failed to really strike a chord with me, and I believe this is partially because it’s still a bit unclear to me as to who exactly the big bad is. I do think it’s interesting that basically unwinding came to be because big business was trying to protect their investment in health care. I appreciate the angle of how health care needs to be more than just a business. However, I question the supposed solution for unwinding offered at the end of the book. I feel it is just more big business.
Overall, this book continued the issues with the second book, only more so. Too many plots that conveniently intersect and confusion over what exactly is going on in the world. Additionally, the far-fetched elements that challenged my ability to suspend disbelief in the first two books become at the center of the big overarching plot of the series. Given both of these issues, I will not be continuing reading the series, although I am glad that I read the first book, as it is an interesting and unique dystopian YA world. It’s just one that went off the rails a bit. This entry is recommended to those readers who simply must know how unwinding came to be and how the characters plan to stop it.
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3 out of 5 stars
Length: 404 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Audible
, 
, Book Review: UnWholly by Neal Shusterman (Series, #2) (Audiobook narrated by Luke Daniels)
Summary:
Picking up where Unwind left off, UnWholly finds Risa and Connor managing the Graveyard full of unwinds themselves with no adults in site, and Lev struggling to find a purpose now that he’s both free of clapper chemicals and under the watchful eye of the government. Into the mix comes Cam, the first ever “rewind.” He’s been assembled completely from the parts of unwinds of every race and religion. And his creator intends to meddle with the runaway unwinds too.
Review:
I picked this up right after finishing the first on audiobook, because finding a fast-paced story with a good narrator can be harder than it sounds. So once I found that with the first book in the series and I saw the rest of it had the same narrator, I figured I may as well continue along with it. While I found the first book engaging and thought-provoking, I found myself periodically bored with the plot in this one, and also found it more difficult to suspend my disbelief than before.
The basic premise is that Connor is all torn up over having the arm of his once-rival (who also just so happened to threaten to rape his girlfriend, Risa). He thus holds Risa at arm’s-length (pun intended) because he’s afraid of what his own arm will do. While I appreciate the fact that it must be truly atrocious for your boyfriend to now have your attempted rapist’s arm, I think the fact that Connor lends the arm so much agency is a symptom of one particular idea in this world-building that just doesn’t work for me. The idea that body parts have their own spark of soul or agency or thought. It’s rife in this entry in the series, and it’s just plain weird to me. I can understand a character not bonding with a transplant that was forced upon him. I can understand it being weird for loved ones. I don’t, however, find myself able to suspend my disbelief enough to believe that someone’s arm has their personality in it so much that the person who it was transplanted onto would be afraid of it. It’s an arm, not a piece of brain or even a heart. The author does provide links to sources about transplant recipients feeling connected to the person whose body part they received or having memories or what have you. I appreciate that. But for me personally this plot point just does not work. Other readers may be able to suspend their disbelief better than I was able to. I for once can’t imagine not going near my own girlfriend because I was afraid of my arm. I also just disliked how much agency Connor removes from himself for his own temper. If he hits the wall when he’s angry it’s not him hitting the wall, it’s the arm hitting the wall. The arm got mad. The arm got out of control. There’s just a ridiculous lack of agency there, and I’m not super comfortable with that level of lack of agency being in a book marketed toward teenagers, who are at the best point in life for learning agency and responsibility.
I similarly have a hard time believing, from a neurological perspective, that the rewind boy, Cam, could exist. His brain is dozens’ of peoples all wound together. I could believe replacing a brain piece here or there with transplant technology, I couldn’t believe mish-mashing many together and having them actually function. Let alone with the only issue being that Cam struggles to learn to speak in words instead of metaphors. While Cam did strike me as grotesque, he mostly just struck me as an impossibility that I was then supposed to have sympathy for because he’s a person with his own feelings…but are they really? The whole thing was just a bit too bizarre for me.
On a related note, I found the scenes where Cam wakes up and learns to talk and slowly realizes what he is to be very tedious to read. They move slowly, and there is an attempt at building of suspense, but it is clear nearly immediately that Cam is a Frankenstein’s creature like experiment, even without Cam himself knowing it right away.
The other big new character is Starkey, a boy who was storked who is brought into the Graveyard. He’s basically exactly the same as Connor (he’s even still a white boy), the only difference being that was a stork and that he has no Risa to ease down his temper. I found his characterization to be uncreative, even if the building up of strife between the storks and the rest of the unwinds was a good plot point. It would have been better if the leader of the storks was more creative. Similarly, Starkey’s two main assistants are a black girl and an Indian-American boy. Just as with the first book, non-white people exist, but only as seconds to the white people. Why couldn’t either of them have been the leader of the storks?
All of these things said, there was still a lot of plot to keep the interest. I’ve barely touched on a couple of them. The world is still engaging, even if it’s hard to suspend the disbelief for it. I doubt I’d keep reading if I was reading this in print, but the audiobook narration makes it feel like listening to a movie, and it’s the perfect match for my commutes and doing dishes and such. Plus, now I’m curious as to where else the plot will go. I’m betting it will end up going in a direction I find it even harder to suspend my disbelief for, but it’ll be a fun ride seeing where that is.
Overall, fans of the first book may be disappointed by the slightly more meandering plot in this one. The addition of two new characters to follow will be distracting to some readers while others will find it adds to the interest and suspense. Some readers may be turned off by the continued lack of diversity in such a large cast of protagonists. The plot is engaging and the world is unique, though, so fans of YA dystopian scifi will probably still enjoy it.
If you found this review helpful, please consider tipping me on ko-fi, checking out my digital items available in my ko-fi shop, buying one of my publications, or using one of my referral/coupon codes. Thank you for your support!
3 out of 5 stars
Length: 416 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Audible
Book Review: Unwind by Neal Shusterman (Series, #1) (Audiobook narrated by Luke Daniels)
Summary:
In the near future, the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life debate explodes into a war called the Heartland War. The only way the war could reach a peace was to come to an agreement. There would be no abortion but when children are between the ages of 13 and 17 their parents can sign an order to have them unwound. New scientific technology allows doctors to transplant all of a person’s body parts. They will then “live on” in a “divided state.” Teens whose parents choose to sign an unwind order for them are rounded up by juvie cops and brought to Harvest Camps to await their fate. Some families, particularly from fundamentalist branches of all faiths, believe in tithing 10% of their children, and will have a child simply to raise them to be a tithe. Additionally, many children end up unwanted and living in State Homes, where they are all given the last name of Ward–for ward of the state.
Connor is a light-hearted bad boy who just accidentally found his own unwind orders in his parents’ desk and immediately goes on the run. Lev is a tithe who is on his way to Harvest Camp. Risa is a ward of the state, and she is on a bus to be unwound, because she isn’t deemed exceptional enough to justify her upkeep. A series of events throws them into each other’s lives and leaves whether or not they will be unwound in question.
Review:
This was recommended to me years ago, but when I first read the description I was skeptical that the book was anything but Pro-Life propaganda. Years later I decided to check it out again, and most reviews mentioned how neutral the book was. Additionally, I read some interviews with the author where he stated he genuinely was trying to present a neutral story that analyzes some tough questions, so I thought I would give it a shot. (I also found this fun short video interview where he talks about how he came up with the idea of the dystopian world.) Ultimately, the author has succeeded at creating a future world that is fascinating to visit and that also analyzes medical ethics in a creative way. I would honestly say the book is much more about medical ethics, particularly in regards to transplants, than it really is about abortion rights.
The basic plot is that three very different teenagers are supposed to be unwound but then find themselves on the run instead of actually at Harvest Camp. The book is in the third person but from the limited perspective of one character, and that one character switches around. It is predominantly Connor, Risa, or Lev, but it is also sometimes someone like a juvie cop or a parent. Sometimes this narrative structure works really well, providing many different perspectives on the same event or issue. Other times it feels too contrived. The perspective switches at just the right moment to keep the reader in the dark, or to reveal something we wouldn’t otherwise know. Sometimes this structure builds suspense and other times it kind of ruins it. Overall, though, I enjoyed the structure and found that the multiple perspectives really added to the world and the story.
This narrative structure is enhanced by clippings from real, modern-day newspaper articles and blogs, as well as fake advertisements and news from the future the book is set in. Partially due to the Audible narrator, who did a fantastic job at the ads, I really enjoyed these snippets of media from the future. They are very tongue-in-cheek and adult, but will still appeal to teens reading the book for their over-the-topness. I found the modern day news articles to be less interesting, and mostly felt a bit like scare mongering. They read as a bit heavy-handed in pushing the “this could really happen!” angle.
I did find it a bit frustrating that all three of the main characters are white and straight. While it is acknowledged that a few people (primarily adults) could be GLBTQ, the assumed norm is straight and cis, no matter what social organization is in control. Whether it’s mainstream society, rebels, or anyone in-between. The norm is always straight cis. Similarly, while the author does include non-white people to a much greater degree than non-straight/non-cis people (there are a wide variety of ethnicities and religions represented in the society), they are all secondary characters. One thing that really stuck out to me was that at one point in the book we meet a Chinese-American girl who is being unwound because her parents wanted a son, and they just kept trying until they got one and then picked a daughter to unwind, because they couldn’t afford all the kids. She’s also got an interesting punk aesthetic to her. What an interesting main character she would have been! Can you imagine her in the role of Connor? They are both running away from being unwound, and she could easily have taken that main character role. It just bothers me when a book has three main characters who are all in a similar situation due to society-wide problems, and yet they are so non-diverse, with just a nod at gender by having one female character.
With regards to the female character, Risa, I must say I was very disappointed to have one plot point be an attempted rape of her, and her then being saved by a male character. First, we only get one female main character and then she naturally is almost raped. Then naturally she must be saved by someone else. The whole scene sickened me, especially when I thought about teen girls reading it. It was just a completely unnecessary plot point. I once read an article that talked about how often rape scenes (or attempted rape scenes) are a sign of lack of creativity. I don’t think all of them are, but this one certainly came across that way. Unnecessary and a convenient plot point without thought to how it would affect the readers.
In spite of these characterization and style complaints though, the plot is very good, and the world is fascinating. Characters in a natural manner talk about and explore the ethics of life, when life begins, and who has the right to life, as well as who has the right to end it. The plot is fast-paced, and I read as quickly as I could to find out what happened. There are also a couple of twists at the end that rocked my socks off and left me immediately downloading the next book in the series.
All of that said, I have a few questions about the world that were never addressed. First, if everyone who is unwound is between the ages of 13 and 17, how does that work out with transplantation? People have not yet finished growing at 17, especially their minds. Does this mean a 67 year old woman would have a 15 year old’s arm if she needed a transplant? If so, that sounds very grotesque to me, and I wonder how society has learned to deal with something so mis-matched. This isn’t particularly addressed, except to say that sometimes it’s weird to look at someone with two eyes that don’t match. Similarly, the world at large isn’t really talked about at all. The kids who are trying to escape being unwound don’t even consider running into another country but they never explain why. How has the world at large reacted to the United States’ new law? Is there any country that would be a safe-haven for unwinds? Are there other countries following suit? The international impact is woefully underaddressed.
In spite of these various shortcomings, the plot and the world still sucked me in. It was a quick read that left me wanting more.
Overall, fans of dystopian ya looking for another series to whet their appetite will definitely enjoy this one. It’s a completely different dystopia from most of the ones that are already big, and I am sure YA readers who are currently teens themselves will find the idea of their parents being able to sign an unwind order on them chilling. Dystopian YA fans should definitely give this one a go.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 337 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Audible
Book Review: The Shade of the Moon by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Series, #4)
Summary:
Jon Evans has spent the last two years living in an enclave as a slip — someone who received a VIP pass to get into an enclave that was originally intended for someone else. His stepmother and half brother live there as well, while his mother and older sister, Miranda, and her husband, Alex, live just outside of the enclave, working and serving it while living in filth. Jon isn’t like the rest of them. He can barely remember a time before the apocalypse of the moon being hit out of orbit. The enclave and its ways seem increasingly normal, even if he is haunted by the memories of what happened in the years between the apocalypse and the arrival at the enclave.
Review:
I was a bit startled to see that this book featured yet another new perspective, particularly after the return to Miranda’s diary in the third book. I was expecting a turn back to Alex, but instead we get Miranda’s little brother Jon’s perspective. I can understand the reasoning for this shift. Jon is the only young person from the original group living in the enclave. He is a bit of an antihero throughout most of the book, providing a unique look at the privileged elite in this post-apocalyptic society but one that could be alienating to some readers.
Whereas the first two books focused on the actual apocalypse and the third on the immediate aftermath, this book looks at the new society emerging from that wasteland, and it’s not good. It’s quite dystopian. Not everyone who enjoys apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic worlds also enjoy dystopian ones, so this is a bit of a risky move for a series, although it makes logical sense for the plot to progress this way. The dystopia that Pfeffer imagines is interesting. The elite have built up enclaves and use those who are not elite to work supporting them, basically killing themselves slowly mining coal and growing food while the elite stay safe and educated in the enclaves. It allows for a look at social class taken to the extreme while still seeming realistic within the world Pfeffer has created.
Jon also is a realistic character. He’s a bit spoiled rotten, after all, his brother, sister, and mother all routinely gave him extra food while they starved when the apocalypse first occurred. He’s the result of all the coddling they gave the youngest in an effort to keep him alive and healthiest. That said, some readers will be turned off by Jon. He’s unequivocally a jerk throughout at least half of the book before he eventually snaps out of it. While I personally enjoy a good antihero every now and then, not all readers will like visiting one, particularly after the more heroic presence of Miranda and Alex in the first two books.
There is one aspect of Jon’s character that really bothers me, and it has nothing to do with his snobbishness and antihero nature early on in the book.
*spoilers*
He lets on early on in the book that something bad happened to Alex’s sister Julie. He at one point misleads a female character to believe that he raped Julie to drive her away from him. This is done to protect her, and the reader is led to believe through this scene that Jon obviously didn’t rape Julie. Yet when we find out what actually happened, it’s not quite so crystal clear. Jon basically was making out with Julie and not stopping when she asked him to the first time. She then runs out into the storm and is killed in the tornado. Jon states that of course he would have stopped, he was just slow about it and reluctant because he didn’t think Julie’s protests were real. He thought she wanted him but wasn’t letting herself want him because of her religion. This is clearly many levels of fucked up. The reader is supposed to just believe Jon that he would have stopped because he says so? The reader is supposed to believe that Julie 100% over-reacted because Jon claims she did? It’s a squicky scene to read about, partially because it comes across as that the reader is supposed to absolve Jon from any guilt since he clearly didn’t rape Julie. He’s also upsetting because no one in the book treats this like the serious issue it is. Everyone just kind of shrugs and goes oh Julie over-reacted and goes on their merry way. Even if Jon really was about to stop when Julie ran out, he clearly needs to be spoken to about listening to your partner immediately, about seeking out enthusiastic consent, and about not victim blaming. Particularly given that this is a YA book and what an important issue this is, the way it’s glossed over left a really sour taste in my mouth.
*end spoilers*
I’m not against the presence of an antihero, including in a YA book, but I do think that Jon’s worse qualities could have been handled with a bit more deftness. His presence instead dances around the edges of certain issues, rather than drawing them out for examination within the context of a fun dystopia.
The plot gets a bit nuts, and one character in particularly has an ending that is rather anticlimactic. However, the plot does eventually move everyone into a new area of the dystopia that is quite fascinating and sets the series up well for another book that will hopefully be free of Jon’s perspective, if Pfeffer does decide to write one.
Overall, readers of the beginning of the series will enjoy seeing what ultimately happens to Miranda and Alex, although they may be frustrated to have to do it through Jon’s eyes. Jon is an antihero who may irritate some readers, and his presence brings up some issues that are then glossed over, rather than dealt with. Recommended to readers who really want to see more of Miranda and Alex who don’t mind spending some time with an antihero.
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2 out of 5 stars
Length: 304 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Library
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
Previous Books in Series:
Life As We Knew It
The Dead and The Gone
This World We Live In
Book Review: Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Series, #1) (Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
Miranda’s journal starts out like any other teenage girl’s diary. Worries about school, her after-curricular activities, and wondering how her family will work out with her dad having a brand-new baby with his new wife. But when a meteor strikes the moon things start to change. Slowly at first but with ever-increasing speed. Tsunamis wipe out the coasts. Volcanoes erupt. And soon Miranda finds herself, her mother, and her two brothers struggling to survive in a world that increasingly bares no resemblance to the one she once knew.
Review:
I’m a sucker for journal entry books, even though I know rationally that no diary ever has as much content and exposition as is contained in these fictional works. In addition to the journal format, I liked the premise for the dystopian world Miranda finds herself in. It’s very different from a lot of the other ones out there, since it’s 100% gradual natural disaster. This book lives up to the expectations set by its summary, offering a fun journal entry take on a natural disaster that turns into a dystopia.
Miranda, who lives in semi-suburban Pennsylvania, starts out the journal as a very average teenage girl, adapting to her parents’ divorce and father’s subsequent re-marriage, her older brother being away for his first year of college, and hoping to convince her mother to let her take up ice skating again. The book clearly yet subtly shows her development from this young, carefree teenager through angst and denial and selfishness in the face of the disaster to finally being a young woman willing to make sacrifices for her family. Miranda is written quite three-dimensionally. She neither handles the disaster perfectly nor acts too young for her age. While she sometimes is mature and sees the bigger picture at other times she simply wants her own room and doesn’t understand why she can’t have that. Pfeffer eloquently shows how the changes force Miranda to grow up quickly, and this is neither demonized nor elevated on a pedestal. Miranda’s character development is the best part of the book, whether the reader likes her the best at the beginning, middle or end, it’s still fascinating to read and watch.
Miranda also doesn’t have the perfect family or the perfect parents, which is nice to see a piece of young adult literature. Her parents try, but they make a lot of mistakes. Miranda’s mother becomes so pessimistic about everything that she starts to hone in on the idea of only one of them surviving, being therefore tougher on Miranda and her older brother than on the youngest one. Miranda’s father chooses to leave with his new wife to go find her parents, a decision that is perhaps understandable but still feels like total abandonment to Miranda. Since Miranda is the middle child, she also has a lot of conflict between being not the youngest and so sheltered from as much as possible and also not the oldest so not treated as a semi-equal by her mother like her oldest brother is. This imperfect family will be relatable to many readers.
Miranda’s mother is staunchly atheist/agnostic/humanist and liberal, and this seeps into Miranda’s journal. For those looking for a non-religious take on disaster to give to a non-religious reader or a religious reader looking for another perspective on how to handle disasters, this is a wonderful addition to the YA dystopian set. However, if a reader has the potential to be offended by a disaster without any reliance on god or liberal leanings spelled out in the text, they may want to look elsewhere.
I know much more about medical science than Earth science or astronomy, but I will say that when I was reading this book, the science of it seemed a bit ridiculous. An asteroid knocks the moon out of orbit (maybe) so the tides rise (that makes sense) and magma gets pulled out of the Earth causing volcanoes and volcanic ash leading to temperature drops Earth-wide (whaaaat). So I looked it up, and according to astronomers, an asteroid is too small to hit the moon out of orbit. If it was large enough to, it would destroy the moon in the process. Even if for some reason scientists were wrong and the moon could be knocked out of orbit, even in that scenario, the only thing that would happen would be the tides would be higher. (source 1, source 2) I know dystopian lit is entirely what if scenarios, but I do generally prefer them to be based a bit more strongly in science. I would recommend that reading this book thus be accompanied by some non-fiction reading on astronomy and volcanology. At the very least, it’s good to know that you can safely tell young readers that this most likely would not happen precisely this way, and this book is a great opening dialogue on disasters and disaster preparedness.
Overall, this is a fun take on the dystopian YA genre, featuring the journal of the protagonist and dystopia caused primarily by nature rather than humans. Potential readers should be aware that the science of this disaster is a bit shaky. The story featuring an agnostic humanist post-divorce family makes it a welcome diversifying addition to this area of YA lit.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 337 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: PaperBackSwap
Book Review: The Postmortal by Drew Magary (Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
John Farrell got The Cure before it was legal. Three painful shots, and now he’ll never age, although he can still be killed by accidents, murder, and disease. It doesn’t take long before public pressure forces governments to legalize The Cure, in spite of the concerns, sometimes expressed in the form of terrorist acts, of those who believe in natural aging. Of course, nobody listens, because who wants to age? But slowly the world starts to change in more ways than becoming increasingly overpopulated. We’ve reassembled what happened when The Cure was legal through combining John’s blog entries with news articles from his time period, as a cautionary tale.
Review:
I actually bought this when it was released because it sounded so intriguing to me. A futuristic epistolary novel looking at overpopulation is right up my alley. Unfortunately, I got so busy that I didn’t have time to read it right away. I was happy to be able to finally pick it up. The book presents an interesting dystopia but the storytelling struggles increasingly throughout the book, falling flat at the end.
The book starts out incredibly strong. Magary strikes the right balance of realistic personal blog entries with snippets of news, twitter/facebook feeds, etc… to tell the early story of The Cure. The world building doesn’t suffer at all, with a clear near-future established, and John’s character is immediately easy to understand. The years immediately after The Cure is legalized are similarly well-told, with Magary choosing interesting and realistic consequences to The Cure, including violent anti-Cure extremists, peaceful anti-Cure moderates, bohemian everlasting youth, those who build fortresses around themselves and their families, and even internet trolls who take their trolling out into real life.
The world slowly establishes to the point where it’s clearly too overpopulated, and various governments make various choices about how they’re going to deal with that, and John gets caught up in the control side of the US government’s choices. It is here, midway through the book, where things stop being so well-written and thought out and stop working quite so well.
First, the parameters of The Cure seem clear early on in the book. It appears that it cures not just aging but any illness that could be correlated to being the result of aging, such as heart disease. It is clearly listed out that The Cure protects you from many things but not extreme things like AIDS or being smashed by a safe. Later on in the book, though, those who have The Cure but have a real age of elderly start having diseases that tend to show up late in life, such as cancer and heart disease. This shakiness of exactly what The Cure does is a real problem in the book’s world building. The reader expects one set of parameters but then gets a different one.
Second, although early in the book Magary strikes a great balance of realistic blog entries, news articles, and twitter/facebook feeds, as the book continues on, this balance drops off, and the book reads more and more like a straight-forward first-person narration, with only the occasional news article. This makes it harder to believe these are real blog entries, particularly as they get more and more unrealistically long as John becomes busier and does more dangerous tasks.
Similarly, as the world becomes more complex, some of the world building choices make less and less sense. For instance, a certain country chooses to periodically blow up its cities with nuclear bombs in order to control its population. It’s hard to imagine any country dumping nuclear waste into itself just to control population. Surely even just bombs with less environmental impact would be chosen. Similarly, a certain type of violent gang becomes rampant across the US but their motivations or reasons for turning so violent and bloody are never examined. Are they striving to be the only people left? Do they just enjoy causing chaos? Dehumanizing them makes it easy to other them, which in turn makes the dystopic future less frightening, as it’s only the crazy, monstrous people who form into violent gangs. Some of these limits come from the fact that our main character, whose blog entries we’re reading, isn’t a particularly inquisitive person. He tumbles along and doesn’t seem to care much about anything, particularly in the final portions of the book. Yes, he is probably depressed, but even early on he never seems that interested in other viewpoints. The rare two occasions where we get glimpses into something besides his day-to-day life are once at the behest of his job, and once because his son implores him to come to his church. In other words, it takes extraordinary circumstances for John, our narrator, to investigate anything other than what is right in front of his face, which makes for a story that’s missing a lot of information about this dystopic future, particularly when we only get John’s perspective for hundreds of years. The story would probably have been better served by analyzing multiple different people’s blogs. Perhaps John’s, his son’s mother’s, his son’s, his partner’s at work, a troll’s, etc…. This would have given the same epistolary feel but also more information about the dystopic world and more depth.
Finally, the ending takes a sharp turn into manic pixie dream girl land, that I found incredibly frustrating. John makes a sudden, completely inexplicable, unrealistic change in personality thanks to a manic pixie dream girl showing up (a female character who exists only to show up and show a depressed male character the meaning of life. Full exploration of this trope). Given the whole rest of the book, the ending was completely out of left field, and frankly felt lazy. A much richer, deeper ending could have been written that went right into the depth and darkness of John’s soul, giving him no miraculous last-minute redemption. Instead his character does a complete 180 and gives the reader an unexpected, and unearned, ending.
Given all of these complaints, why am I still giving the book three stars? The world it sets up is awesome. It’s a dystopia I want to visit again and again. The first third of the book handles the futuristic, tech-savvy epistolary novel really well, and that’s hard to do. Finally, most of my complaints have to do with the author not giving me enough, not taking things deep enough, dark enough, not living up to the writing in the first third of his own book. It’s a sign of a good book to leave me wanting more, and that’s why I’m still happy I read it. It’s a creative vision of a dystopic future that I hadn’t seen before, and I would love to see more books set in it. Recommended to fans of dystopias who won’t mind a frustrating ending.
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3 out of 5 stars
Length: 369 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Amazon
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 