This was really interesting. I wasn't sure where this was going but I liked the ending quite a bit.This was really interesting. I wasn't sure where this was going but I liked the ending quite a bit....more
This story is somewhat related to an earlier novel by this author, Yours For the Taking. It's set in the same world and features some of 4 Solid Stars
This story is somewhat related to an earlier novel by this author, Yours For the Taking. It's set in the same world and features some of the same characters. I plan to read this novel but haven't read it before I jumped into this. This is a complete story even without reading the other related novel. However, I think I would've understood more what was being offered in this novel if I had. Honestly, I think it only really mattered at the end. I think the conclusion probably hits harder if the reader has also read the first novel.
This story has 2 alternate timelines: 2041 and 2078. It's a kind of circular story about motherhood, climate change, and the challenge of creating meaningful but free communities.
Ultimately, it's a dystopian novel for our times, and it left me filled with a sense of peace. This is both surprising and extremely well done. This focuses on LGBTQIA+ peoples within communities. The characters' gender or sexuality isn't the focus of the story and mostly fades into the background. I particularly loved how the trans characters' concerns weren't over their identity. So, it was a story full of people who happened to be from marginalized genders.
I also liked the call out or call in about how anarchist communities can too often mirror the same power structures as our present society. And how that leads to the same oppression we are fighting. Of course, these communities aren't truly anarchist. They wear their beliefs as a costume. Still, that's far too present in our current society as well. This is a fine balance, and the novel never feels preachy.
The narrator of this novel is Gail Shalan. Her voice was perfect for this story. She didn't use different voices the characters. Instead, her narration mostly inhabits the background, allowing the reader to immerse themselves wholly into the story. I loved the effect of this choice.
Thank you to Gabrielle Korn, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. All opinions and viewpoints expressed in this review are my own....more
This novel has a fascinating premise. The author is a poet, and there are many delightfully beautiful turns of phrase. Overall, this was2.5 rounded up
This novel has a fascinating premise. The author is a poet, and there are many delightfully beautiful turns of phrase. Overall, this was slow. The characters are one dimensional and feel in most cases like literal stereotypes. I think if this was written in the 1920s, it would be fabulous, but as written in the 2020s and set in modern times, it falls flat. Honestly, this feels like an idea for a story that didn't get seasoned well or cooked long enough.
The author never capitalizes Black when referring to humans in the text. It's such an off-putting choice and bugged me throughout the text. It fits with the overall theme of infantilizing Black agency, which seemed to impact most of the story in the novel. I kinda like the anarchist aspect of folks working without pay and taking what they need. However, the idea that no one was left to run things is both suspect and insulting. Black cities with primarily Black governments exist right now.
A few, maybe 3, other countries are mentioned in an extremely minor way, but we don't even explore how the world responds to this situation. This had the potential to be really deep and say something profound but couldn't get out of its own way.
Spoilers: So white folks in a coma or on palliative care walked into water to drown themselves? What about white folks not near large bodies of water? Did white pilots' flying planes just fly the whole plane into the water, passengers, and all? Not to mention newborn babies. Did infants and toddlers walk into the water? Given the explanation provided in the story, why would fresh off the plane white immigrants and white visitors from other countries also walk into the water? So, this didn't impact white folks in Canada or Mexico? Even with similar histories? Why not as we don't have straight borders? The 'frequency' must've reached them, too. Did it happen in Alaska? Our sky would at the least be covered in foreign drones. White folks would absolutely show up to test if it would kill them, too. Ok, I'll just accept that all white folks died. Ignore that this makes zero sense even from the explanation given in the story. This kinda reminds me of the book, Bird Box, when after establishing that looking outside would cause suicidal & homicidal rages, Mallory just drives from her suburban home to downriver without protecting her vision in anyway. Sloppy world building galore.
Why does the author pretend that Black folks aren't prepared to run the country? It's like this is written in an alternate universe in which Obama was never president for 2 terms and the first woman to hold the office of Vice President wasn't Blasian. The Black Caucus didn't step up? Black folks make up about 30% of the Armed Services, including prominent Black Generals. Why would none of those people be prepared or able to run the country? It's okay if we chose not to, but the author implicitly states that we were unable to. That makes no logical sense.
Other POC are practically non-existant. So only Black folks get agency, which they don't know what to do with, and currently existing Indigenous governments, Sovereign fucking nations, don't step into the gap or assert their authority on their own fucking land?
So after white folks are gone, Black folks decide to mammy the Brown and biracial folks who long for a return to white supremacy? They keep them close so they can provide for their fast food chains. This is insultingly ludicrous. White folk are gone, but Black folks are still babysitting white supremacy....more
This audiobook was made available for me to listen to and review by Andrea Hairston, RB Media, and NetGalley.
This is a fun and unique novel, almost liThis audiobook was made available for me to listen to and review by Andrea Hairston, RB Media, and NetGalley.
This is a fun and unique novel, almost like a podcast in a way. This starts off with an ad for the Next World Festival. The Next World Festival is a celebration of life; focusing on dance, storytelling, music, and more. At this festival attendees both honor the past and dream the future. It's incredibly unique and I would LOVE to attend this festival!
This is set in a dystopian future of water shortages with resulting wars and deep income inequality exacerbated by the resource hoarding of the wealthy living in enclaves. This addresses how the world responds to these crisis', largely resulting in mass societal mayhem. So this novel features the joy of the festival juxta positioned with the side by side overwhelming despair of a world in climate and political crisis. What does it mean to live in such harrowing times?
This weaves seamlessly into the narrative mythology and mythological beings from West African/Black Diaspora and Native American/First Nations cultures. This is a fun festival set in an Octavia Butler-esque dystopian future. Cinnamon has created a tiny utopia inside of this dystopic hell scape, with notes of Parable of the Talents' Acorn. A place where community means no one is left out and everyone respects and honors everyone else. This enclave is threatened and stressed by outside forces like the corporate spies and desperate folks surrounding them. The novels tone is light allowing the stress of this world to feel manageable and dreamy. It's heady stuff, almost a cozy dystopia...more
This audiobook was made available for me to listen to and review by Kira Peikoff, Dreamscape Media, and NetGalley.
I wasn't sure what to expect with thThis audiobook was made available for me to listen to and review by Kira Peikoff, Dreamscape Media, and NetGalley.
I wasn't sure what to expect with this story so I was pleasantly surprised how much I adored this story. This has clever world building that feels organic and logical. I don't want to give away too much about the plot because this is the best kind of twisty. This is set about 50 or so years into future, with the exact year not specified. I like the way the future is handled, it feels familiar and foreign at the same time. In this future embryos are created in a lab and implanted into a uterus after a 'choosing' process of candidate embryos. It's very much like the movie Gattaca only this novel focuses on different inequalities. In a future in which viable embryos were relatively easy and affordable to create between any gender couple, it seems increasingly likely that surrogacy would become even more class locked as a viable career path. Especially with advanced medicine, longer lives and easier fertility. I find this horrifying and fascinating. Women and marginalized genders born with a uterus are already a heavily exploited class that is oppressed globally. What kind of poverty creates this career choice? How does it pay and what are it's benefits? As great as this future society is, it's clear unequal access to resources has devastating effects on society at large. It's a well played mirror of our current society and balances the freedom implied in practically 100% choice in conception.
I love the idea of future pregnancies being handled in a manner like this because it allows for almost 100% planned and wanted pregnancies. That's a comforting thought in a time of dwindling fertility rates combined with increasing abortion and birth control bans. This future of fast travel, longer lives, almost no disease or illness for the vast majority of that increased life span feels both centuries from our current reality and at the same time, just around the corner tech wise. This story focuses on one of the few ways in which a child can still be born to an nonconsenting parent, DNA theft. World famous songbird Trace Thorne is protecting his DNA using a private firm created and run by Ember Ryan. Trace and Ember are much more than famous client and DNA protective service, they are also a couple. One night at a restaurant after eating they are approached by a woman who is pretty sure that her baby was created using Trace's DNA. The fallout from this interaction makes up the action of the novel.
The reveals are unexpected and draw the reader even deeper into the story. This is fast paced, well written, and intriguing in the extreme. I loved this and will definitely be following this author for future publications.
The narrators of this audiobook are Jennifer Jill Araya, Imani Jade Powers, and Abigail Reno. This was a fast paced, complicated story with scientific verbiage conveyed with increasing urgency and delivered with smooth efficiency. Exceptionally well done.
Thank you to Kira Peikoff, Dreamscape Media, and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. All opinions and viewpoints expressed in this review are my own....more
I loved everything about this. I finished it in one day, insisted my husband read it and recommended it to a friend.
This is a perfect blend of smart dyI loved everything about this. I finished it in one day, insisted my husband read it and recommended it to a friend.
This is a perfect blend of smart dystopian and WTF thriller....more
This is a predictable liberal cautionary tale of the 'violence' of revolution. These tales always ignore the violence inherent in a white sup3.5 Stars
This is a predictable liberal cautionary tale of the 'violence' of revolution. These tales always ignore the violence inherent in a white supremacist society.
The revolution wouldn't be led by highly formally educated people. No lawyer is giving up their well-earned place in white supremacy, and poor folks on the street wouldn't trust such a leader.
Ferguson Uprising lasted 14 months and needed none of what was happening here.
This is a lot of 'if we fight back, we become like who we fight' liberal 'they go low, we go high' farcical thinking. To those that think this, I say, 'Get out of the way of those of us not willing to die perfect victims'. We want to see real change in our lifetimes, and we heard Audre Lorde when she stated that the masters tools will never dismantle the masters house. Real change within our lifetime is possible.
I wish this had understood what's come before it and built on that or at least spoken to real revolutionaries. Hint: probably not many enrolled in law school.
What I hoped this would address is the fate of revolutionaries. What happened to the Ferguson Uprising protectors? Most are dead, quietly murdered by our police state. The police and alphabet groups have been setting up and taking out Black revolutionaries for centuries. Cointelpro proved that beyond the shadow of a doubt.
This was largely a missed opportunity for me. I'd definitely read something by this author....more