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lucyp21's review
2.0
This book. I swear, I don't know whether I wanted to finish the book or throw it across the room at various points while I was reading it.
First of all, let's start off with the good parts. The cover is gorgeous, I loved the premise of worlds on the back of giant sea turtles and the twist at the end where we find out where the turtles came from and how the people came to be was completely unexpected and I loved it. Yes, the revelations could have been spread out more rather than chucked in the last quarter of the book but I liked the info.
Now it's rant time.
- Tenjat. Why such an arsehole? Not even the good kind where you can see why and then he grows and becomes better. And love interest, Avi, isn't that much better especially when she talks about hubs getting what they deserve (i.e. beatings and death) and it wasn't called out. There was one point of the book where I thought Tenjat would go 'that's my sister you're talking about' and leave her for good but it never happened and Avi never properly apologised for it.
- Tenjat's sister whose name I cannot remember. Literally there to hold back information until the 'right' time and to cause Tenjat several shocks. Not saying Tenjat didn't deserve it but it didn't seem like his sister liked him very much at all and the relationship felt very unequal.
- worldbuilding. I said this is a bit I liked but that's mostly because of the premise. In this world of Drift, those who have children are slowing down the turtle. Too many people on the turtle means the turtle starves and they all die. This taboo against having children was so interesting but then it was done in such a way that it became far more frustrating than anything else.
First of all, why are no gay/lesbian relationships mentioned? Two women having sex, two men having sex, don't result in children. It's just assumed that anyone having sex is having children and it's never really thought of outside of there.
Second of all, everyone on the turtle came from a parent. Why didn't Hutchins base his worldbuilding on real-life events like China's One Child Policy? Why did he make people with children so demonised that the fact everyone was born from someone is never even mentioned?
Thirdly, if Handlers and Tenders were so rare, why not go the whole dystopia route and just draft people into the Tree?
Fourthly, why is there no mention of any way of stopping pregnancy? I mean, later revelations explain it but before that there is no mention of contraception, abortion or casual sex even. You can't just skip over these and expect people not to notice!
- evil bad guy on evil turtle. I can't remember his name either but he wasn't mentioned as a possible villain until the last 50 pages it felt like. If you're going to have a villain like that, you have to mention it earlier and build up to it.
Okay, I'm done. I found this book incredibly slow and I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone. 2 stars!
First of all, let's start off with the good parts. The cover is gorgeous, I loved the premise of worlds on the back of giant sea turtles and the twist at the end where we find out where the turtles came from and how the people came to be was completely unexpected and I loved it. Yes, the revelations could have been spread out more rather than chucked in the last quarter of the book but I liked the info.
Now it's rant time.
- Tenjat. Why such an arsehole? Not even the good kind where you can see why and then he grows and becomes better. And love interest, Avi, isn't that much better especially when she talks about hubs getting what they deserve (i.e. beatings and death) and it wasn't called out. There was one point of the book where I thought Tenjat would go 'that's my sister you're talking about' and leave her for good but it never happened and Avi never properly apologised for it.
- Tenjat's sister whose name I cannot remember. Literally there to hold back information until the 'right' time and to cause Tenjat several shocks. Not saying Tenjat didn't deserve it but it didn't seem like his sister liked him very much at all and the relationship felt very unequal.
- worldbuilding. I said this is a bit I liked but that's mostly because of the premise. In this world of Drift, those who have children are slowing down the turtle. Too many people on the turtle means the turtle starves and they all die. This taboo against having children was so interesting but then it was done in such a way that it became far more frustrating than anything else.
First of all, why are no gay/lesbian relationships mentioned? Two women having sex, two men having sex, don't result in children. It's just assumed that anyone having sex is having children and it's never really thought of outside of there.
Second of all, everyone on the turtle came from a parent. Why didn't Hutchins base his worldbuilding on real-life events like China's One Child Policy? Why did he make people with children so demonised that the fact everyone was born from someone is never even mentioned?
Thirdly, if Handlers and Tenders were so rare, why not go the whole dystopia route and just draft people into the Tree?
Fourthly, why is there no mention of any way of stopping pregnancy? I mean, later revelations explain it but before that there is no mention of contraception, abortion or casual sex even. You can't just skip over these and expect people not to notice!
- evil bad guy on evil turtle. I can't remember his name either but he wasn't mentioned as a possible villain until the last 50 pages it felt like. If you're going to have a villain like that, you have to mention it earlier and build up to it.
Okay, I'm done. I found this book incredibly slow and I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone. 2 stars!
inkspirals's review
2.0
ah this book
ok first the things I liked about it:
- major snaps for original physical worldbuilding and magic systems
I've never read a similar book. It was a nice change from the mostly euro-centric fantasy. It was also a bit creepy and unsettling which gave it an extra something.
- Points for POC characters (even if they had vague ethnicity)
- interesting class system
- competent female character who trains the male lead and is totally respected by him. It also did not fall into the awful trope where the male protagonist /magically/ surpasses the girl who has been training for years. Avi stays the best because that is the logical thing to happen
Problems I had with the book: (may just be nitpicking or because of my personal views)
- limited social world building: it was off to an interesting start but I had a lot of questions that weren't answered
There was such a focus on children/ not having children but there was no mention of any kind of contraception or anything similar? I know the setting was based on old Mayan culture but even they had some things.
Why were there no childless marriages? The problem was the actual children not relationships
Is that just a cultural thing? Would it be considered too much temptation or something?
What about gay couples? You would think in a society where children are bad, that would be a win/win situation
-the naga have some potentially weird connotations?(it depends on your interpretation)
The tormented souls of children who have been waiting too long to be born.
What?? Is there supposed to be a natural fix to this? Personally as someone who is pro-choice and never having kids, this makes me kind of uncomfortable.
In this world, is there a specific number of children who are supposed to be born every year, and people who don't have kids are 'denying the natural order'? (in which case - grosss).
Or are the naga's unavoidable? (which is weird but ok)
- his sister promised to have as many kids as she could (Owww?!) ( also even if slowing down the island isn't a problem aren't there still limited resources? like it is an island. idk)
- Avi - the badass magic warrior girl - becomes a farmer's wife?!?
She never even wanted that. In the book it even said that she belonged in the Tree. So why is this a good ending? is it tbc?
- Me being petty but
/In a world where love is bad these cis-het people want to get married and have kids/
I know its more complicated than that, but honestly I'm getting so bored of this 'love is forbidden plots'
I always want them to be an interesting analysis of social structures, but it mostly never is.
ok first the things I liked about it:
- major snaps for original physical worldbuilding and magic systems
I've never read a similar book. It was a nice change from the mostly euro-centric fantasy. It was also a bit creepy and unsettling which gave it an extra something.
- Points for POC characters (even if they had vague ethnicity)
- interesting class system
- competent female character who trains the male lead and is totally respected by him. It also did not fall into the awful trope where the male protagonist /magically/ surpasses the girl who has been training for years. Avi stays the best because that is the logical thing to happen
Problems I had with the book: (may just be nitpicking or because of my personal views)
- limited social world building: it was off to an interesting start but I had a lot of questions that weren't answered
There was such a focus on children/ not having children but there was no mention of any kind of contraception or anything similar? I know the setting was based on old Mayan culture but even they had some things.
Why were there no childless marriages? The problem was the actual children not relationships
Is that just a cultural thing? Would it be considered too much temptation or something?
What about gay couples? You would think in a society where children are bad, that would be a win/win situation
-the naga have some potentially weird connotations?(it depends on your interpretation)
The tormented souls of children who have been waiting too long to be born.
What?? Is there supposed to be a natural fix to this? Personally as someone who is pro-choice and never having kids, this makes me kind of uncomfortable.
In this world, is there a specific number of children who are supposed to be born every year, and people who don't have kids are 'denying the natural order'? (in which case - grosss).
Or are the naga's unavoidable? (which is weird but ok)
- his sister promised to have as many kids as she could (Owww?!) ( also even if slowing down the island isn't a problem aren't there still limited resources? like it is an island. idk)
- Avi - the badass magic warrior girl - becomes a farmer's wife?!?
She never even wanted that. In the book it even said that she belonged in the Tree. So why is this a good ending? is it tbc?
- Me being petty but
/In a world where love is bad these cis-het people want to get married and have kids/
I know its more complicated than that, but honestly I'm getting so bored of this 'love is forbidden plots'
I always want them to be an interesting analysis of social structures, but it mostly never is.
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