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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This book is an incredible imagining of how climate change might influence society. It was mostly a riveting book with a few slow spots. It deserves high praise for its character portrayals, descriptions of a poisoned and drowned landscape, and a foretelling of cruelty that humans can inflict on each other. This book was written in 2017.
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is Omar El Akkad's first book, and it's a hell of an opener. He takes a future second Civil War (that now still feels like it's breathing down the back of your neck) and focuses in on one girl who grows up during it, the horrors of war that she experiences, her eventual radicalization, POW torture she undergoes as a supposed enemy combatant, and her ultimate radicalization down a path that ends up turning what's supposed to be a peace summit into a horrorshow. I love that we mostly see our focus character through other peoples eyes, and especially the way that the last section is framed. Definitely worth your time.
This was a night time read aloud with my hubby and it took a while due to sleep patterns and kids and all that jazz.
But that is in no way a reflection on this book. Which is not content wise an easy read, though style and flow it was easy. This world of just around the corner from now is all too believable, and yet brilliantly told.
Could there be a new civil war here in the US? Are brothers going to fight brothers again? What would that look like? Explore those questions and more in this book.
But that is in no way a reflection on this book. Which is not content wise an easy read, though style and flow it was easy. This world of just around the corner from now is all too believable, and yet brilliantly told.
Could there be a new civil war here in the US? Are brothers going to fight brothers again? What would that look like? Explore those questions and more in this book.
DNF - couldn’t stand any of the characters or the writing style. Great world building though, had potential.
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The impact of this novel is less what it says about America than what it says about the reactions and adaptations of individuals, families and groups to conditions of war. I became frustrated at being denied the 50,000 foot view of the world; the ability to see the big picture and to understand the complex political and global forces that led to the conditions in the novel. Eventually I came to recognize that to a father in a migrant refugee camp, to a Palestinian in Gaza, to a family in detention at the US border, to a mother trying to survive in the rubble of a Syrian city, the geopolitics of their situation are secondary to their rage, their hunger, their sickness, their victimization.
The protagonist, Sarat, allows us to see into the heart of one who has been "radicalized" by enduring in an environment minimally of their making. The factual horrors of the character's lives are amplified by how they are accepted as everyday life challenges. To cite just one, the solar-powered killer drones that have become disconnected from their command-and-control network, and are governed solely by their internal Artificial Intelligence algorithms to identify and attack targets; algorithms that seem to have either deteriorated (or were faulty from the start) such that their attacks seem random and capricious. Everyone goes on as if this is just a normal part of every day life, which for them, it is.
Very well written, and highly engaging, it evokes complex feelings about the protagonist. Not a difficult read, but at times uncomfortable.
The protagonist, Sarat, allows us to see into the heart of one who has been "radicalized" by enduring in an environment minimally of their making. The factual horrors of the character's lives are amplified by how they are accepted as everyday life challenges. To cite just one, the solar-powered killer drones that have become disconnected from their command-and-control network, and are governed solely by their internal Artificial Intelligence algorithms to identify and attack targets; algorithms that seem to have either deteriorated (or were faulty from the start) such that their attacks seem random and capricious. Everyone goes on as if this is just a normal part of every day life, which for them, it is.
Very well written, and highly engaging, it evokes complex feelings about the protagonist. Not a difficult read, but at times uncomfortable.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes