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historysworstmonster's review
4.0
renaissancejess's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
thinkspink's review against another edition
5.0
lost_library's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Death, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, and Pregnancy
jules_not_dead's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
marmoo's review against another edition
4.0
This slow but rich novel is a chilling addition to the dystopian canon. A [b:The Handmaid's Tale|38447|The Handmaid's Tale|Margaret Atwood|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546031886l/38447._SY75_.jpg|1119185] comparison is a natural one, as much for the thematic similarity (a fixation on female fertility at the expense of female personhood, the malleability of religion to justify social injustices, the cyclicality of human oppression), as for the choice in protagonist. By filtering the story through the lens of a politically vulnerable woman rather than a more “powerful” figure in society, Louise Erdrich imbues the slow slide into a nightmare dystopia with an on-the-ground sense of uncertainty and fear.
At times, I found myself frustrated by the limitations of this tight first-person epistolary point of view. The broader questions about what is happening in this world and why remain unanswered. I couldn’t help but wish for more detail about the politics, agenda, and organization of this new oppressive society. It’s a choice that I ultimately respected, however, in its refusal to reduce female suffering to the set dressing it so often serves in apocalyptic storytelling.
Also emotionally dissatisfying but intellectually rewarding was the novel’s repudiation of the swaggering cowboy myth of individual heroics in the face of an oppressive system. Instead, Erdrich focuses on an interior resistance, placing more emphasis on Cedar’s fear, resilience, and faith than on jail breaks and great escapes. The Chekhov’s Old-West-replica rifle introduced in the first act never does go off.
This is a more interesting novel, too, for its thematic parallels between the five-seconds-in-the-future dystopia and the theft of Native lands (and genocide of Native people) throughout American history. And a happy side effect of the novel’s Ojibwe narrator is that it avoids the tiresome literary trope of taking the modern and historical suffering from war-torn regions and repressive regimes and calling it dystopian when it happens to fictional white Americans.
auntsarah's review against another edition
5.0
esker's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
emleemay's review against another edition
2.0
“Accept life. You can be absolved of anything you did, you can completely win back God’s love, by contributing to the future of humanity. Your happy sentence is only nine months.”
I agree with Tatiana and other GR reviewers. [b:Future Home of the Living God|34217599|Future Home of the Living God|Louise Erdrich|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1499188017s/34217599.jpg|55268475] has a fascinating premise, but it actually spends very little time exploring the devolution of humanity idea (essentially, evolution going backwards with all species becoming more primitive at an alarming rate) and instead retells [b:The Handmaid's Tale|38447|The Handmaid's Tale|Margaret Atwood|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1498057733s/38447.jpg|1119185].
It's surprising that this book has received such positive reviews from critics given that it is highly derivative. I'm already tired of these Atwood copycats - [b:Red Clocks|35099035|Red Clocks|Leni Zumas|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1494345016s/35099035.jpg|56404277] is another - and I'm sure this is just the beginning. It cannot be a coincidence that they are all popping up while the hype of the Hulu series is still fresh.
This book is split into three parts. Part one is an extremely slow introspective build where Cedar Hawk Songmaker finally meets her native birth mother and considers how she feels about being pregnant. The whole book is written in diary entries to "you", her unborn child. Perhaps this is characteristic of Erdrich's style in that she explores daily habits, dreams and circling thoughts with little actually happening, but I don't think it's a great choice for a book exploring a dystopian concept.
The effect of the devolution is that very few "original" babies are born - those resembling humanity as we know it. Many women experience stillbirths; many more die themselves. The new theocracy that grows out of this chaos - “The Church of the New Constitution” - starts rounding up pregnant and fertile women to seize the babies of the former, and forcibly inseminate the latter.
Most of the action takes place in part two. Too bad most of this action also took place thirty years ago in [b:The Handmaid's Tale|38447|The Handmaid's Tale|Margaret Atwood|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1498057733s/38447.jpg|1119185]. It is the same story - a man, woman and their child in hiding from a theocratic government, until the woman is captured and sent off to a place where many women are kept. Women are imprisoned to be used for their fertile bodies. Even the "Mother" character who lectures the women on becoming empowered through God’s blessing of a child is reminiscent of Atwood's "Aunts".
I found too much of the book to be dull, and the most dynamic and exciting parts were those ripped straight from one of my favourite books of all time. I was also disappointed how this book wasn't really about the devolution aspect at all, but only the infertility dystopia that grew out of it. Was this a poor choice for my first Louise Erdrich book or is she simply not for me?
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erinkatherin's review against another edition
5.0