Reviews

Interesting ideas in this book; i appreciate any book that focuses on the influence of language. cool concept. however i don't think any part of it was fleshed out enough- both the setting and the characters.

i hesitate to compare the two because i think ursula le guin is one of the best writers of all time, but the setting felt like a version of The Dispossesed that wasn't as well thought out. also a lot of it seemed to be hurr durr communism bad which ... ok. perhaps the goal was more fascism bad, but it certainly came across like communism is when you can't hug your kids and your soap sucks.

i think this book could have been longer and perhaps needed more maturity and depth to really hit the mark it was aiming for.

storytimed's review

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3.0

This is a slim, strange, sci-fi set in a world where you have to constantly name things in order for them to keep their shape
It's very like, shades of Orwell, bits of The Giver. The government is totalitarian in a pseudo-Communist way: lots of redefining history, being assigned to jobs at the commune, the Symbolic Naming of Things
Vanja is a rare private enterprise worker from the main colony, which is trying to do new things, visiting the stricter Amatka. She falls in love with True Believer Nina and decides to stay, then gets embroiled in the bizarre conspiracy of the town
I liked the twist which is that actually naming things imposes false order on them; if you embrace the fluidity of the world you can reshape and change things simply out of your own will, but overall the book was fairly slight and just reminded me of its better predecessors. You never get that much of a sense of Vanja's identity or the community of Amatka

aranafyre's review against another edition

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5.0

This was disturbing and brilliant. The audiobook was very well done. Like many other books like this I was vaguely worried about the ending. It’s hard to take a concept like this and execute a good conclusion. Overall the ending was vague enough and disturbing enough to match the tone of the story.

I spent most of the time thinking this is brilliant and wanting to teach it. It would be a wonderful addition to any dystopian curriculum or weird fantasy study. Also could go into world lit courses.

stabilesero's review

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This was a totally unexpected find and I'm so glad I picked it up. It's a sci-fi/dystopian book entwined with what language can create and what society demands Vs what community wants.
I really loved this, especially the

marking of things in order to keep them... Being? If you're reading this, it's not really a spoiler but basically, the community need to keep naming objects to stop them from turning into goop.

Vanja and Nina's relationship was a nice addition, as was the addition of Ivar. All the supporting characters also felt well fleshed out and tied well to the main plot. The only thing for me, that let this book down, was that I couldn't really connect with Vanja as a main character and felt more connected to the librarian or other supporting characters.

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