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kkbray's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: War, Murder, Death, Xenophobia, Suicide, Police brutality, Violence, and Mass/school shootings
apackage's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Graphic: Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Sexual content, Torture, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic, Vomit, Misogyny, Blood, Death of parent, Death, Gore, Islamophobia, War, Emotional abuse, Police brutality, Violence, Abortion, Xenophobia, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Addiction, Injury/Injury detail, Excrement, Cancer, Classism, and Hate crime
danaaliyalevinson'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? It's complicated
4.75
The characters are beautiful. Markley does a wonderful job at anchoring this story about a crisis that could seem too didactic for literary tension in very real and three dimensional characters. And through this inherent tying of these people that I grew to love to the climate crisis, otherwise didactic developments like the failure or success of a bill, or an extreme weather event, or a working group to draft legislation, suddenly take on hugely important meaning. Like, sometimes I was like, why am I crying that they’re forming a working group to draft legislation? It was because Markley so deftly and completely drew the characters and the ways their lives revolved around trying to solve this crisis, and the way their lives had also been affected by it. So global developments felt startlingly personal.
I did occasionally find myself wrestling with the almost early aughts disaster movie plotting that occasionally cropped up, and more than one instance of characters being saved by deus ex machina. I also sometimes felt that the unraveling of the social order was painted in broad strokes.
But at the end of the day, these quibbles pale in comparison to the strengths of this novel, which manages to be prophecy and path forward. And through the deep humanity of its characters, manages to take a topic that could feel dry, and instead makes it startlingly alive and human.
Graphic: Addiction, Antisemitism, Animal death, Cancer, Classism, Death, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Mass/school shootings, Violence, Blood, Hate crime, Murder, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Religious bigotry, Xenophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Gun violence, Colonisation, Drug abuse, and War