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talonsontypewriters's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- 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
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Addiction, Drug use, Death, Grief, Ableism, Confinement, and Self harm
Minor: Racism, Transphobia, and Deadnaming
Natural disasters.tokagelizard's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
At the end of the world, should only "useful" people get to survive?
It's 2035 and the date of the comet strike is known. The lucky ones and the rich ones have permanent shelters or spaceships. When Denise and her mom are late to get to their temporary shelter, a twist of fate lands them aboard a private spaceship still on the ground for repairs. The ship only wants passengers who are useful. So autistic Denise needs to devise a way to get her and her addict mom permanently on the passenger list, as well as find her missing sister who is somewhere out there in the post-apocalyptic landscape.
This was a gripping story with a unique and sympathetic protagonist. It was relatable and refreshing for me to see the world through the eyes of Denise and her autism. (I literally stayed up late 2 hours to finish it so it wouldn't be distracting me at work the next day.)
The writing was excellent and the author really got me invested in the world, and I was not disappointed in the ending.
If you are looking to pick up an exciting semi-sci-fi / apocalyptic story with human depth and diverse characters, I highly recommend this!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death and Death
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Ableism, and Addiction
hawksrye's review
tense
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Self harm, Grief, Abandonment, Ableism, Blood, Medical content, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, Animal death, Confinement, and Death
Minor: Alcohol and Deadnaming
main character has self-injurous stims (thumping head against things, skin picking)emtees's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- 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
4.5
This book was incredible.
Denise is a teenage girl at the end of the world. An asteroid is set to hit Earth, and with only six months to prepare, most of humanity is going to be stuck on a ruined planet in the aftermath, lucky if they managed to get into a private or government run shelter. But on the day the asteroid hits, Denise and her mother seemingly run into a bit of luck - while helping two women get to their shelter, they find themselves on a generation ship, scheduled to depart from Earth in a few days in search of a home somewhere in the stars. Though Denise and her mother are given only temporary shelter, Denise is determined to win them permanent spots on the ship - and one for her sister, Iris, as well, even though she doesn’t know exactly where Iris is. Everything she learns tells her that the ship will only take people who are “necessary” - people who can work hard, have special skills or contribute something that “earns” them and their families a place. But Denise’s mother is a drug addict and Denise herself is autistic. She’s always struggled, socially and in school, and the stress of living in a post-apocalyptic world just adds a host of new challenges. How will she prove that she deserves a shot at escaping a dying planet?
There’s so much I want to say about this book that I’m not sure where to begin. Denise is a fantastic protagonist. I’m not sure I’ve read such an immersive autistic POV before. Duyvis (who is autistic and the founder of the #ownvoices movement) fully explores Denise’s unique perspective on sensory experiences, human interactions and emotional challenges. There is nothing stereotypical about this portrayal; it is deeply realistic and individual. Something I noticed early on was that there are no “hints” outside of Denise’s POV. A lot of stories with autistic protagonists will present the POV of the narrator but also give hints for the (presumed) neurotypical reader so that they can make their own judgements about what is going on, separate from what the protagonist experiences. Duyvis doesn’t do this; our viewpoint on this story is Denise’s alone. As an example, there is a minor maybe-romantic plot involving Denise having a crush on a boy on the generation ship and not being sure if he’s interested in her. Another author might have made this clear to the reader, but because Denise struggled to read some of his behavior, and we only got what she perceived, I also wasn’t sure what his feelings for her really were. There are a lot of little examples like this that really helped get across how Denise experienced the world.
What I really liked about Denise, though, was the way Duyvis made her such a specific person, both as an autistic person and just as a character. She was an interesting mix of strengths and challenges that were sometimes confusing to the people around her and even to Denise herself. At one point, another passenger on the generation ship challenges whether Denise is actually autistic, citing some very impressive risks she’s been willing to take in her quest to find her sister. But at the same time, we also see her struggling in areas that other people don’t recognize, such as adjusting to new living spaces or dealing with emotional overload. It feels like I’m talking a lot about autism, but Duyvis’s characterization of Denise demonstrates the way autism (or any form of neurodivergence or disability) both isn’t everything about a person but does end up permeating all aspects of their life. Denise’s relationships with her mother and sister are both very complex and change over time, both because of how they handle her autism and for reasons totally unrelated. The same with her relationships with the people she meets in the post-apocalyptic world; with the work she learns to do; with her feelings about what is happening to her world and where she’ll belong after the dust settles.
The book is clearly well researched. It is obvious that Duyvis has done her research on both what a massive asteroid impact would do to Earth and the ways humanity might plan to survive, though this is not the kind of story where the technical details overwhelm the plot. (Again, we understand what Denise does and she’s a teenager, not an engineer.)
But my favorite thing may be the complexity of the ideas in this book, despite the author’s light hand. Neither the plot nor the themes ever fell into the expected tropes or went exactly how I expected. Every time I thought I knew what was going to happen or what the “point” of the story was going to be, Duyvis gently, in a very non-lecturing way, challenged the assumptions those expectations were based on. A big part of the story revolves around the generation ship’s limited resources and need restrict both how many people they carry and who those people are. The book starts out with the premise that Denise will have to prove herself, her addict mother, and her absent sister belong on board and it seems the point will be that despite all the marks against them, they are “useful.” But as the story goes on, even as Denise does prove herself and come to enjoy the satisfaction of people thinking she’s “useful,” the story challenges that premise. Should a person be valued for what they can do rather than merely the fact that they exist? In questions of the survival of humanity, whose survival matters? Is what we owe to future generations more important than what we owe to the people alive now? And then, turning it back, the more the story begins to question the values behind the generation ship’s plans, the more it also questions that black-and-white view. If the generation ship’s plan is based on exclusionary and semi-capitalistic values, does that undo the good it can provide to some people?
This is what I loved about the end of the book. Denise, having fought so hard for her family to get a place on the ship, and having also found that she could make friends and do “useful” work there, begins to question whether she even wants to be on the ship as she realizes how many people are being left behind as if there is no hope for them, and how many of those left behind are non-white, elderly, disabled, etc. She decides she’ll stay with her sister, who as an activist has always leaned in the direction of fighting for Earth and building community there. But then she realizes that she actually can’t do as well on Earth as she could on the ship; she needs the stability and the predicability the ship can provide. Yes, she also has her own friends there, as opposed to tagging on to her sister’s social circle, and yes, it is implied she’ll still try to work, though she’s been struggling with becoming overwhelmed. But when the woman who became a sort of mentor to her, Els, says that she has so much potential and they can accommodate her in her job, Denise pushes back against the idea that she should be allowed to stay because of what she’s learned she can do; she knows that she has value even if she can’t work. And while we do see that Denise still contributes to the life of the ship - she’s basically changed its entire course by the end of the book - it’s not about “proving herself” to either the ship or herself. She’s come to understand her own value simply as a person.
This is getting long but I also want to call out the casual diversity of those world. In addition to being autistic, Denise is biracial and Black, her sister is trans and queer, and other characters are Jewish, Muslim, lesbian, and have other marginalized identities. The way these identities are treated in the story is masterfully done. Diversity isn’t the point of these characters, no one is a token, but neither is it incidental. In some ways, we see an inspirational sort of natural accommodation for human differences, whether it’s a Jewish family who lose someone sitting shiva on a generation ship or Denise giving a scarf to a survivor who has lost her hijab; at other times, the challenges of marginalized identities are integrated into the story in less cheerful ways, such as Denise reflecting on how her race made it more difficult for her as an autistic kid in school, or Iris pointing out that the people stuck in shelters on Earth include more “melanin, wrinkles and wheelchairs” than she’d seen on the ship. Duyvis presents a near-future world that is just as varied as our own and one where our challenges haven’t disappeared.
Denise is a teenage girl at the end of the world. An asteroid is set to hit Earth, and with only six months to prepare, most of humanity is going to be stuck on a ruined planet in the aftermath, lucky if they managed to get into a private or government run shelter. But on the day the asteroid hits, Denise and her mother seemingly run into a bit of luck - while helping two women get to their shelter, they find themselves on a generation ship, scheduled to depart from Earth in a few days in search of a home somewhere in the stars. Though Denise and her mother are given only temporary shelter, Denise is determined to win them permanent spots on the ship - and one for her sister, Iris, as well, even though she doesn’t know exactly where Iris is. Everything she learns tells her that the ship will only take people who are “necessary” - people who can work hard, have special skills or contribute something that “earns” them and their families a place. But Denise’s mother is a drug addict and Denise herself is autistic. She’s always struggled, socially and in school, and the stress of living in a post-apocalyptic world just adds a host of new challenges. How will she prove that she deserves a shot at escaping a dying planet?
There’s so much I want to say about this book that I’m not sure where to begin. Denise is a fantastic protagonist. I’m not sure I’ve read such an immersive autistic POV before. Duyvis (who is autistic and the founder of the #ownvoices movement) fully explores Denise’s unique perspective on sensory experiences, human interactions and emotional challenges. There is nothing stereotypical about this portrayal; it is deeply realistic and individual. Something I noticed early on was that there are no “hints” outside of Denise’s POV. A lot of stories with autistic protagonists will present the POV of the narrator but also give hints for the (presumed) neurotypical reader so that they can make their own judgements about what is going on, separate from what the protagonist experiences. Duyvis doesn’t do this; our viewpoint on this story is Denise’s alone. As an example, there is a minor maybe-romantic plot involving Denise having a crush on a boy on the generation ship and not being sure if he’s interested in her. Another author might have made this clear to the reader, but because Denise struggled to read some of his behavior, and we only got what she perceived, I also wasn’t sure what his feelings for her really were. There are a lot of little examples like this that really helped get across how Denise experienced the world.
What I really liked about Denise, though, was the way Duyvis made her such a specific person, both as an autistic person and just as a character. She was an interesting mix of strengths and challenges that were sometimes confusing to the people around her and even to Denise herself. At one point, another passenger on the generation ship challenges whether Denise is actually autistic, citing some very impressive risks she’s been willing to take in her quest to find her sister. But at the same time, we also see her struggling in areas that other people don’t recognize, such as adjusting to new living spaces or dealing with emotional overload. It feels like I’m talking a lot about autism, but Duyvis’s characterization of Denise demonstrates the way autism (or any form of neurodivergence or disability) both isn’t everything about a person but does end up permeating all aspects of their life. Denise’s relationships with her mother and sister are both very complex and change over time, both because of how they handle her autism and for reasons totally unrelated. The same with her relationships with the people she meets in the post-apocalyptic world; with the work she learns to do; with her feelings about what is happening to her world and where she’ll belong after the dust settles.
The book is clearly well researched. It is obvious that Duyvis has done her research on both what a massive asteroid impact would do to Earth and the ways humanity might plan to survive, though this is not the kind of story where the technical details overwhelm the plot. (Again, we understand what Denise does and she’s a teenager, not an engineer.)
But my favorite thing may be the complexity of the ideas in this book, despite the author’s light hand. Neither the plot nor the themes ever fell into the expected tropes or went exactly how I expected. Every time I thought I knew what was going to happen or what the “point” of the story was going to be, Duyvis gently, in a very non-lecturing way, challenged the assumptions those expectations were based on. A big part of the story revolves around the generation ship’s limited resources and need restrict both how many people they carry and who those people are. The book starts out with the premise that Denise will have to prove herself, her addict mother, and her absent sister belong on board and it seems the point will be that despite all the marks against them, they are “useful.” But as the story goes on, even as Denise does prove herself and come to enjoy the satisfaction of people thinking she’s “useful,” the story challenges that premise. Should a person be valued for what they can do rather than merely the fact that they exist? In questions of the survival of humanity, whose survival matters? Is what we owe to future generations more important than what we owe to the people alive now? And then, turning it back, the more the story begins to question the values behind the generation ship’s plans, the more it also questions that black-and-white view. If the generation ship’s plan is based on exclusionary and semi-capitalistic values, does that undo the good it can provide to some people?
This is getting long but I also want to call out the casual diversity of those world. In addition to being autistic, Denise is biracial and Black, her sister is trans and queer, and other characters are Jewish, Muslim, lesbian, and have other marginalized identities. The way these identities are treated in the story is masterfully done. Diversity isn’t the point of these characters, no one is a token, but neither is it incidental. In some ways, we see an inspirational sort of natural accommodation for human differences, whether it’s a Jewish family who lose someone sitting shiva on a generation ship or Denise giving a scarf to a survivor who has lost her hijab; at other times, the challenges of marginalized identities are integrated into the story in less cheerful ways, such as Denise reflecting on how her race made it more difficult for her as an autistic kid in school, or Iris pointing out that the people stuck in shelters on Earth include more “melanin, wrinkles and wheelchairs” than she’d seen on the ship. Duyvis presents a near-future world that is just as varied as our own and one where our challenges haven’t disappeared.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Drug abuse, and Addiction
Moderate: Animal death and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Self harm and Deadnaming
The main character is autistic and experiences varying forms of ableism both from people who know about her disability and those who don’t; a major character is a drug addict and there is depiction of her high and coming down, as well as realistic portrayals of the impact of her condition on people around her, including her children; the main character has a serious injury which is described in moderate detail; the main character has meltdowns that include some self-injurious behavior; as part of the backstory, the euthanasia of animals is depicted; there is a minor incident of deadnaming in a flashback, though the actual name is not givensaffyre's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
- 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? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Mental illness, Ableism, Addiction, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, and Death
Moderate: Confinement, Grief, Transphobia, Animal death, and Racism
Minor: Blood and Self harm
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