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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
adventurous
medium-paced
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
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 book was an absolute trip. The world building here was just so original and absolutely fascinating. But I still have so many questions about how everything actually worked and how everything developed the way it did and where things are going.
Of our two POV characters, I really liked Adalla and kind of just find Seske obnoxiously naive. She's ten different kinds of clueless wrapped up in a position of power and I don't love it. She has some good ideas and her heart is generally in the right place but she consistently goes about things in the worst way possible. Adalla seemed more together, even with her grief and hallucinations muddling the water for her.
Of our two POV characters, I really liked Adalla and kind of just find Seske obnoxiously naive. She's ten different kinds of clueless wrapped up in a position of power and I don't love it. She has some good ideas and her heart is generally in the right place but she consistently goes about things in the worst way possible. Adalla seemed more together, even with her grief and hallucinations muddling the water for her.
I thought I'd lost this draft and was almost happy about it. I do so much harping on details when all I really need to say was, "Look, this is a great world-building party, just hang up your disbelief by the door when you enter and get ready to embrace a lot of improbabilities."
In summary (because my reviews tend to be way too long), we've got a unique-from-the-ground-up culture that we get to explore from two entry points at near-opposite ends of a major class divide: Seske, who's the clan matriarch's heir, and the forbidden-love-of-her-life Adalla, who's from the lower working class and, therefore, not good political matchmaking material...even if a typical marriage in this world includes six women, three men, and one child.
Unlike many forbidden romance stories, where the would-be lovers are constantly near each other and tempted by each other, Drayden separates Seske and Adalla and sends them careening off into different directions around the class system of the sentient, space-faring beast that is their home: Seske to palaces and wombs, Adalla to hearts and bones. Pointedly, in this day and age, one will become an "environmental" champion while the other will take on social issues--and the two will seem too opposed to be compatible. Sound familiar? Don't let the beautiful bright colors on the book cover fool you: this may be populated by a colorful, detailed world, but humans are humans and will find a way to discriminate against and hurt each other so that they can be "better" than others. Sigh.
Still, the world building has so much to recommend it that I will forgive the book for not being quite as escapist as maybe I'd hoped. And in the end, what's more escapist than women who actually manage to find a way to change their world for the better?
~~~
Want the whole thing that, apparently, wasn't deleted? I'm putting it under a spoiler tag to keep this review from being too long:
It's been so long since I was able to sit down and read fiction all the way through. The last thing I read was Watership Down back in March, and it looks like I didn't even review it here. I just haven't been able to concentrate for long stretches of time, and I didn't want to feel the artificial push and pull of emotions when I had plenty to be getting on with already. I guess that's why the ancient, impersonal (to me, now) Bible felt like a safe project to take on.
Sometime in July I started dipping my toes in fanfiction and Tor.com short stories again, and I guess I realized I was ready. (And what does that say about a voracious reader like me, that I had to be "ready" for fiction? I guess I'll just put it down to 2020 being a weird year.)
Escaping Exodus was an excellent book to get back into reading again, one that had been on my list for a long time and that was written by a Black author, featuring Black characters, which felt a bit important right now. I think I'm still one book short of my goal to read five books by Latin@s, but at least I'm reading something outside my experience. I mean, it's super sci-fi, so that was kind of a given anyway...
I found this book on a take shelf at the office and was immediately interested. People living inside giant space-faring creatures? How awesome is that? Plus, stand-alone--hallelujah!
There's so much remarkable about this book! The cover description on my ARC doesn't emphasize it, but Seske is one of two narrators, with the other half-ish narrated by her friend-or-maybe-more Adalla, who is from the working class and who can give us our window into how life on the space beast works. So the world building is even more incredible than I expected, spanning not just the environment but multiple levels of society. The people are a matriarchy, to the extent that the gender roles in our world our reversed, with men being looked down on and women in charge. This is in part because family and romantic structure are wildly different from our world, with ten people: six women, three men, and a child. Living situations are wildly different between the upper, lower, and absolute bottom classes, and each life is explored in detail without ever weighing down the story and the personalities. Drayden handles this incredible balancing act almost flawlessly, though the pace does noticeably pick up later in the book once the world is established.
[Tons of spoilers coming, all tagged, but you might want to stop here.]
Now, I do need to emphasize that this is not hard science fiction, so there are several things that require suspension of disbelief:
> A space creature, first of all, but one with lungs and a heart. It's hard to imagine that an animal living in space would have a familiar array of organs. But just go with it, there's so much other world building going on that we need some guideposts!
> For someone who's the presumptive future leader of the colony, Seske is wildly, impossibly ignorant of the practicalities of her people's way of life:
>>> On the other hand, I appreciated how Seske was such an imperfect character, and how her slow realization of what she didn't know also led her to identify and rely on people who knew more than she did (and to acknowledge them, rather than taking credit for their work). For someone denied just about any kind of knowledge needed to lead, she's great at working with what she's got and making the best of it.
> There never an explanation for how the family structure evolved, the extent to which people are encouraged to reach maximum capacity, and--most noticeably--whether/(potentially) why there are about half as many men as women.
But frankly, the book was so cool, with each new layer of the world opening up one at a time, that I was more than willing to just go with it. Some of the social and environmental commentary is a bit on the nose, but it still fits.
The end did leave a few loose ends--though this is where I emphasize that I was reading an advanced reader's copy (ARC) and some of the issues may have been resolved by the time the book published:
> What happened to Sisterkin? She kind of just disappeared after her attempted coup.
> How can Seske spend the whole book trying, against great opposition, to buck tradition in small ways only to flout it in incredibly massive ones at the end? () ()
> What kinds of changes are made to how Seske's people care for their creature? I would have appreciated a bit of a time-skip for the last chapter for an update.
And there was one deus ex machina choice that disappointed:
Also, structurally, there were to spots where Seske got two chapters in a row. Both times I was thrown off because I was expecting Adalla, and had to restart the page in the correct mindset.
Man, sometimes I hate being an English major.
So now this is where I emphasize again that I still enjoyed this book a ton and recommend it to anyone who likes very-much-not-hard sci fi. I mean, look at those four stars up there! I can't give it five because of, well, all the reasons above. But if you, like me, love a complex world that doesn't bog down a plot full of twists and turns, you'll probably like Escaping Exodus. It's full of wonderful characters, cultures, and environments. It has a bit of a slow start but the action ratchets up as the book goes on until characters are literally careening around in space.
In summary (because my reviews tend to be way too long), we've got a unique-from-the-ground-up culture that we get to explore from two entry points at near-opposite ends of a major class divide: Seske, who's the clan matriarch's heir, and the forbidden-love-of-her-life Adalla, who's from the lower working class and, therefore, not good political matchmaking material...even if a typical marriage in this world includes six women, three men, and one child.
Unlike many forbidden romance stories, where the would-be lovers are constantly near each other and tempted by each other, Drayden separates Seske and Adalla and sends them careening off into different directions around the class system of the sentient, space-faring beast that is their home: Seske to palaces and wombs, Adalla to hearts and bones. Pointedly, in this day and age, one will become an "environmental" champion while the other will take on social issues--and the two will seem too opposed to be compatible. Sound familiar? Don't let the beautiful bright colors on the book cover fool you: this may be populated by a colorful, detailed world, but humans are humans and will find a way to discriminate against and hurt each other so that they can be "better" than others. Sigh.
Still, the world building has so much to recommend it that I will forgive the book for not being quite as escapist as maybe I'd hoped. And in the end, what's more escapist than women who actually manage to find a way to change their world for the better?
~~~
Want the whole thing that, apparently, wasn't deleted? I'm putting it under a spoiler tag to keep this review from being too long:
Spoiler
It's been so long since I was able to sit down and read fiction all the way through. The last thing I read was Watership Down back in March, and it looks like I didn't even review it here. I just haven't been able to concentrate for long stretches of time, and I didn't want to feel the artificial push and pull of emotions when I had plenty to be getting on with already. I guess that's why the ancient, impersonal (to me, now) Bible felt like a safe project to take on.
Sometime in July I started dipping my toes in fanfiction and Tor.com short stories again, and I guess I realized I was ready. (And what does that say about a voracious reader like me, that I had to be "ready" for fiction? I guess I'll just put it down to 2020 being a weird year.)
Escaping Exodus was an excellent book to get back into reading again, one that had been on my list for a long time and that was written by a Black author, featuring Black characters, which felt a bit important right now. I think I'm still one book short of my goal to read five books by Latin@s, but at least I'm reading something outside my experience. I mean, it's super sci-fi, so that was kind of a given anyway...
I found this book on a take shelf at the office and was immediately interested. People living inside giant space-faring creatures? How awesome is that? Plus, stand-alone--hallelujah!
There's so much remarkable about this book! The cover description on my ARC doesn't emphasize it, but Seske is one of two narrators, with the other half-ish narrated by her friend-or-maybe-more Adalla, who is from the working class and who can give us our window into how life on the space beast works. So the world building is even more incredible than I expected, spanning not just the environment but multiple levels of society. The people are a matriarchy, to the extent that the gender roles in our world our reversed, with men being looked down on and women in charge. This is in part because family and romantic structure are wildly different from our world, with ten people: six women, three men, and a child. Living situations are wildly different between the upper, lower, and absolute bottom classes, and each life is explored in detail without ever weighing down the story and the personalities. Drayden handles this incredible balancing act almost flawlessly, though the pace does noticeably pick up later in the book once the world is established.
[Tons of spoilers coming, all tagged, but you might want to stop here.]
Now, I do need to emphasize that this is not hard science fiction, so there are several things that require suspension of disbelief:
> A space creature, first of all, but one with lungs and a heart. It's hard to imagine that an animal living in space would have a familiar array of organs. But just go with it, there's so much other world building going on that we need some guideposts!
> For someone who's the presumptive future leader of the colony, Seske is wildly, impossibly ignorant of the practicalities of her people's way of life:
Spoiler
she doesn't know that they are not the only surviving humans and she (and Adalla) don't notice the disappearance of a big chunk of the population. Forget Sisterkin being the favorite child--with this level of deliberate ignorance, it seems impossible that Matris wouldn't have just sneakily murdered Seske as a child and replaced her with Sisterkin.>>> On the other hand, I appreciated how Seske was such an imperfect character, and how her slow realization of what she didn't know also led her to identify and rely on people who knew more than she did (and to acknowledge them, rather than taking credit for their work). For someone denied just about any kind of knowledge needed to lead, she's great at working with what she's got and making the best of it.
> There never an explanation for how the family structure evolved, the extent to which people are encouraged to reach maximum capacity, and--most noticeably--whether/(potentially) why there are about half as many men as women.
But frankly, the book was so cool, with each new layer of the world opening up one at a time, that I was more than willing to just go with it. Some of the social and environmental commentary is a bit on the nose, but it still fits.
The end did leave a few loose ends--though this is where I emphasize that I was reading an advanced reader's copy (ARC) and some of the issues may have been resolved by the time the book published:
Spoiler
> What happened to Sisterkin? She kind of just disappeared after her attempted coup.
> How can Seske spend the whole book trying, against great opposition, to buck tradition in small ways only to flout it in incredibly massive ones at the end? (
Spoiler
Giving up the throne to a man she's divorcing, potentially settling into a couple-only partnership with Adalla...Spoiler
Maybe she managed because the upper/ruling class are basically all in stasis, so when they wake up, they'll just have to live with the changes. A bit optimistic, but pretty satisfying to imagine.> What kinds of changes are made to how Seske's people care for their creature? I would have appreciated a bit of a time-skip for the last chapter for an update.
And there was one deus ex machina choice that disappointed:
Spoiler
despite the family structure, all the potential rivals for Seske and Adalla's affections are dispensed with so that they can, at least by the end, be a couple. It's hard to imagine how everyone would be able to reconcile their feelings, especially Laisze; and Wheytt was, early on, married to two women, and later single but highly disliked by Doka. But still, it seemed a shame that in a world with such different family and romantic structures, the main characters (presumably) ended up as a couple instead of incorporating at least one or two people into their relationship.Also, structurally, there were to spots where Seske got two chapters in a row. Both times I was thrown off because I was expecting Adalla, and had to restart the page in the correct mindset.
Man, sometimes I hate being an English major.
So now this is where I emphasize again that I still enjoyed this book a ton and recommend it to anyone who likes very-much-not-hard sci fi. I mean, look at those four stars up there! I can't give it five because of, well, all the reasons above. But if you, like me, love a complex world that doesn't bog down a plot full of twists and turns, you'll probably like Escaping Exodus. It's full of wonderful characters, cultures, and environments. It has a bit of a slow start but the action ratchets up as the book goes on until characters are literally careening around in space.
adventurous
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Okay, why does this always happen where you read one book that has a very specific thing--in this case weird futures where societies rely on flesh and body horror to run--and then one week later you read a completely different book with the same thing in it.
Maybe, she observes, she could read the book descriptions before picking her next book. Or would that be too reasonable?
Anyway, this book was WILD and I have no idea what I thought about it except that I'm very grateful that I do not see images in my mind of things. It was compelling, although whether like the smell of freshly baked bread or like a grappling hook to the shoulder is debatable.
Maybe, she observes, she could read the book descriptions before picking her next book. Or would that be too reasonable?
Anyway, this book was WILD and I have no idea what I thought about it except that I'm very grateful that I do not see images in my mind of things. It was compelling, although whether like the smell of freshly baked bread or like a grappling hook to the shoulder is debatable.
adventurous
inspiring
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:
Yes
I absolutely loved this book! This is my first Nicky Drayden, but it will not be my last. The world was unlike anything I've read, and the worldbuilding was fantastic. I really enjoyed following the protagonists and became invested in their stories. The ending was a bit fast for my taste, but I cannot wait to read the next book!
I suppose there is a common theme to the books I have gone through this week. While I was listening to the Binti series I was reading Escaping Exodus at the same time. Both works I chose in order to fill the aufrofuturism square for bingo.
I also wanted to take the time here to say that the cover art is gorgeous. The colors, the spacing, and how it ties into the story are all outstanding. This is my favorite cover of all the works I have gone through so far this year.
Things that I liked.
On this page on goodreads the author, Nicky Drayden, posted in her review:
This book is weird. As you go along it only get more and more weird. I like that. It kept me turning pages, it kept me guessing as to where the story goes, and it kept me attempting to puzzle out this strange future.
Our main characters live in a city, inside a gargantuan space beast. At one point it is remarked that there are about 50,000 humans living inside of this creature. They make room for all these people, in part, by carving the insides of this... living thing. The daily lives, the working classes, the nobility, all live in this biotechnological future and to me it is rather gross. I picture something akin to an overlord in Starcraft but with more tentacles and significantly larger in size. All of this is to say, how humans live inside these animals is a puzzle to me. A lot of it is explained as you read but to give you an idea I would be thinking things like: "where does their water come from?", "how does the plumbing or sanitation work?", and "how and what do they farm?". Like I said, some of this is explained but the fact that it was there had me turning pages and thinking. I like that.
Things that I did not like.
I have a few little nitpicks about some more minor aspects of this story but mostly, the ending bothers me. Some of the plot lines are not wrapped up and I'm not sure why. I feel like there was enough time spent on them that we would get a least a paragraph of dialogue from Seske saying "I know these things happened but here we are and we will do this moving forward." But we didn't get that and I was sad and a bit frustrated.
Primarily however, I had a lot of fun reading this book. The plotting and pacing is good to great, the world and culture are unique and interesting, the characters are fun and engaging. If you like young romance, if you aren't bothered with biomass being cut up or a steady diet of bugs, if you like space-faring tales then this book just might be for you.
I also wanted to take the time here to say that the cover art is gorgeous. The colors, the spacing, and how it ties into the story are all outstanding. This is my favorite cover of all the works I have gone through so far this year.
Things that I liked.
On this page on goodreads the author, Nicky Drayden, posted in her review:
I'm so excited for y'all to read this book! This one really took me down a rabbit hole of weirdness.
This book is weird. As you go along it only get more and more weird. I like that. It kept me turning pages, it kept me guessing as to where the story goes, and it kept me attempting to puzzle out this strange future.
Our main characters live in a city, inside a gargantuan space beast. At one point it is remarked that there are about 50,000 humans living inside of this creature. They make room for all these people, in part, by carving the insides of this... living thing. The daily lives, the working classes, the nobility, all live in this biotechnological future and to me it is rather gross. I picture something akin to an overlord in Starcraft but with more tentacles and significantly larger in size. All of this is to say, how humans live inside these animals is a puzzle to me. A lot of it is explained as you read but to give you an idea I would be thinking things like: "where does their water come from?", "how does the plumbing or sanitation work?", and "how and what do they farm?". Like I said, some of this is explained but the fact that it was there had me turning pages and thinking. I like that.
Things that I did not like.
I have a few little nitpicks about some more minor aspects of this story but mostly, the ending bothers me. Some of the plot lines are not wrapped up and I'm not sure why. I feel like there was enough time spent on them that we would get a least a paragraph of dialogue from Seske saying "I know these things happened but here we are and we will do this moving forward." But we didn't get that and I was sad and a bit frustrated.
Primarily however, I had a lot of fun reading this book. The plotting and pacing is good to great, the world and culture are unique and interesting, the characters are fun and engaging. If you like young romance, if you aren't bothered with biomass being cut up or a steady diet of bugs, if you like space-faring tales then this book just might be for you.