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ticksick's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
5.0
tonyriver's review against another edition
4.0
As always Kneen has an unusual take on the world. Such different and interesting stories, linked by a common character but totally odd stories. Recommended but only if you enjoy the strange.
bronwynhaines's review against another edition
5.0
An Uncertain Grace is a fresh, smart and wholly compassionate illustration of humans as sexual beings. Kneen uses science fiction to explore the endless variations of sexual expression. She shows the reader how to see all forms of sexual attraction, including pedophilia, with an open and accepting mind, while still strongly objecting to sexual harm. As others have said, this book is about sex, but it isn't really. It's about humans and how we see each other and what is the same in all of us.
textpublishing's review against another edition
5.0
‘An Uncertain Grace imagines a future deeply affected by climate change, where technology and sex collide in new and confronting ways. But at its heart, it is a story about love, intimacy and finding humanity.’
ABC Arts
‘Kneen's adventures in speculative erotica are invariably amusing and playful…In a series of interlinked stories spanning a century from the near present to a post-human future, Kneen explores questions of sex, science and gender…A complex feat of speculative world building.’
Conversation
‘Krissy Kneen’s An Uncertain Grace shows a writer taking transformative bounds in the story she tells—interlinked iterations of the future woven with science and poetry of desire, sentience and, sometimes, jellyfish—and the beauty of its words.’
Ashley Hay, Australian, Books of the Year 2017
‘It’s a rare book that seems to drift like smoke away from the printed page to rewrite the physical world…[Kneen] wants us to strip naked and be transformed.’
Melbourne Review of Books
‘Haunting and wonderful.’
My Cup and Chaucer
‘Innovative and provocative…a virtual reality suit, sex, life, and the technological postponement of death.’
Australian
‘An Uncertain Grace is a highly provocative read that masterfully offers thoughtful speculation on the future of technology, memory and sexuality.’
Books+Publishing
‘Kneen’s descriptive prose is gorgeous; her stories are clever and interesting: her speculation on the future state is, despite the jellyfish, not the least bit whacky, but instead, quite credible…creative, a bit provocative and definitely thought-provoking.’
BookMooch
‘Folding sensitive threads of erotica into mind-bending speculative fiction, Krissy Kneen’s latest novel is an ambitious genre hybrid that addresses both morality and mortality from unique vantage points…She proceeds with sensitivity, sincerity and, most of all, curiosity…With its page-turning clarity, her writing is as compassionate and empowering as it is edgy and provocative. In the end, her characters are striving for the same things that any of us are.’
Australian
‘Such fantastical feats of Kneen’s fertile imagination are not only bedded in a convincing future reality of extreme weather and drastically diminished species but blessed with engagingly lively and varied characters. Their circumstances, typified by the unusual fluidity of the personal pronouns, are often deeply and inventively strange, yet utterly convincing.’
SA Weekend
‘Krissy Kneen is a writer you may not hear mentioned constantly, but she’s one of Australia’s most gifted storytellers. Unflinchingly willing to explore the darker hearts and desires, she’s an often confronting Australian erotica writer with a knack for bypassing the standard titillating fare to get to the heart of human wanting…A reasoned, emotive, and highly compelling exploration of what it means to be human, and the humanity of love, desire, and sex.’
Hush Hush Biz
‘Krissy Kneen’s latest novel, An Uncertain Grace, blew me away. Kneen’s prose is luminescent, and in this book I felt like I was learning so much. This book has elements of speculative fiction and erotica to it. Even though these are two genres in fiction that are generally seen as being acquired tastes, I think this is a book that everybody should read. It is tender, exciting and wildly imaginative.’
The Best Books We’ve Read This Year (So Far) 2017, Readings
‘A layered and complex and beautifully written novel that never flinches from the difficult topics it tackles.’
Hysterical Hamster
‘An Uncertain Grace is a strange, daring and clever novel and Kneen’s openness to connections that many other novelists never dream of making is exhilarating.’
Sydney Review of Books
ABC Arts
‘Kneen's adventures in speculative erotica are invariably amusing and playful…In a series of interlinked stories spanning a century from the near present to a post-human future, Kneen explores questions of sex, science and gender…A complex feat of speculative world building.’
Conversation
‘Krissy Kneen’s An Uncertain Grace shows a writer taking transformative bounds in the story she tells—interlinked iterations of the future woven with science and poetry of desire, sentience and, sometimes, jellyfish—and the beauty of its words.’
Ashley Hay, Australian, Books of the Year 2017
‘It’s a rare book that seems to drift like smoke away from the printed page to rewrite the physical world…[Kneen] wants us to strip naked and be transformed.’
Melbourne Review of Books
‘Haunting and wonderful.’
My Cup and Chaucer
‘Innovative and provocative…a virtual reality suit, sex, life, and the technological postponement of death.’
Australian
‘An Uncertain Grace is a highly provocative read that masterfully offers thoughtful speculation on the future of technology, memory and sexuality.’
Books+Publishing
‘Kneen’s descriptive prose is gorgeous; her stories are clever and interesting: her speculation on the future state is, despite the jellyfish, not the least bit whacky, but instead, quite credible…creative, a bit provocative and definitely thought-provoking.’
BookMooch
‘Folding sensitive threads of erotica into mind-bending speculative fiction, Krissy Kneen’s latest novel is an ambitious genre hybrid that addresses both morality and mortality from unique vantage points…She proceeds with sensitivity, sincerity and, most of all, curiosity…With its page-turning clarity, her writing is as compassionate and empowering as it is edgy and provocative. In the end, her characters are striving for the same things that any of us are.’
Australian
‘Such fantastical feats of Kneen’s fertile imagination are not only bedded in a convincing future reality of extreme weather and drastically diminished species but blessed with engagingly lively and varied characters. Their circumstances, typified by the unusual fluidity of the personal pronouns, are often deeply and inventively strange, yet utterly convincing.’
SA Weekend
‘Krissy Kneen is a writer you may not hear mentioned constantly, but she’s one of Australia’s most gifted storytellers. Unflinchingly willing to explore the darker hearts and desires, she’s an often confronting Australian erotica writer with a knack for bypassing the standard titillating fare to get to the heart of human wanting…A reasoned, emotive, and highly compelling exploration of what it means to be human, and the humanity of love, desire, and sex.’
Hush Hush Biz
‘Krissy Kneen’s latest novel, An Uncertain Grace, blew me away. Kneen’s prose is luminescent, and in this book I felt like I was learning so much. This book has elements of speculative fiction and erotica to it. Even though these are two genres in fiction that are generally seen as being acquired tastes, I think this is a book that everybody should read. It is tender, exciting and wildly imaginative.’
The Best Books We’ve Read This Year (So Far) 2017, Readings
‘A layered and complex and beautifully written novel that never flinches from the difficult topics it tackles.’
Hysterical Hamster
‘An Uncertain Grace is a strange, daring and clever novel and Kneen’s openness to connections that many other novelists never dream of making is exhilarating.’
Sydney Review of Books
johnny_trashbag's review against another edition
4.0
Don't read the blurb. Very good series of self-contained stories about sex, corporeality, and consciousness.
tasmanian_bibliophile's review against another edition
4.0
‘First person is a very narrow and limiting point of view.’
A five-part novel, with five different narrators. The stories are linked: the last narrator, Liv has a role in each part of the novel. Where to begin? This is erotic literature, and sex is prominent and explicitly described. Each character has a different role, along a spectrum of sexual experience and identity. And it’s that exploration of identity, of the limiting expectations of gender that kept me reading. Caspar, in Part 1, experiences sex from the perspective of Liv, with whom he’d had a sexual relationship. It’s a very different perspective from his own. Each part of the novel introduces a different character: a convicted paedophile; a synthetic boy; L who is in transition to a state beyond gender; and Liv. I kept reading, wondering. Wondering about the role of gender, experiences of sex, and just how fictional the world of this novel is. Wondering about possibility, and what makes me uncomfortable and why.
By the end of this novel, Liv is 129 years old. Somehow, that length of life seems entirely possible in Ms Kneen’s world, as does the medical and scientific possibility she introduces. While I found this novel an uncomfortable read in parts, I admire the way in which Ms Kneen invites the reader to think about aspects of sexuality which we generally do not discuss.
‘Maybe I’m too old for all this after all. I don’t know how to tell anyone’s story without gendered pronouns.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
A five-part novel, with five different narrators. The stories are linked: the last narrator, Liv has a role in each part of the novel. Where to begin? This is erotic literature, and sex is prominent and explicitly described. Each character has a different role, along a spectrum of sexual experience and identity. And it’s that exploration of identity, of the limiting expectations of gender that kept me reading. Caspar, in Part 1, experiences sex from the perspective of Liv, with whom he’d had a sexual relationship. It’s a very different perspective from his own. Each part of the novel introduces a different character: a convicted paedophile; a synthetic boy; L who is in transition to a state beyond gender; and Liv. I kept reading, wondering. Wondering about the role of gender, experiences of sex, and just how fictional the world of this novel is. Wondering about possibility, and what makes me uncomfortable and why.
By the end of this novel, Liv is 129 years old. Somehow, that length of life seems entirely possible in Ms Kneen’s world, as does the medical and scientific possibility she introduces. While I found this novel an uncomfortable read in parts, I admire the way in which Ms Kneen invites the reader to think about aspects of sexuality which we generally do not discuss.
‘Maybe I’m too old for all this after all. I don’t know how to tell anyone’s story without gendered pronouns.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
tyler_j's review
4.5
Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me the chance to read this.
This story has 5 parts, all connected. In the first part I was very uncomfortable (TW: Rape), in the second I was just confused but then as I read parts 3-5 the story and points to it became clearer. This is a story that I am still processing and thinking about. It's very thought-provoking. It takes on gender, sexuality, body image, sex, aging, and a future with how technology might alter our relationships with ourselves.
The content of this book is sometimes uncomfortable, but for a good reason. It forces us readers to take a look at ourselves, to ask questions we probably don't want to but need to. It makes you think, confront your own demons, biases, feelings, and how you approach and deal with these subjects.
The severity of sexual crimes are not treated in a light-hearted away or condoned in any way. This novel manages to open your mind to difficult areas of discourse, think about futuristic ideas and promoting compassion for people different from ourselves.
It started off slow and confusing for me, but slowly my mind was opened and I began to really think on all the topics and discussions explored within. While I highly recommend this book, I also recommend taking it slow and taking the time to process it all. I think i'm going to need a re-read of this sometime in the future.
This story has 5 parts, all connected. In the first part I was very uncomfortable (TW: Rape), in the second I was just confused but then as I read parts 3-5 the story and points to it became clearer. This is a story that I am still processing and thinking about. It's very thought-provoking. It takes on gender, sexuality, body image, sex, aging, and a future with how technology might alter our relationships with ourselves.
The content of this book is sometimes uncomfortable, but for a good reason. It forces us readers to take a look at ourselves, to ask questions we probably don't want to but need to. It makes you think, confront your own demons, biases, feelings, and how you approach and deal with these subjects.
The severity of sexual crimes are not treated in a light-hearted away or condoned in any way. This novel manages to open your mind to difficult areas of discourse, think about futuristic ideas and promoting compassion for people different from ourselves.
It started off slow and confusing for me, but slowly my mind was opened and I began to really think on all the topics and discussions explored within. While I highly recommend this book, I also recommend taking it slow and taking the time to process it all. I think i'm going to need a re-read of this sometime in the future.
helen_is's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0