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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The gist, background-wise, is that everything on earth -- plants and animals, including humans -- suddenly begins to devolve, to evolve backwards. Pregnant women are imprisoned in hospitals or actual former prisons to bear their children, with those who like the narrator are bearing "normal" children being particularly valued.
I keep seeing this compared to The Handmaid's Tale, and I really don't think they're all that similar. This novel really revolves around Cedar's relationship with her family, both her adoptive family and her mother who gave her up, who she decides to meet at the start of the novel. Erdrich does a beautiful job building a sense of place where you can't trust anyone, and by the end it's a bleak place. I wish there had been some more exploration of the idea of devolution and how people and governments responded to that (not just the what, but the why); Cedar as a narrator is so focused on her child that the world as a whole never quite comes into focus.
I keep seeing this compared to The Handmaid's Tale, and I really don't think they're all that similar. This novel really revolves around Cedar's relationship with her family, both her adoptive family and her mother who gave her up, who she decides to meet at the start of the novel. Erdrich does a beautiful job building a sense of place where you can't trust anyone, and by the end it's a bleak place. I wish there had been some more exploration of the idea of devolution and how people and governments responded to that (not just the what, but the why); Cedar as a narrator is so focused on her child that the world as a whole never quite comes into focus.
I was approximately halfway through when I decided to stop reading. I can count the number of books I haven’t finished on one hand, and I’m sure this is one of the most well-written. I had heard positive reviews so I selected it as my Book of the Month. However, after I was halfway through and still not invested in the book, I decided to do some research. Reading about life’s small trials and tribulations instead of focusing on the major issue occurring in the book was tolerable. But after I read several goodreads reviews comparing the book to The Handmaid’s Tale, I decided to call it quits. Life is too short to waste time reading a book you’re not excited about.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
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:
Complicated
i genuinely do not think theres anything i can possibly say to prepare u for the plot of this. don't look it up. it starts earnest and gentle and then SPRINTS from there. gorgeous prose. refuses to let you look away. the ending upsets a lot of people it upset me :( but it's right, thematically. i will think of the mailman and eddie until i die
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pregnancy
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Ill give this 2.5 Stars. Extremely dull. I wish it was a little more developed.
2018 book riot read harder challenge: sci-fi with a female protagonist by a female author.
2018 book riot read harder challenge: sci-fi with a female protagonist by a female author.
Cedar Songmaker is an Ojibwe woman adopted by white liberals. She's writing a journal to her unborn child and trying to figure out how to tell her parents she’s pregnant. But there's something else going on. It never explained explicitly what's happening, but she makes references to unsettling news and baffled scientists. She hears that cats and dogs are no longer breeding true. She sees an archaeopteryx from her window. She worries about her pregnancy. And she's right to worry, because soon pregnant women start being taken into custody.
2016 was a year that certainly felt apocalyptic, and it made Louise Erdrich dig out the draft of this novel she'd started in 2002. It's drawn comparisons to The Handmaid's Tale, but the only real similarity is that both deal with women's bodies reduced to commodities. Considering it's 2021 and we're being subjected to attacks on women's reproductive rights as we speak, I'm surprised there aren't more books that have posited their own visions of the nightmarish dystopia we're spiraling towards.
There's a moment when Cedar, wracked with guilt over an act committed in desperation, asks her adoptive mother Sera what she thinks Hell is like. Sera answers that they're already in it, but Cedar feels hopeful despite how hard things have become for her. I think this is an important distinction in light of the fact that Cedar is an Indigenous woman and Sera is white, and also a big reason why this book feels so different from The Handmaid’s Tale to me. It's understandable that a white woman would see a major change in the status quo as something to fear. To lose one’s autonomy and personhood, to be treated as less than human and have no one come to your aid — those are unimaginable horrors. But women of color have always known what it's like to not be able to take certain freedoms for granted. The world may change, and it may be scary, but there's also potential for what comes after to be better than what there was before.
Anyway, there's a lot to appreciate in this short book. It's perhaps less cohesive and fully realized than other Erdrich novels, it's still better than most books.
2016 was a year that certainly felt apocalyptic, and it made Louise Erdrich dig out the draft of this novel she'd started in 2002. It's drawn comparisons to The Handmaid's Tale, but the only real similarity is that both deal with women's bodies reduced to commodities. Considering it's 2021 and we're being subjected to attacks on women's reproductive rights as we speak, I'm surprised there aren't more books that have posited their own visions of the nightmarish dystopia we're spiraling towards.
There's a moment when Cedar, wracked with guilt over an act committed in desperation, asks her adoptive mother Sera what she thinks Hell is like. Sera answers that they're already in it, but Cedar feels hopeful despite how hard things have become for her. I think this is an important distinction in light of the fact that Cedar is an Indigenous woman and Sera is white, and also a big reason why this book feels so different from The Handmaid’s Tale to me. It's understandable that a white woman would see a major change in the status quo as something to fear. To lose one’s autonomy and personhood, to be treated as less than human and have no one come to your aid — those are unimaginable horrors. But women of color have always known what it's like to not be able to take certain freedoms for granted. The world may change, and it may be scary, but there's also potential for what comes after to be better than what there was before.
Anyway, there's a lot to appreciate in this short book. It's perhaps less cohesive and fully realized than other Erdrich novels, it's still better than most books.
dark
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot