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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
Basically the new Hamdmaids Tale. Beautifully written but I felt the ending was abrupt and left a lot of unanswered questions.
What a disappointment! I love Erdrich, but this was full of sloppy writing. Parts are incredibly beautiful, and I am a sucker for dystopian novels, but this novel does not compare to most of her writing.
This was such an incredible book up until the last 30 pages or so. It ended very (to me) abruptly and a very vague ending. It was a very interesting book and concept and very dystopian.
I really enjoyed this book and found the premise fascinating; it was a very fine read, just not one that swept me completely off my feet--though that last paragraph of the book is a poem and a half.
This book is wild- totally different than anything I've read by this author before. I found myself sometimes putting off reading it because in our current climate, it seems like something that could actually happen. Which is terrifying.
A haunting tale told through a letter/journal written by an expectant mother to her child during a time when environmental changes are leading to biological irregularities and quickened evolution. At its core, this is a story about the discovery of identity and defining one's relationships. It's also a biting commentary on society. The narrative is engaging and the characters are endearing. I listened to this novel in audiobook form.
I’ve loved some Erdrich novels in the past, so this was disappointing for me. I loved the concept - evolution reversing itself. There were just too many things I didn’t enjoy, and perhaps too many plot points for one story.
The story itself was all over the place. One minute they’ve escaped their captors at the prison/hospital and they’re in a factory of some kind? The next minute they’re in a cave system.
The notebook writing to her child felt pointless. She was not writing the way you would in a diary or a letter to someone. Instead, it was just full-on exposition, novel-style. Also, she was convinced her baby would be a boy. Ok. Why?
Her relationships with the women in her life, her mother Sera, her biological mother Sweetie, and her sister Mary, are all complicated and contemptuous at times. Her relationships with the men in her life, on the other hand, including her father Glenn and partner Phil, are all relatively positive and she’s full of forgiveness for any trespasses they may have caused against her. Every time a male character is mentioned there’s this weird crush vibe in the descriptors. The most prominent is Eddie, the partner of her biological mother. She meets him briefly one time and he’s described as depressed and yet she’s obsessed with him for the rest of the book for no reason. Very unappealing.
The only exemption to this was with Tia Jackson, her hospital roommate, whom she goes the length of her hospital stay not speaking to and then is seemingly desperately in friendship-love with once they escape together. I get it, trauma-bonding is a thing, but the exposition dialogue needed to get them up to speed with each other as characters made me cringe.
The sprinkling in of Catholicism felt out of place or maybe I just couldn’t have cared any less for it.
The story itself was all over the place. One minute they’ve escaped their captors at the prison/hospital and they’re in a factory of some kind? The next minute they’re in a cave system.
The notebook writing to her child felt pointless. She was not writing the way you would in a diary or a letter to someone. Instead, it was just full-on exposition, novel-style. Also, she was convinced her baby would be a boy. Ok. Why?
Her relationships with the women in her life, her mother Sera, her biological mother Sweetie, and her sister Mary, are all complicated and contemptuous at times. Her relationships with the men in her life, on the other hand, including her father Glenn and partner Phil, are all relatively positive and she’s full of forgiveness for any trespasses they may have caused against her. Every time a male character is mentioned there’s this weird crush vibe in the descriptors. The most prominent is Eddie, the partner of her biological mother. She meets him briefly one time and he’s described as depressed and yet she’s obsessed with him for the rest of the book for no reason. Very unappealing.
The only exemption to this was with Tia Jackson, her hospital roommate, whom she goes the length of her hospital stay not speaking to and then is seemingly desperately in friendship-love with once they escape together. I get it, trauma-bonding is a thing, but the exposition dialogue needed to get them up to speed with each other as characters made me cringe.
The sprinkling in of Catholicism felt out of place or maybe I just couldn’t have cared any less for it.
If you like long-winded, boring, self-indulgent and preachy books, this is a must read.
I love the books of Louise Erdrich-she’s an amazing writer but I did not like this one. It just didn’t feel true in terms of the wholeness of the story to me in any way.
Well, this liberal Catholic Science Fantasy really wasn't for me. It's lesser [b:The Handmaid's Tale|38447|The Handmaid's Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)|Margaret Atwood|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1578028274l/38447._SY75_.jpg|1119185] with some really poorly thought out and integrated Science Fiction elements that mostly come off as God magic. I've noticed that non-genre writers tend to treat genre elements fairly poorly; like they've already added the spice, so why not dump every element in? A de-evolution plague(?) and a bio-engineered ear critter aren't really things that go together. It doesn't help that her take on de-evolution is closer to 1930s pulp or B-Science Fiction flick than anything tangible. Also, she seems to forget about it for a huge stretch in the middle of the novel. There are saber-tooth tigers wandering around, but the world just moves on. Given the modern "white genocide" bullshit, I don't think she'd even have needed to make this a genre piece. It's well written, but I found most of it very generic with enough left to annoy me.