Reviews - The Great Undoing

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77 reviews for:

The Great Undoing

Sharlene Allsopp

3.94 AVERAGE

gbatts's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous challenging emotional slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

dylanms's review

4.0

challenging mysterious reflective 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

lizziebee301's review

4.75

adventurous challenging informative mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

literaryann's review

DID NOT FINISH

Loved it as an idea got lost trying to follow story

rachchop's review against another edition

3.0

informative reflective

louisallama's review against another edition

2.25

challenging reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: N/A

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

This really wasn't for me. The book itself was not bad, it's just that the writing style really did not mesh with me. It was very dreamy and back and forth and literary for a book that I thought was going to be a hard dystopia. Frankly, I didn't even really know what was going on half the time. It took until about halfway through for the plot to actually start making sense to me. I definitely liked the bits about colonialism and its effects, and with Scarlett's Indigenous great grandfather fighting in WWI. But this is woven in with all the stuff about the celebrity love interest, whose name I can't even remember because I found the parts with him irrelevant and boring. The dystopia side of it really isn't even a focus of the book, and I think it would have been stronger without it, at least to me. But mostly my issues with this book are a taste thing, and having wildly different expectations based on the blurb, not actual issues with the book itself.

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

4.75

challenging emotional reflective medium-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: Complicated

The Great Undoing is a piece of dystopian fiction with a strong, unapologetic indigenous angle. Its structure, particularly the short chapters that move back and forward in time, and its unique, experimental approach, means it is a challenging read. But the reader's effort is richly rewarded. At its most basic, it features a character named Scarlet Friday, whose job as a truth-teller requires her to correct the historical record. When the digital biosurveillance system that effectively runs the world breaks down and global borders begin to close, Scarlet and a friend flee London for Australia. She takes with her a copy of Ernest Scott's Short History of Australia, in which she records their journey and amends, corrects, and otherwise interacts with the original text as she goes. While this novel contains the expected dystopian and apocalyptic storylines and tropes, the conversation between Scarlet and the text was where it really shone. I loved seeing her ideas, memories, and knowledge challenge the once accepted wisdom in Scott's book. It was particularly effective and affective when it came to her great -grandfather's involvement in World War I and Australia's amnesia about aboriginal participation in that war - possibly because Scarlet's fictional great-grandfather is the author's actual great -grandfather. I loved the critique of colonialism, the way statistics, documents, and quotes from other works were incorporated , and the way some of Scott's words "intruded", their racism starkly obvious. As a historian in a former life, I was also interested in the exploration of time and place from an indigenous aboriginal perspective and how they differed from the European conceptualisations. Not all parts of the novel worked for me. The romance storyline, in particular, felt weak and unnecessary. But the critique of colonialism and racial bias in much of Australia's officially recognised, western-focused history more than made up for this. This is a unique and innovative novel that provided plenty of food for thought. I very much enjoyed my first read of this impressive debut, and I am certain it would reward a second or even third reading.

Content Warnings