Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - Some Desperate Glory

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Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

27 reviews

mgouker's review

adventurous tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Part of my Hugo reading. I enjoyed the story and the technology, but the main focus was the meaning of humanity in desperate times. The character grew a great deal in the story. The lack of diversity was a key point in the story.

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wreathedinviolets's review

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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avacadosocks's review

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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emily_mh's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I read this book on a friend’s recommendation and honestly bless her, because it was phenomenal. It’s the kind of story where I had no idea what was going to happen next, and I mean that in the best possible way. Every time I would be like “ah, it’s this trope”, and then pages later Tesh would flip everything on its head. I was sooooo invested and truly hooked by this fresh, original approach.

The plot was not the only mind-blowing thing about the book. It was also packed with existentialism, posing questions such as: what choices in the past lead us to our current reality? Are there certain outcomes which are inevitable in every reality? Who gets to decide what is for the “greater good” - who gets to even DEFINE the “greater good”? I love when books pose these ethical and philosophical questions and then the whole narrative is an exploration of them. Some may be answered, some may be left open, ultimately beyond the scope of the story to answer. But in every case the reader is challenged to consider things they may never have before.

Tesh also tackles extremist indoctrination as a main theme, as MC Kyr (along with most of the SCs), experiences this having grown up on Gaea Station, a military post containing the humans who survived the destruction of Earth and seek revenge from the alien perpetrators. This was heavy to read about. Gaea’s society is founded on eugenics (specifically relating to race and ability), as well as misogyny, sexism, queerphobia, and bioessentialism, and the sexual violence these engender. And Kyr, at the beginning of the book, is the poster child for Gaea. Her character arc is inexplicably wrapped up in deprogramming her indoctrination as she is exposed to the world outside Gaea. It is truly astonishing how much Kyr changes over the course of the novel, and how much she discovers about herself when free from oppressive social constructs. Kyr is by no means perfect at the end of the book, but she also isn’t the same person she was in the first chapter. It is important to note that Tesh as the author always presents the above topics (eugenics, sexual violence) as abhorrent. Even when Kyr doesn’t understand their horrors, you as the reader know that Gaea is deeply, deeply wrong, that Kyr is deeply, deeply wrong, and Tesh does too.

I wouldn’t say this is “found family” like the synopsis proclaims. Every relationship in the book is too complicated and messy and often filled with both love AND hate, to fit neatly into a usually wholesome and straightforward trope. And that’s to this book’s credit. The characters all feel real because none of them can be perfectly squared away into an archetype, their understandably complicated reactions to one another birthed out of the complex situations they find themselves in.

I am so glad my friend recommended this to me and that I decided to give it a go. The only criticisms I can think of right now are that I wish the commentary on eugenics and disability had been made more explicit, and that the ending felt a touch deus ex machina (but maybe that was ironically intentional). Regardless, this book deserved its 5 stars.

Rep: queer MC, queer SCs, Afro-Latina SC

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azurahh's review

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adventurous challenging fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Holy fucking SHIT.

This is the best book I've read so far this year (it's only March to be fair) (supplanting Dauntless as #1 book club read sorry Elisa).

Some Desperate Glory is a space opera centring around Kyr, a loyal soldier who has just come of age on a space station run like a cult. She is literally the worst person alive (affectionate) with bucketloads of internalized misogyny and homophobia and just generally brainwashed cult brain. When she's assigned to have babies until she dies she escapes and learns that there's more to life than her white supremacist death cult and actually they kind of suck! 5/5 no notes.

If you liked Gideon in GTN and Nona in NTN and even some of the mind-fuckery in HTN, this is the book for you. *Bestie says: Ender's Game (minus the homophobic author) meets Locked Tomb (unverified opinion because she says I wouldn't like Ender's Game in the year 2024 lmfao).

Our MC, Kyr, is deeply, deeply unlikeable at the start but I encourage you to push past that until she starts on her ~cult deprogramming journey because it's a really good arc. Overall I would say give it a good crack until you get at least halfway through part two. She's a truly flawed and kind of awful MC but she does in fact come out okay! We love to see it. Other than that the cast includes: a computer nerd twink, a sad little alien, a haunted brother the size of a house (Ortus-coded), and a nasty little dictator with a god complex (Jod-coded).

This is by far the closest a book has come to the feeling I got reading Gideon and I made some memes on the topic.

Kyr 🤝 Gideon

Obsessed with being soldiers for their colonizing/ethnonationalist government
Forced into critical thinking about society (😭)
Live with their closest friend/worst enemy/biggest rival
Dumb as shit about their crushes on girls
Sort of weirdly obsessed with a fragile person with big eyes

Aside from that. I thought this was one of the best social science fiction books I've read recently--it's a lot more challenging (or at least deals with broader societal questions) than e.g., Becky Chambers (who I love), but it has a similar feel to some of their books.

It's oddly funny in places--not overtly meme-atic like TLT, but a lot of that unexpected juxtaposition style of humor similar to Tamsyn Muir comes through.

Unfortunately almost everything good and interesting about this book is a major spoiler so it's very hard to rec it without spoiling the best parts! After a certain point you just start sending your best friend the word "scream" over and over again until you finish the book and die and if that isn't a recommendation I don't know what is.

Recommended for fans of: The Locked Tomb/Tamsyn Muir (obviously lol), Juno of Taris by Fleur Beale, and A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers.

Content warnings are listed before the book begins and you'll want to pay attention to them.

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lelcopter's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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exaal's review

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

"Some Desperate Glory" is an exciting tale with many twists and turns. Taking a page out of Ender's Game, this book explores the morality behind warfare, the conscription of child soldiers, xenophobia, and the fate of the human race. With LGBTQ+ undertones, the main character, Kyr, goes through drastic changes in character in this story that spans time and space.

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eyesofcrows's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

A pretty good book. I liked a lot of the themes and the slow progression of “frick, I’m the bad guy” that isn’t all together rushed. There were some surprising things and twists that I wasn’t expecting and I actually enjoyed. I wished there was more detail of some of the cultures and surroundings and minute little things, but this is a YA book and I’ll allow it its brevity.

I like how most characters aren’t individual bad or individually good but victims of the cruelty and surroundings they were born with or raised in. That’s vey cool.

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primaius's review

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adventurous emotional hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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livelaughlesbian99's review

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adventurous reflective tense fast-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

5.0

READ THIS BOOK. You will not read another like it.

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