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3.51 AVERAGE
3.51 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
My favourite read so far.
Deeply weird, disturbing, and utterly unique. I’ll never look at mushrooms the same way again.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Sexy mushrooms court the survivors of a plague. Body horror ensues.
dark
slow-paced
challenging
dark
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I had had this spoilered but the formatting broke and I couldn't fix it, so just be aware, there are spoilers throughout. Stick to the first two sentences to avoid.
I usually avoid chromosome apocalypse type storylines, or whatever you call them, but I let the fungal body horror draw me in dang it.
The beginning of this novella gave me some hope it would do something interesting but it just devolved into more and more TERFy nonsense. Very little of the text seemed dedicated to making me feel uncomfortable about people being hypnotized and raped by their hivemind zombie mothers, but instead the men "turning" into women.
I was (barely) willing to suspend my criticism for our narrator not discussing how the woman-killing pandemic intersected with trans people, intersex people, etc considering he seemed to be part of an extremely isolated and small cult-like village with some potentially weird homeschooling shenanigans going on. He is actively fetishizing and stereotyping the women who have died in the village through his job as the sole storyteller and curator of memories, yet the monster reincarnations of these women born from their corpses don't empower them to find justice and voices via the narrative of the story. There is no twist that ever reorients our understanding of what happened. This is not feminism.
I can empathize with Nate seeing the Beauties as thinking beings and wanting to protect them, either not realizing or not caring that he is being abused. I can relate to the depiction of pregnancy as parasitic. I get the point that people in power get the tables turned on them and get to experience some of what they've done to others.
But it makes my skin crawl reading about how women who are not "true" women pick a man to force into sex by clouding his mind, after which he gets the urge to wear women's clothing, becomes pregnant, is only able to cook or look after babies, has his testicles and penis shrink and become numb, and grows a breast-vagina hybrid organ. Not because I find these things gross, but because they mirror misinformation about the "contagion" of homosexuality and trans-ness. The Beauties function in the story by having the (heterocentric) sexual appeal of women and the privileges of men, and are revealed to have phallus-like appendages later in the story. It is difficult not to read them symbolizing a bigot's interpretation of trans women.
"I am repulsed and excited. It sickens me and attracts me and my body responds to the idea of it, even as my mind tells me it is horrible, horrible... I can't bear to think of what is happening inside him to make him a producer of babies, of milk."
(Thomas--the object of the previous quotation--was also aroused as his baby latched onto his nipple which gave me autogynephilia vibes, and though I guess it could be just trying to be 'realistic' to certain pregnant people's experience, it is depicted as a horrid spectacle.)
Our narrator's character growth even culminates with an assertion of masculinity via violence.
"He has finally managed to teach me how to be a man. I will do whatever is necessary to beat him. I am ready to kill."
Had some weird nigglings about how gay sex/love only comes up as a thing that teens do ("not for the older men who refuse such things") once the women die but before the Beauties appear, and how race only comes up in relation to nonhumans ("And what will it matter if some of us are pink-skinned, and some of us brown and some of us are [referring to fungus] yellow? We'll overcome such unimportant matters.") when every character has been described as white. There was also discussion of how some of the Beauties might leave the village and start creating essentially a new race of non-human hybrids, and the novel ends up with that group disappearing mysteriously as pregnant Nate leaves with his abuser, "his" Beauty, in order to travel the world. This harkens to fears of eugenicists, that the "lesser" would miscegenate and slowly take over the population. To support this, the one character who refuses to sleep with "his" Beauty (the same character who teaches masculinity above) is even discussed as wanting to make sure to over time breed the Beauty bloodline out.
"'You're alive. I'm alive. Thomas and that thing he calls a baby, and Oliver and Jason. No doubt more of these bastard crosses will start growing inside all of you soon, and if we want them to be more human than mushroom then we need to have order.' ... Yes, Ted has the future of all mankind in his sights, the continuation of the race, bred back to humanity."
We never truly come to see the Beauties as more than predators, despite Nate's adoration of them, so seeing him leave with Bee and his unborn child as a new family group does not feel like a triumphant discarding of gender norms, despite his hopeful narration.
Also being petty, but mushrooms aren't plants, they're fungi. Support of my suspicions about the education in this village? If that was the intent it wasn't clear, just annoying.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Transphobia
Moderate: Rape, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder
Minor: Torture, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy
pseudo-incest?
mind control
pandemic
For me, good books have to make me think, make me question and leave me slightly unsatisfied. A book that gives me all the answers may be satisfactory, but it is also immediately over after the last page and easily forgotten. Not so The Beauty. There is genuinely no way that this novel will not make you question your own surroundings. Before I launch into the, incredible, work this novel does I will make some more general comments. Nate, our main character, is a storyteller and in and of itself that is a fascinating character to choose. They are, often, the most observant people and those who see things in a cultural and social context. Nate, then, carries a lot of responsibility as the one who needs to keep the old traditions alive while living in a world that is slowly dying. He is not always likeable, but then how can someone grow up in that kind of world without, at times, being questionable. Survival sharpens the edges rather than softens them. Initially I wasn't too sure about spending a whole novel with an all-male society but then Whiteley's genius struck and I couldn't have been happier.
The idea behind this novel is utterly fascinating. What Whiteley manages to do is deconstruct gender roles down to the very core of what we consider masculine and feminine and then twist it around until the reader finds himself questioning everything. This means that halfway through the novel you find yourself wondering what it is you're reading. It's not until realization hits that you know there is no stopping now. The Beauty plays in to a lot of different debates, nature vs. nurture for example, or whether gender is performative or innate. As such, it is both interesting for men and women, rather than just one. I don't want to give away too much because this novel is definitely at its best when you go into it unknowing. What I am desperately waiting for now is some academic writing on this novel! Maybe I should start...
Whiteley's writing is captivating. It lulls you into a sense of security with its normalcy before hitting you with the strangeness of the events. It is definitely important, then, that Whiteley didn't lose herself in adjectives and grotesque descriptions because all the hard work this story does would have been lost. If she had presented the narrative in a way that was incredulous it would lose all of its power and just be another sci-fi book. But instead the power lies in the simplicity and easy with which it seems that the world changes irrevocably. There are some amazing images and some really powerful scenes within this relatively small novel and they're timed very well, making sure the reader is has a sense of time while also being completely lost.
The idea behind this novel is utterly fascinating. What Whiteley manages to do is deconstruct gender roles down to the very core of what we consider masculine and feminine and then twist it around until the reader finds himself questioning everything. This means that halfway through the novel you find yourself wondering what it is you're reading. It's not until realization hits that you know there is no stopping now. The Beauty plays in to a lot of different debates, nature vs. nurture for example, or whether gender is performative or innate. As such, it is both interesting for men and women, rather than just one. I don't want to give away too much because this novel is definitely at its best when you go into it unknowing. What I am desperately waiting for now is some academic writing on this novel! Maybe I should start...
Whiteley's writing is captivating. It lulls you into a sense of security with its normalcy before hitting you with the strangeness of the events. It is definitely important, then, that Whiteley didn't lose herself in adjectives and grotesque descriptions because all the hard work this story does would have been lost. If she had presented the narrative in a way that was incredulous it would lose all of its power and just be another sci-fi book. But instead the power lies in the simplicity and easy with which it seems that the world changes irrevocably. There are some amazing images and some really powerful scenes within this relatively small novel and they're timed very well, making sure the reader is has a sense of time while also being completely lost.
Pros- the body horror was genuinely disgusting and the author had me captivated with both stories
Cons- body horror made me feel icky
Cons- body horror made me feel icky
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Since this edition has two of Aliya Whiteley's stories, I'm going to leave a review on each individually.
The Beauty...Maybe 3 stars at most? It felt incomplete and maybe it was my own expectations of horror and "monsters" that made me not enjoy this as much as a lot of other people did. It feels very incomplete, and there is not a sense of terror involved when reading it; it just felt very robotic and monotone in voice. I'm unsure if it's because I'm an adult and reading it from the viewpoint of a young adult and younger that it just seems very unrealistic in reaction, and the characters are super angsty and frustrating to watch interact. It was a really cool concept though, and I do think the writing in general is very good. I'm just not sure if my expectations made me dislike it or if it is incomplete.
Peace, Pipe...Definitely 5 stars. This story felt complete and the lack of details mixed with the concept clues given just in prose writing was incredible. This story gave me some major feels about how we all as human beings experience language and emotions. Maybe it was so good just in comparison to The Beauty but I absolutely preferred this one. I love the writing, the concept, the importance on language but also the importance in feeling/body language. I would recommend this story to anyone who enjoys philosophy but in a more subjective manner than in academic.
Overall I enjoyed reading both equally. Despite not being overly impressed with The Beauty it still held my interest as I hoped the mushroom creatures would end up eating the children or enslaving them or something. Both had very unique concepts and interesting delivering methods.
The Beauty...Maybe 3 stars at most? It felt incomplete and maybe it was my own expectations of horror and "monsters" that made me not enjoy this as much as a lot of other people did. It feels very incomplete, and there is not a sense of terror involved when reading it; it just felt very robotic and monotone in voice. I'm unsure if it's because I'm an adult and reading it from the viewpoint of a young adult and younger that it just seems very unrealistic in reaction, and the characters are super angsty and frustrating to watch interact. It was a really cool concept though, and I do think the writing in general is very good. I'm just not sure if my expectations made me dislike it or if it is incomplete.
Peace, Pipe...Definitely 5 stars. This story felt complete and the lack of details mixed with the concept clues given just in prose writing was incredible. This story gave me some major feels about how we all as human beings experience language and emotions. Maybe it was so good just in comparison to The Beauty but I absolutely preferred this one. I love the writing, the concept, the importance on language but also the importance in feeling/body language. I would recommend this story to anyone who enjoys philosophy but in a more subjective manner than in academic.
Overall I enjoyed reading both equally. Despite not being overly impressed with The Beauty it still held my interest as I hoped the mushroom creatures would end up eating the children or enslaving them or something. Both had very unique concepts and interesting delivering methods.