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steveatwaywords's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
While this book falls into the category of science fiction, it is better understood as speculative fiction (and social commentary). A woman who is forced into mental institutions (in the early 1970s) is able to time travel to a future utopic society. To be sure, the utopia has come about only following the worst practices of apocalyptic consumption-capitalism: it struggles in the aftermath; but its people have learned an ethic (and matched morality) about sustainability and life which--for its time, especially--is hugely forward-looking, especially in terms of gender, sexuality, and child development. These sections, coupled with a future language which is at once as familiar as it is paradigm-shifting, make the book a valuable experience.
Where Piercy has more trouble is in sustaining the story and its significance across past and future. There are some tempting discussions about the malleability of time, of the power of "responders" like our protagonist Connie, and of the responsibility we have to ourselves. Implementing these future-thinking ideas into the 1970s, however, was often forced and at times neglected or forgotten. The resolution to the novel feels equally . . . irresolute in this way. Yes, our Connie grows into her moment, but its nature is quickly narrated and left unexamined. One wonders if she needed "the future" at all to enact it and what might we have said had she done so. (And this is not because the novel is brief; its nearly 400 pages with long asides into the descriptions of meals, bandages, and the biographies of minor characters.)
It is, in part, the nature of a lot of science fiction from this era to offer its themes through "heady" trips into other-spaces; and readers are often left to make of the experiences what they will. I'm thinking of almost all of Huxley, a lot of Heinlein, Daniel Keyes, Harlan Ellison, and even some of LeGuin. In this sense, Piercy's novel has like company. But I could not help thinking that its resolution fell somewhat short of the author's future vision.
Graphic: Forced institutionalization and Medical trauma
Moderate: Medical content, Domestic abuse, Grief, Confinement, Panic attacks/disorders, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Sexual content, Abandonment, Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, and War
gbentley's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Confinement, Child abuse, Mental illness, Forced institutionalization, Toxic relationship, Racial slurs, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Miscarriage, Medical content, Physical abuse, Drug use, Violence, Sexual violence, Racism, and Domestic abuse
Minor: Suicide
arlaubscher's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Graphic: Child abuse, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Suicide, Blood, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Self harm, Sexism, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Grief, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Medical content, Mental illness, and Violence
Moderate: Abortion, Addiction, Body shaming, Drug use, Blood, Colonisation, Homophobia, Self harm, Sexual violence, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Classism, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Rape, Infertility, Police brutality, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Sexual assault
uhm_kai's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Moderate: Sexual harassment, Violence, Body shaming, Drug abuse, Confinement, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Racial slurs, Addiction, Suicide, and Forced institutionalization
mar's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Drug use, Medical content, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Sexism, Forced institutionalization, Racism, and Confinement
Moderate: Death, Grief, Domestic abuse, and Homophobia
Minor: Suicide, Police brutality, and Racial slurs
briartherose's review against another edition
4.0
- This is a well-written, creative, diverse novel. I really enjoyed reading it. The mental hospital scenes in particular are powerful, but gritty and uncompromising. They provide an often jaw-dropping portrait of life as a impoverished woman of colour in mid-20th century America.
- The Mattapoisett scenes, while a creative vision of the future, often seemed tangential (and more than a little didactic). The reason for Connie being transported to their timeline isn't made clear until well past the halfway point, encouraging the reader to interpret them as Connie's coping mechanism, or hallucination. Which I don't think the author intended.
- However, the brief scenes in the 'bad future' were fascinatingly horrible. Is their world of exploitative, unpleasantly violent media that far removed from our own?
- A side note about the gender politics of the novel: in Mattapoisett everyone is referred to by the gender-neutral pronoun 'person', or 'per', yet the author insists on referring to those same characters as male or female. Even in-universe someone refers to their people as 'biological males and females'. Either the author didn't really understand the purpose of gender-neutral pronouns, or she was mocking them for it: whichever way it was, it comes off awkward. It seems like Piercy was much more comfortable talking about racial politics than gender identity.
Graphic: Addiction, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Homophobia, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racial slurs, and Racism
naimo's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Ableism, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, and Medical content
Moderate: Misogyny, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Rape, Violence, and Sexual violence
Minor: Child death, Death, Alcoholism, Child abuse, and Suicide