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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I didn't like this book because I picked it up as a sci Fi book, not speculative fiction focused on family dynamics as they deal with illness and autism with a background of climate change escalating. This is a book for people that like reading about middle to upper class families with just a bit more bad luck than most, not for someone looking for a sci-fi book.
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
medium-paced
dark
sad
medium-paced
Clade writes poignant, quietly moving stories about climate change through the perspectives of individuals. There's something very disconcerting to read about the ways everyday life can quickly return to normalcy in the face of drastic environmental and societal changes. It's sobering.
I loved following Noah's life. As a child he braved a lot of uncertainty and difficult changes as the world shifted and adjusted around him, his family, his neighbourhood, and his community. There was a lot of loss - and a few difficult-to-read scenes. And yet he grew up, fairly adjusted, eased into his life as a scientist. Humans are much more adaptable than they think they are. Even as I write that, however, I feel impending loss. I hate that we have to be adaptable. It means everything can change in the blink of an eye, things I loved, things that were important.
The rest of the characters in this character-driven, semi-plotless story hold their ground as well, and their arc and growth is satisfying to see. A solid 4-star book.
I loved following Noah's life. As a child he braved a lot of uncertainty and difficult changes as the world shifted and adjusted around him, his family, his neighbourhood, and his community. There was a lot of loss - and a few difficult-to-read scenes. And yet he grew up, fairly adjusted, eased into his life as a scientist. Humans are much more adaptable than they think they are. Even as I write that, however, I feel impending loss. I hate that we have to be adaptable. It means everything can change in the blink of an eye, things I loved, things that were important.
The rest of the characters in this character-driven, semi-plotless story hold their ground as well, and their arc and growth is satisfying to see. A solid 4-star book.
I was uncertain of what the book was about based on the description but I was curious. It turns out the description is vague because the book is. It's set up in sections that are told from the perspective of different characters and each section leaps forward in time, but it does a poor job of telling you who these people are. There was one point where I had the gender wrong for half the section because it gave me no info on who this person was and I thought it was a different character, the character narrating the prior section. And the whole "Ellie discovers an affinity for bees thing?" That was maybe 5 minutes of the book.
It did loosely hold Adam and Ellie in the overall stories but didn't really have a plot that I could find. It was a sad book, a tad bit frustrating (for the above reasons) but mostly very boring.
It did loosely hold Adam and Ellie in the overall stories but didn't really have a plot that I could find. It was a sad book, a tad bit frustrating (for the above reasons) but mostly very boring.
Clade honestly depressed me. I think it was trying to do too much, and to me it just felt like a shitty version of Atwood’s Maddaddam trilogy. I also didn’t really like any of the characters. I don’t think the book was long enough to encompass all it was trying to do. It did not give me enough background on the characters, or enough of their inner thoughts. I feel that you have to have at least one of those to connect to a literary figure. I had a feeling this book wouldn’t quite deliver, but the concepts were intriguing enough for me to pick it up from 2nd and Charles. It didn’t leave much of an impression overall, I almost forgot I read it.
Normally I don’t like books that shift perspective so frequently but this book pulls it off nicely. It’s quickly apparent that the book is just snap shots of the life of a family as climate change is occurring. The ramifications to the planet, their environment, and the personal struggles in which they go through is crafted very well.
From short, snappy prose to flavour and colour scenes to no detail at all, there is a surprising about of empathy for the characters throughout. This book does a great job of pulling you into an individuals headspace and then being brutally honest about the outcomes.
While painter as overly dark, there is some light in it. I particularly liked the ending a lot and would recommend the book. If not for the ending it would have been 4 stars from me.
From short, snappy prose to flavour and colour scenes to no detail at all, there is a surprising about of empathy for the characters throughout. This book does a great job of pulling you into an individuals headspace and then being brutally honest about the outcomes.
While painter as overly dark, there is some light in it. I particularly liked the ending a lot and would recommend the book. If not for the ending it would have been 4 stars from me.
Quite a good read thematically. An interesting reminder that despite all that is coming for us as a species in the wake of climate change, this world and this universe is larger than just us.
What mostly lets this book down is the overly expositional style of a great deal of the novel. It's particularly a problem in the first chapter, but the need of the author to explain each character's inner motivations really bogs down the flow of the storytelling.
In a way it also tries to accomplish too much in too little a space of time. Survival in a time of serious climate change is the central focus, but
What mostly lets this book down is the overly expositional style of a great deal of the novel. It's particularly a problem in the first chapter, but the need of the author to explain each character's inner motivations really bogs down the flow of the storytelling.
In a way it also tries to accomplish too much in too little a space of time. Survival in a time of serious climate change is the central focus, but