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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
I’m currently teaching a grade 12 class that is now reading this novel. Most of them are loving it, and this is coming from a majority of students who do not like to read (as they are more STEM focused - or that is their reasoning when they tell me why they don’t like to read).
We’ve reflected so much from this novel on what it truly means to be anti-racist. We’re looking at this novel through a postcolonial lens (for critical theory application) and it’s also working really well, since they have the terminology from this lens to apply it to the book like colonialism, allegory, power, privilege, etc. So as an educator, this book is creating such real and raw conversation that sometimes makes the space uncomfortable - but the conversation is happening in a safe area where we can have these discussions and reflect. I’m also in a community that is predominantly white - so we did the “power flower” activity to help see privilege and where it exists in everyone’s life in the classroom.
With that being said - I love this book as an educator, as a reader, and as a person who is trying to deconstruct and unlearn my own prejudices and privilege. Jael Richardson’s writing simplistically describes colonization, systemic oppression and the cycle of system oppression; while also questioning power, privilege, and identity.
I loved that I questioned the genre so many times. I’ve never done this before while reading a book. I don’t know whether it is a dystopian, a utopian, or historical fiction. Is it all of the above? Does it depend on whether your a gutter person or a mainlander? These are questions I’m now asking myself for the reality this book mirrors. I feel like the answers seem clear to me after finishing the book.
1000% recommend as a pleasure read and as an education tool. There is also a free resource from the author to teach with questions and notes. This is an easy read that easily deconstructs power and systemic racism. This book would work really great to help people understand those terms in much simpler format.
We’ve reflected so much from this novel on what it truly means to be anti-racist. We’re looking at this novel through a postcolonial lens (for critical theory application) and it’s also working really well, since they have the terminology from this lens to apply it to the book like colonialism, allegory, power, privilege, etc. So as an educator, this book is creating such real and raw conversation that sometimes makes the space uncomfortable - but the conversation is happening in a safe area where we can have these discussions and reflect. I’m also in a community that is predominantly white - so we did the “power flower” activity to help see privilege and where it exists in everyone’s life in the classroom.
With that being said - I love this book as an educator, as a reader, and as a person who is trying to deconstruct and unlearn my own prejudices and privilege. Jael Richardson’s writing simplistically describes colonization, systemic oppression and the cycle of system oppression; while also questioning power, privilege, and identity.
I loved that I questioned the genre so many times. I’ve never done this before while reading a book. I don’t know whether it is a dystopian, a utopian, or historical fiction. Is it all of the above? Does it depend on whether your a gutter person or a mainlander? These are questions I’m now asking myself for the reality this book mirrors. I feel like the answers seem clear to me after finishing the book.
1000% recommend as a pleasure read and as an education tool. There is also a free resource from the author to teach with questions and notes. This is an easy read that easily deconstructs power and systemic racism. This book would work really great to help people understand those terms in much simpler format.
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A realistic alternative world that seems loosely based on colonizers in North America, slavery, residential schools, and the continued marginalization of Aboriginal peoples and African-Americans. I appreciated that the story was written without graphic details yet still drove home the emotions, challenges etc the characters faced.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
y'all...
cw: death, suicide, self-harm, sexual abuse, systemic racism, intergenerational trauma, sexism, police brutality, gun violence, ableism, abusive relationship, childbirth
this book is a reflection of reality, which is why i categorized it as sci-fi but also contemporary. the main character, elimina/lima goes through so much and there's so much depth to her character. all the other characters as well, violet, josephine, david, rowan (maybe not so much for david). it was a multi-layered and very deeply critical book. or maybe i just had some brain cells to use.
wow where do i even begin, i wish i had read this as a physical copy that i own because i want to remember everything i highlighted and made note of. but i'm just going to put them all here so spoilers!
“when i drew pictures of my mother and me, i used peach for her and chestnut for myself. ‘why is your skin named after something soft and sweet and mine is something hard and bitter?’ ‘because you are so much tougher’, she said. i though that was a very good answer. and maybe it’s true. but i am forced to be tough. it takes a particular kind of strength to exist in a world where you are not wanted that doesn’t feel like strength at all. like giving up or giving in would be easier, smarter even. maybe that is my chestnut, my toughness. the fact that i am still here.”
the book takes place in three places: livingstone, riverside and the gutter. in the first part, elimina is adjusting to her place at the academy, a place where children are sent until they turn 18 and then they can work to pay off their debts. if they have children, they have to give them to the state so they can go to the academy as well, the more children you have, the more debt you accumulate and if you don’t live long enough to pay it off, it passes on to your children. i’m not sure if i explained that properly but anyway, back to livingstone.
when she first gets there, mr. gregors explains the system to her because she was a project child, meaning that she was born in the gutter but was adopted by someone in the mainland for an experiment. also they have an ‘x’ on their hands, usually both but she only has it on one hand to indicate that she doesn’t fully belong on the mainland or in the gutter.
“your debt, your scar and your status as a ward of the nation are all tied together. part of a very intricate economic system. it’s important for you to understand that, elimina.”
and then he goes on to tell her a story about how the people on the mainland colonized the land where the sossi were living already. but he gives it the colonizer twist: “they weren’t forced. no one pushed them out, despite what some say. sossi people were given useful incentives to go farther inland and to develop new areas…gutter folks never had to pay for their homes, and they didn’t like the change…but instead of following procedures, sossi people resorted to what they knew…which brings us to the gutter system…to pay back the mainland for the lives that were lost and the damages that were incurred…sossi people were fined for their role in the rebellion. they were required to work off their individual debt and earn back their freedom. the gutter system is built on the premise of redemption freedom”
so there’s a lot to unpack there, but a lot of it resembles european colonization and it’s even told from a colonizer’s perspective. the whole part where he discusses how the sossi people didn’t like the fact that they had to pay for their homes, like yeah, that’s the whole point of communalism and being there for each other. they really just shoved their capitalistic creation of a so-called ‘debt’ down everyone’s throats and no one could dare question the system.
mr. gregors gives her a red coat to wear and explains to her that her duty is to keep him informed of what everyone is doing. basically, she was forced to be a cop for the academy and was bullied by the other kids for it even though it wasn’t her fault. also, keep in mind she’s like barely 15 when this is all happening. mr. gregors also says “i, for one, would prefer if we never needed leashes at all. but sometimes it’s necessary, and i always leave that up to my red coats to decide”. of course, the classic divide and conquer, he shifts the blame to one of the students to create the illusion that he is in full support of the students and would never punish them in such a brutal and inhumane way. she meets another red coat who tells her their job is to ‘enforce the law’ and ‘maintain happiness’ and then tells her, ‘enforcing the law for those who need reminders means happiness for everyone’, which leaves elimina to think about those words together—enforcing and happiness.
she finds comfort in an older woman named ida who works at livingstone academy. when elimina asks if she should be happy to be there, ida says:
“i don’t know if i have happiness…but i found purpose, i suppose. that’s what drives me. perhaps you can find that too. if you ask me, purpose is far more useful than happiness. happiness is like sugar—sweet, but quick to go. but purpose is really something, baby girl. purpose gets you through whatever comes.”
i have to agree with her, happiness and joy are fleeting, reason and purpose are what keep us here. i’ve been thinking about my purpose and reasons to be here and truly i can only think of people, community and by that i mean my family and my dear dear friends.
she meets josephine and rowan who become friends with her and she also enters into a rivalry with violet, a girl that works at the academy’s office with her. she sees josephine sneak out at night quite often but keeps quiet about it until one night she decides to follow her. to her surprise, she finds rowan, violet and david there too, who have gathered there for comfort that they find in each other’s company. david is josephine’s brother and that adds more to the secret that they’re trusting her with because siblings are not sent anywhere together in academies. one day, they talk about family:
“‘family’s not a burden, rowan’, david says.
‘it is if you have to pay their debt.’…
’i don’t know that life’s really worth living without family, without someone. i can handle all of this, if it’s for someone or something. but what’s the point if it’s just me? i don’t know if i could do it that way.’”
so david fully read my thoughts, although i agree with rowan sometimes, not about the debt part but the burden part. while i don’t know what my purpose is, i feel like my purpose is family, but they have other dreams for me and that feels like a burden i shouldn’t be carrying on their behalf.
next comes the employer fair, david, rowan and violet are of age to attend and be employed. that day, josephine tells elimina she feels sick and stays in bed and elimina attributes it to the fact that she’s being separated from her brother. someone from the hill, sossi people who didn’t take part in the war and are well off like the people of the mainland, ends up hiring david. violet is hired by two brothers who are off to create a new business and rowan will be going to the mainland to join boxing tournaments. rowan explains to elimina, “mr. gregors gets a good chunk for every one of us who gets hired…he may be nicer than some, he may do things differently. but he’s one of them. you can’t ever forget that.” and it’s true, no matter how caught up you become, in academia or in a workplace, they would have no trouble replacing you if you were of no worth to them. especially if you are living with a permanent or temporary disability, they’ll still take advantage of you, they literally do not care. and that my friends, is systemic ableism.
they get back from the employment fair to find that josephine is missing and the entire mainland guard is looking for her because that’s a loss in profits for them right, one less person paying off their ‘debt’. rowan explains to elimina that josephine was in david’s trunk the whole time and went with him to the hill. she feels betrayed but he tells her, “if they think you’re involved or if they want to think you’re involved, that red coat isn’t going to protect you”, and it’s true. people with power can do anything they want, they can fabricate false evidence or declare you guilty without any proof and it’s not unjust according to our legal system. mr. gregors takes the red coat away from her, thinking that she’s involved in josephine’s disappearance. rowan leaves for the mainland and elimina listens to ida tell the true story of how the gutter came to be.
“truth is, i don’t ache for a child the way some do. and i don’t ache for a man. i suppose i’ve got enough to worry about that those things don’t seem so interesting to me.” ooooff i relate so much!!
and she says about the colonizers, the olo, “we should have seen the dark sky that lived in their hearts, that jealousy that led to the rain and the cold. mama told me, ‘you should never follow people who don’t know the way to their own joy, who seek it out in other places.’” i wonder what joy colonizers found in pushing people out of their way to declare their right of ownership over the land. ida says, “we did not have proof that the land was ours, only stories told in a language they couldn’t understand. and what are stories but lies that are told too often, olo said. but stories, baby girl, stories are life. they are on our tongues. they are with out now.” i like how she emphasizes the power of oral storytelling, quite the opposite of worshipping the written word. she tells her about how some of the sossi people hid during the war and settled down on the hill with all the privileges of those on the mainland, “but there are many who think little of them because they put themselves first long ago. because they left so many behind.”
soon, elimina starts to feel unwell and the nurse declares her pregnant with rowan’s child. mr. gregors sends her to riverside to deliver the baby, saying, “this is your doing and these are your consequences to bear.” as if the child was nothing more than more debt she was to acquire.
at riverside, she meets tilly and isobel at miss charlotte’s house. she also meets miss lulabelle who calls her lima and tells her she is finally home. she ends up being the midwife that delivered her and tells her her mother died. she also tells her more about ‘the project’. she tells her that all the other kids from the project cases are gone, all 99 of them. “that’s when folks from the hill coalition got involved. they argued that the project wasn’t right. unjust and inhuman…”the building burnt down with all twenty trapped inside and not a single mainlander. they said it was an accident. bad wiring. but gutter folks know better.”
then one day, violet arrives, pregnant and bruised. their rivalry has ended and violet says, “maybe family are just the people you meet who are worth forgiving, so you can keep them close.” i love her so so much and for some reason i predicted her death, like i knew in my bones she was going to die. i think it’s because the same happened in the good luck girls, the girl was named violet and she died. wow my elementary teacher would be so proud of that ~text to text connection~
when tilly gives birth but wants to keep the child, elimina realizes she wants to keep the child too because they’re just going to feed the child back into the system and she knows what it’s like not knowing who your true family is. “we’re doing it all over again. giving our babies away. growing apart. this is my only family. and what if he’s all the family i’ll ever have?”
miss charlotte tells elimina that was tilly did was selfish and that’s not what ‘good’ mothers do. elimina questions this binary of good/bad parenting and concludes that “gutter life requires us to make impossible decisions, ones she’ll never understand.” parenting is so complex and making do with what you have and adapting to new situations requires so much strength and resilience. i could never understand motherhood properly even if i tried to empathize wholly.
elimina decides she’s going to keep the baby and go to settle in the gutter. she tells violet she’ll see her there, has miss lulabelle deliver the baby and names him after duncan, her son who helped her out with so much.
when she arrives at the gutter, she is welcomed by geneva jackson, rowan’s mother (!!!) who is not at all happy about this situation. in her mind, rowan was supposed to pay off their debts and take his entire family to the mainland. this dream resembles the dream of many who think they are in proximity to the upper class but really aren’t. they base this dream on ‘hard work’ when really, there are so many systems in place to oppress you and struggling to make it across is also partially based on luck or compromising on your morals and values.
one of the arguments geneva has with her daughter shirley is about her husband’s work. he wants to quit working at the factory because it’s bad for his health but geneva insists that he keep going because the money is good. shirley doesn’t want to see her husband die and argues otherwise, that even if they both have to work to make ends meet, having him healthy and alive matters a lot more than a higher paycheck. it’s a perfect example of what i was saying, geneva is compromising on what she values (her family) to try and ‘make it out’ by earning more money to pay off her debt. elsa may their neighbour tells elimina, “there are folks who are happy here, who see this place as home, and there are folks who believe home is somewhere beyond those walls.” and it reminds me a lot about us chasing the future. never living in the present or resting but following our capitalist instinct to keep doing something. elimina realizes that geneva doesn’t like her because she showed up out of nowhere with a child and now both of them, in addition to rowan’s mother and sister are his responsibility. she just pushed their dreams back by a couple of years.
tw: suicide
when violet shows up at the bridge from riverside, she tells elimina about her sick daughter, jewel and about how no one wants here, not even the system that wants babies will take her. when elimina turns around to insist that the guard let her in, violet has already jumped off the bridge. : /
elimina writes letters to david at the hill, still hoping deep down that maybe she’ll end up there. she also writes almost every day to rowan who never replies. she finds josephine in the gutter, who had come back because she didn’t like it at the hill and david adores them. “whenever i criticized them, he would ask me why i hated them so much. he would beg me to keep my voice down because he was so afraid they would hear…those people on the hill surrendered to the mainland and then left our families here with nothing. they just paid for themselves and left. now there’s this whole gutter system that we’re stuck in, while they’re making all the money they can.” she calls the debt imaginary, which it is, and feels sad that david is prioritizing profits over his familial relationships.
rowan comes back and tells elimina how horrible it was out there, “i get why violet did she did elimina. i get it.” and elimina remembers how ida had told her how the hardest battles to fight are the ones that come for our minds. in my opinion, rowan has depression, but also the book shows us how much societal oppression impacts depression. his darkest thoughts and his suicidal ideation come from his lived experiences.
elimina gets pregnant again so they move out and get their own place which turns out to be the place where elimina was born. rowan starts to wander and isn’t home for days or even weeks at a time. josephine becomes involved with the network, a resistance group. she tells elimina how their debt is really just imaginary, “you’re not really free if the gutter system still exists. that debt isn’t yours to pay. you don’t owe them anything. they owe you. they owe all of us.” and elimina envies her purpose and the way she’s really fighting for what she wants. she also tells elimina that the network has been using her letters she wrote to david to raise sympathy and how they’ve been published everywhere. shortly after that, rhodes, someone sent from the mainland arrives and asks to ‘collect information’. he tells her that mr. gregors and miss charlotte have charged her with forgery, kidnapping and endangering the life of a child. she asks them if they’re facing any charges for killing all the children involved in the project. they ignore her and tell they’re back for ‘their project’ (her child). she doesn’t comply, she knows that if she tells the truth or lies, they’re going to find a way to make her guilty for their own gain. he finally leaves and tells her “i’m going to tell them about the things you didn’t say and that i didn’t hear. it’s not my job to be emotional or take sides but i will share the facts.” as if objectivity even exists. he’s gonna sit there and tell me he isn’t taking sides? dumbass.
elimina goes out to look for rowan who she finds in a crowd that has gathered to hear the network speak. she accuses him of doing nothing, not supporting her financially and he feels guilty because he is trying to do the best he can and feels like he’s never enough for her. he obviously saw her correspondence with david and felt betrayed. all of a sudden, the guards shoot at the crowd and elimina loses her child. she thinks, “i’m not sure if i’m sad or relieve about losing the baby, and this thought brings back dark clouds i can’t seem to break through, like a storm with no clear ending. because maybe i did this. maybe i didn’t want her enough. or maybe i know this life would kill her and i wanted to spare her from the start.” despite her not having any control over her miscarriage, she still blames herself.
the network comes up with a proposal for the mainland, they want to declare independence. they drive out the guards and eventually the mainland sends a representative who increases their daily wage by a dollar and promises to improve their working conditions. much of the crowd rejoices at this while others know this is not the true win they’re looking for and josephine says, “a system can’t be broken in a moment”. it’ll take time. elimina says, “i don’t know how to hope anymore. i don’t know how to believe in anything…i am learning to let go of the things i can’t control so i can hold fast to the people i need most.”
cw: death, suicide, self-harm, sexual abuse, systemic racism, intergenerational trauma, sexism, police brutality, gun violence, ableism, abusive relationship, childbirth
this book is a reflection of reality, which is why i categorized it as sci-fi but also contemporary. the main character, elimina/lima goes through so much and there's so much depth to her character. all the other characters as well, violet, josephine, david, rowan (maybe not so much for david). it was a multi-layered and very deeply critical book. or maybe i just had some brain cells to use.
wow where do i even begin, i wish i had read this as a physical copy that i own because i want to remember everything i highlighted and made note of. but i'm just going to put them all here so spoilers!
“when i drew pictures of my mother and me, i used peach for her and chestnut for myself. ‘why is your skin named after something soft and sweet and mine is something hard and bitter?’ ‘because you are so much tougher’, she said. i though that was a very good answer. and maybe it’s true. but i am forced to be tough. it takes a particular kind of strength to exist in a world where you are not wanted that doesn’t feel like strength at all. like giving up or giving in would be easier, smarter even. maybe that is my chestnut, my toughness. the fact that i am still here.”
the book takes place in three places: livingstone, riverside and the gutter. in the first part, elimina is adjusting to her place at the academy, a place where children are sent until they turn 18 and then they can work to pay off their debts. if they have children, they have to give them to the state so they can go to the academy as well, the more children you have, the more debt you accumulate and if you don’t live long enough to pay it off, it passes on to your children. i’m not sure if i explained that properly but anyway, back to livingstone.
when she first gets there, mr. gregors explains the system to her because she was a project child, meaning that she was born in the gutter but was adopted by someone in the mainland for an experiment. also they have an ‘x’ on their hands, usually both but she only has it on one hand to indicate that she doesn’t fully belong on the mainland or in the gutter.
“your debt, your scar and your status as a ward of the nation are all tied together. part of a very intricate economic system. it’s important for you to understand that, elimina.”
and then he goes on to tell her a story about how the people on the mainland colonized the land where the sossi were living already. but he gives it the colonizer twist: “they weren’t forced. no one pushed them out, despite what some say. sossi people were given useful incentives to go farther inland and to develop new areas…gutter folks never had to pay for their homes, and they didn’t like the change…but instead of following procedures, sossi people resorted to what they knew…which brings us to the gutter system…to pay back the mainland for the lives that were lost and the damages that were incurred…sossi people were fined for their role in the rebellion. they were required to work off their individual debt and earn back their freedom. the gutter system is built on the premise of redemption freedom”
so there’s a lot to unpack there, but a lot of it resembles european colonization and it’s even told from a colonizer’s perspective. the whole part where he discusses how the sossi people didn’t like the fact that they had to pay for their homes, like yeah, that’s the whole point of communalism and being there for each other. they really just shoved their capitalistic creation of a so-called ‘debt’ down everyone’s throats and no one could dare question the system.
mr. gregors gives her a red coat to wear and explains to her that her duty is to keep him informed of what everyone is doing. basically, she was forced to be a cop for the academy and was bullied by the other kids for it even though it wasn’t her fault. also, keep in mind she’s like barely 15 when this is all happening. mr. gregors also says “i, for one, would prefer if we never needed leashes at all. but sometimes it’s necessary, and i always leave that up to my red coats to decide”. of course, the classic divide and conquer, he shifts the blame to one of the students to create the illusion that he is in full support of the students and would never punish them in such a brutal and inhumane way. she meets another red coat who tells her their job is to ‘enforce the law’ and ‘maintain happiness’ and then tells her, ‘enforcing the law for those who need reminders means happiness for everyone’, which leaves elimina to think about those words together—enforcing and happiness.
she finds comfort in an older woman named ida who works at livingstone academy. when elimina asks if she should be happy to be there, ida says:
“i don’t know if i have happiness…but i found purpose, i suppose. that’s what drives me. perhaps you can find that too. if you ask me, purpose is far more useful than happiness. happiness is like sugar—sweet, but quick to go. but purpose is really something, baby girl. purpose gets you through whatever comes.”
i have to agree with her, happiness and joy are fleeting, reason and purpose are what keep us here. i’ve been thinking about my purpose and reasons to be here and truly i can only think of people, community and by that i mean my family and my dear dear friends.
she meets josephine and rowan who become friends with her and she also enters into a rivalry with violet, a girl that works at the academy’s office with her. she sees josephine sneak out at night quite often but keeps quiet about it until one night she decides to follow her. to her surprise, she finds rowan, violet and david there too, who have gathered there for comfort that they find in each other’s company. david is josephine’s brother and that adds more to the secret that they’re trusting her with because siblings are not sent anywhere together in academies. one day, they talk about family:
“‘family’s not a burden, rowan’, david says.
‘it is if you have to pay their debt.’…
’i don’t know that life’s really worth living without family, without someone. i can handle all of this, if it’s for someone or something. but what’s the point if it’s just me? i don’t know if i could do it that way.’”
so david fully read my thoughts, although i agree with rowan sometimes, not about the debt part but the burden part. while i don’t know what my purpose is, i feel like my purpose is family, but they have other dreams for me and that feels like a burden i shouldn’t be carrying on their behalf.
next comes the employer fair, david, rowan and violet are of age to attend and be employed. that day, josephine tells elimina she feels sick and stays in bed and elimina attributes it to the fact that she’s being separated from her brother. someone from the hill, sossi people who didn’t take part in the war and are well off like the people of the mainland, ends up hiring david. violet is hired by two brothers who are off to create a new business and rowan will be going to the mainland to join boxing tournaments. rowan explains to elimina, “mr. gregors gets a good chunk for every one of us who gets hired…he may be nicer than some, he may do things differently. but he’s one of them. you can’t ever forget that.” and it’s true, no matter how caught up you become, in academia or in a workplace, they would have no trouble replacing you if you were of no worth to them. especially if you are living with a permanent or temporary disability, they’ll still take advantage of you, they literally do not care. and that my friends, is systemic ableism.
they get back from the employment fair to find that josephine is missing and the entire mainland guard is looking for her because that’s a loss in profits for them right, one less person paying off their ‘debt’. rowan explains to elimina that josephine was in david’s trunk the whole time and went with him to the hill. she feels betrayed but he tells her, “if they think you’re involved or if they want to think you’re involved, that red coat isn’t going to protect you”, and it’s true. people with power can do anything they want, they can fabricate false evidence or declare you guilty without any proof and it’s not unjust according to our legal system. mr. gregors takes the red coat away from her, thinking that she’s involved in josephine’s disappearance. rowan leaves for the mainland and elimina listens to ida tell the true story of how the gutter came to be.
“truth is, i don’t ache for a child the way some do. and i don’t ache for a man. i suppose i’ve got enough to worry about that those things don’t seem so interesting to me.” ooooff i relate so much!!
and she says about the colonizers, the olo, “we should have seen the dark sky that lived in their hearts, that jealousy that led to the rain and the cold. mama told me, ‘you should never follow people who don’t know the way to their own joy, who seek it out in other places.’” i wonder what joy colonizers found in pushing people out of their way to declare their right of ownership over the land. ida says, “we did not have proof that the land was ours, only stories told in a language they couldn’t understand. and what are stories but lies that are told too often, olo said. but stories, baby girl, stories are life. they are on our tongues. they are with out now.” i like how she emphasizes the power of oral storytelling, quite the opposite of worshipping the written word. she tells her about how some of the sossi people hid during the war and settled down on the hill with all the privileges of those on the mainland, “but there are many who think little of them because they put themselves first long ago. because they left so many behind.”
soon, elimina starts to feel unwell and the nurse declares her pregnant with rowan’s child. mr. gregors sends her to riverside to deliver the baby, saying, “this is your doing and these are your consequences to bear.” as if the child was nothing more than more debt she was to acquire.
at riverside, she meets tilly and isobel at miss charlotte’s house. she also meets miss lulabelle who calls her lima and tells her she is finally home. she ends up being the midwife that delivered her and tells her her mother died. she also tells her more about ‘the project’. she tells her that all the other kids from the project cases are gone, all 99 of them. “that’s when folks from the hill coalition got involved. they argued that the project wasn’t right. unjust and inhuman…”the building burnt down with all twenty trapped inside and not a single mainlander. they said it was an accident. bad wiring. but gutter folks know better.”
then one day, violet arrives, pregnant and bruised. their rivalry has ended and violet says, “maybe family are just the people you meet who are worth forgiving, so you can keep them close.” i love her so so much and for some reason i predicted her death, like i knew in my bones she was going to die. i think it’s because the same happened in the good luck girls, the girl was named violet and she died. wow my elementary teacher would be so proud of that ~text to text connection~
when tilly gives birth but wants to keep the child, elimina realizes she wants to keep the child too because they’re just going to feed the child back into the system and she knows what it’s like not knowing who your true family is. “we’re doing it all over again. giving our babies away. growing apart. this is my only family. and what if he’s all the family i’ll ever have?”
miss charlotte tells elimina that was tilly did was selfish and that’s not what ‘good’ mothers do. elimina questions this binary of good/bad parenting and concludes that “gutter life requires us to make impossible decisions, ones she’ll never understand.” parenting is so complex and making do with what you have and adapting to new situations requires so much strength and resilience. i could never understand motherhood properly even if i tried to empathize wholly.
elimina decides she’s going to keep the baby and go to settle in the gutter. she tells violet she’ll see her there, has miss lulabelle deliver the baby and names him after duncan, her son who helped her out with so much.
when she arrives at the gutter, she is welcomed by geneva jackson, rowan’s mother (!!!) who is not at all happy about this situation. in her mind, rowan was supposed to pay off their debts and take his entire family to the mainland. this dream resembles the dream of many who think they are in proximity to the upper class but really aren’t. they base this dream on ‘hard work’ when really, there are so many systems in place to oppress you and struggling to make it across is also partially based on luck or compromising on your morals and values.
one of the arguments geneva has with her daughter shirley is about her husband’s work. he wants to quit working at the factory because it’s bad for his health but geneva insists that he keep going because the money is good. shirley doesn’t want to see her husband die and argues otherwise, that even if they both have to work to make ends meet, having him healthy and alive matters a lot more than a higher paycheck. it’s a perfect example of what i was saying, geneva is compromising on what she values (her family) to try and ‘make it out’ by earning more money to pay off her debt. elsa may their neighbour tells elimina, “there are folks who are happy here, who see this place as home, and there are folks who believe home is somewhere beyond those walls.” and it reminds me a lot about us chasing the future. never living in the present or resting but following our capitalist instinct to keep doing something. elimina realizes that geneva doesn’t like her because she showed up out of nowhere with a child and now both of them, in addition to rowan’s mother and sister are his responsibility. she just pushed their dreams back by a couple of years.
tw: suicide
when violet shows up at the bridge from riverside, she tells elimina about her sick daughter, jewel and about how no one wants here, not even the system that wants babies will take her. when elimina turns around to insist that the guard let her in, violet has already jumped off the bridge. : /
elimina writes letters to david at the hill, still hoping deep down that maybe she’ll end up there. she also writes almost every day to rowan who never replies. she finds josephine in the gutter, who had come back because she didn’t like it at the hill and david adores them. “whenever i criticized them, he would ask me why i hated them so much. he would beg me to keep my voice down because he was so afraid they would hear…those people on the hill surrendered to the mainland and then left our families here with nothing. they just paid for themselves and left. now there’s this whole gutter system that we’re stuck in, while they’re making all the money they can.” she calls the debt imaginary, which it is, and feels sad that david is prioritizing profits over his familial relationships.
rowan comes back and tells elimina how horrible it was out there, “i get why violet did she did elimina. i get it.” and elimina remembers how ida had told her how the hardest battles to fight are the ones that come for our minds. in my opinion, rowan has depression, but also the book shows us how much societal oppression impacts depression. his darkest thoughts and his suicidal ideation come from his lived experiences.
elimina gets pregnant again so they move out and get their own place which turns out to be the place where elimina was born. rowan starts to wander and isn’t home for days or even weeks at a time. josephine becomes involved with the network, a resistance group. she tells elimina how their debt is really just imaginary, “you’re not really free if the gutter system still exists. that debt isn’t yours to pay. you don’t owe them anything. they owe you. they owe all of us.” and elimina envies her purpose and the way she’s really fighting for what she wants. she also tells elimina that the network has been using her letters she wrote to david to raise sympathy and how they’ve been published everywhere. shortly after that, rhodes, someone sent from the mainland arrives and asks to ‘collect information’. he tells her that mr. gregors and miss charlotte have charged her with forgery, kidnapping and endangering the life of a child. she asks them if they’re facing any charges for killing all the children involved in the project. they ignore her and tell they’re back for ‘their project’ (her child). she doesn’t comply, she knows that if she tells the truth or lies, they’re going to find a way to make her guilty for their own gain. he finally leaves and tells her “i’m going to tell them about the things you didn’t say and that i didn’t hear. it’s not my job to be emotional or take sides but i will share the facts.” as if objectivity even exists. he’s gonna sit there and tell me he isn’t taking sides? dumbass.
elimina goes out to look for rowan who she finds in a crowd that has gathered to hear the network speak. she accuses him of doing nothing, not supporting her financially and he feels guilty because he is trying to do the best he can and feels like he’s never enough for her. he obviously saw her correspondence with david and felt betrayed. all of a sudden, the guards shoot at the crowd and elimina loses her child. she thinks, “i’m not sure if i’m sad or relieve about losing the baby, and this thought brings back dark clouds i can’t seem to break through, like a storm with no clear ending. because maybe i did this. maybe i didn’t want her enough. or maybe i know this life would kill her and i wanted to spare her from the start.” despite her not having any control over her miscarriage, she still blames herself.
the network comes up with a proposal for the mainland, they want to declare independence. they drive out the guards and eventually the mainland sends a representative who increases their daily wage by a dollar and promises to improve their working conditions. much of the crowd rejoices at this while others know this is not the true win they’re looking for and josephine says, “a system can’t be broken in a moment”. it’ll take time. elimina says, “i don’t know how to hope anymore. i don’t know how to believe in anything…i am learning to let go of the things i can’t control so i can hold fast to the people i need most.”
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
thoughtful world building, reflective on our history
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Elimina discovers her true identity, the history of her people and knows for sure that everything she was taught wasn’t always the truth.
⚡️
I enjoyed this read. It was giving slight Handmaids Tale with a twist - as all these characters were children. Though, they were fighting for a change within the system they were born into. Cycles being repeated - mostly until people understood the true way OUT!
⚡️
I enjoyed this read. It was giving slight Handmaids Tale with a twist - as all these characters were children. Though, they were fighting for a change within the system they were born into. Cycles being repeated - mostly until people understood the true way OUT!
Even though this is fiction, it embodies how it feels to be controlled and exploited by others. I was right there rooting for the oppressed and hoping they would somehow escape their situation. Very realistic and well written.
Gutter Child is a book about caste, colonization, slavery and racism in the world of today - and it's a story that sticks. It's hard to know where to start when writing a review of this novel... Not only was the story incredibly well written and engrossing, the message of the book was always clear and present.
I don't want to give anything away by talking about the storyline, but if you, like me, have been putting off reading Gutter Child - this is your sign to pick it up. This is a story I certainly won't forget.
I don't want to give anything away by talking about the storyline, but if you, like me, have been putting off reading Gutter Child - this is your sign to pick it up. This is a story I certainly won't forget.