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3.51 AVERAGE
3.51 AVERAGE
The good thing about the book is the author's creation of a Pigeon English to illustrate Ice Cream's world. The bad, DNF part? Her world is predictable, as is her story. Others might not have read as many of these dystopian novels with some Big Search to fix what's wrong with the world/population as I have, but there just wasn't enough here for me to continue.
ARC provided by publisher.
ARC provided by publisher.
While I found the plot of this book compelling, the syntax and slang was simply too overwhelming to really enjoy. I felt bogged down, overwhelmed and stressed out by the lack of clarity. The language and themes create an encompassing image, they don't create a world that can be easily understood or identified with. I won't recommend this book, in the end because the pay off simply wasn't worth the time and brain-power investment.
This book was incredible. The whole story is written in a post-apoc pidgin-ish dialect. The author's commitment to this style was impressive. I thought it would be difficult to read, but I really got into it. The story is worth it.
Lots of rape in this one, though. FYI. It's a brutal world.
Lots of rape in this one, though. FYI. It's a brutal world.
Obsessed with this book right now. Listening to it in the car and reading it on the couch - partly I need both channels in order to discern maximum meaning from the postapocaliptic patois, and partly because said patois is so damn poetic.
Like most postapocalypse narratives, there is an enormous amount of commentary on our contemporary world. Colonialization, exploitation of children for war, religious fundamentalism, and the vulnerability of the peaceable - all are amplified in this unstable environment, like weeds taking advantage of the disturbed soil of a roadcut. This book be vally bone.
Like most postapocalypse narratives, there is an enormous amount of commentary on our contemporary world. Colonialization, exploitation of children for war, religious fundamentalism, and the vulnerability of the peaceable - all are amplified in this unstable environment, like weeds taking advantage of the disturbed soil of a roadcut. This book be vally bone.
DNF. I couldn’t get through more than 5 chapters. It is just painful to read. The story is probably really good but the dialect is just so awful, I’ll never know.
first off: the language pattern is what sets this book apart so a review that doesn't address it is missing half the story. in this post-apocalyptic world, generations are only 20 years long, plenty of time to have language degrade to what some have called a racist use of AAVE, but this interpretation ignores the similar way that French is incorporated and degraded. The 'sleeper' (dead) English is still mostly intact which aligns with the fact that this group has not had their longevity shortened. But the most important function of this altered language is how the author uses it to sneak well-worn ideas/tropes past the readers' jaded pessimism and into their hearts and minds. (This became clear to me when the sex scenes were so HOT using indirect language and my own imagination. I'm starting to understand why poetry is still prominently featured in literature circles: the novel way of expressing ideas IS the point.) Anyhow, another great side effect of this new language and shortened lifespan meant that 'people' were referred to as 'children', and it's impossible to not react, every time, in a visceral way when seeing dead children or children with guns (to differentiate between the adult population and actual children, the word enfant is used. hey, there's that French I was talking about)
I thoroughly enjoyed the first half to two-thirds of the novel but it started to sour on me when our narrator becomes the head of a church cult where she is advised by a (Game of Thrones) Lord Varys type ... And here is where the novel language hides a flaw I should have seen earlier: this is some magic girl! Her brother is the group's leader and when he sickens, the next two in line are conveniently incapable so she becomes the beloved leader. The king of the small-time army and the head of the nearby settlement are both madly in love with her. She tames a Russian foreigner who will also do anything for her. And now? Now she is the 'Maria' of a catholic cult that is the whole city of New York: she is literally worshipped! By the time the story moved to Washington and war, I was tired of her specialness. The booby traps of land mines throughout the city was just too reminiscent of the end of the Hunger Games trilogy and I was none too happy to see that this book is set up to be a series (let me predict the arc: the white Europeans are back to their racist, colonialist roots: they are hoping to harvest a new crop of slaves, using the short generations of the Black Americans to their advantage somehow)
Such a promising start, such a stalled ending.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first half to two-thirds of the novel but it started to sour on me when our narrator becomes the head of a church cult where she is advised by a (Game of Thrones) Lord Varys type ... And here is where the novel language hides a flaw I should have seen earlier: this is some magic girl! Her brother is the group's leader and when he sickens, the next two in line are conveniently incapable so she becomes the beloved leader. The king of the small-time army and the head of the nearby settlement are both madly in love with her. She tames a Russian foreigner who will also do anything for her. And now? Now she is the 'Maria' of a catholic cult that is the whole city of New York: she is literally worshipped! By the time the story moved to Washington and war, I was tired of her specialness. The booby traps of land mines throughout the city was just too reminiscent of the end of the Hunger Games trilogy and I was none too happy to see that this book is set up to be a series (let me predict the arc: the white Europeans are back to their racist, colonialist roots: they are hoping to harvest a new crop of slaves, using the short generations of the Black Americans to their advantage somehow)
Such a promising start, such a stalled ending.
Wow - what a ride. I slogged through the first 50 or so pages while getting accustomed to the patois. Even so I often had to reread paragraphs to make sure I understood what was being said. (I never did figure out where the term "Sengle" (Senegalese maybe?) came from but the other names and locations became clear.) By the time I was midway through the book, I was so engrossed with the story that I was reading every night until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I loved how the world and its history were revealed slowly throughout the book without resorting to excessive exposition. Newman painted a vivid picture of this post-pandemic world. It was jarring yet refreshing to read lines in which black skin is called "normal." Her characters were wonderfully deep as well - they wrestled with moral and ethical dilemmas and did what the needed to do to survive. This book was well worth reading.
Rarely do I not finish a book but I just can't seem to get into this one. I made it 58% of the way before finally giving up. I actually enjoyed in the beginning but I have just completely stalled. I have so many books on my TBR list that I can't waste another week of just trudging through a chapter or two a day.
I initially picked this up because of the narrator mechanic - a young teenage woman, semi-literate but wise in the ways of the post-Fall world she was in. I found Newman's approach and style interesting but as the story progressed it became harder and harder for me to continue reading. I grew bored of the main character and the main plot and kept wishing the book would pick up the pace and get _somewhere_ instead of wandering in a desert of kind-of-interesting but, ultimately, boring terrain. I did finish it but it was an effort and the only thing I could point to as a flaw was the impression that it could have been half the size and been better.
IMNSHO, I think a better approach to this type of 'unique' narration is Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks. The entire book is written phonetically (e.g. Fearsome Engine as feersum endjinn). It is crazy to get used to but after a few pages that fades away and you become one with the prose and the narrator, a very young boy on a quest. Banks (both of his personas) is one of the few authors I automatically bought their work when it debuts but unfortunately, he passed away recently and I haven't found anyone to fill his shoes.
IMNSHO, I think a better approach to this type of 'unique' narration is Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks. The entire book is written phonetically (e.g. Fearsome Engine as feersum endjinn). It is crazy to get used to but after a few pages that fades away and you become one with the prose and the narrator, a very young boy on a quest. Banks (both of his personas) is one of the few authors I automatically bought their work when it debuts but unfortunately, he passed away recently and I haven't found anyone to fill his shoes.