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3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
| I'm gonna be honest I DNF'd this exceptionally early into it (less than 100 pages in). My review is just going to reiterate what every other 1 star review says.
The prose was trying to hard to be flowery which left it just clunky and boring.
As well as the pronoun inclusions were weird. I have no issues with gender being a heavily focused topic and I think there are fantastic ways to do that (Such as how T. Kingfisher does it What Moves the Dead ). This however was not how it should be done. You should never have to omnisciently tell your readers a characters pronouns unless you think all of your readers are idiots. Just use the pronouns as pronouns and you'll be fine. For example: If a characters pronouns are they/them, Introducing them as "Character A, who uses them/they pronouns, and has [blank] colored hair" is stupid and redundant. You can simply say "Character A, their [blank] hair falling over their shoulders" and you would know their pronouns are they/them. If you're gonna write a queernorm book write it like its normal instead of holding the audiences hand like they've never seen a queer person before.
The prose was trying to hard to be flowery which left it just clunky and boring.
As well as the pronoun inclusions were weird. I have no issues with gender being a heavily focused topic and I think there are fantastic ways to do that (Such as how T. Kingfisher does it What Moves the Dead ). This however was not how it should be done. You should never have to omnisciently tell your readers a characters pronouns unless you think all of your readers are idiots. Just use the pronouns as pronouns and you'll be fine. For example: If a characters pronouns are they/them, Introducing them as "Character A, who uses them/they pronouns, and has [blank] colored hair" is stupid and redundant. You can simply say "Character A, their [blank] hair falling over their shoulders" and you would know their pronouns are they/them. If you're gonna write a queernorm book write it like its normal instead of holding the audiences hand like they've never seen a queer person before.
adventurous
challenging
dark
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:
Yes
Very interesting concept. It became uncomfortably bogged down with religious fervor to the point I was ready to DNF.
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Very difficult to follow in audio format. Seemed like hardly any actual plot, or the plot was elusive. Unfortunately no hook for me.
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This would have been a DNF if it weren't a book club read. It had been on my TBR for ages since I liked Neon Yang's Tensorate series, but now I'm going to be a bit more wary before reading more by them.
Good queer rep, but that's about the only thing I really liked. The world-building was a bit sparse - it has potential, but that potential was definitely not realized in this book. Characters were uninteresting or unlikeable, and Misery, the titular character, was both. The writing was sometimes fine and sometimes distractingly bad; a lot of modern slang was used in this space sci fi book. "Yeet" was used in a sentence, and I almost gave up then. But the writing at other times was oddly formal and florid.
I put off reviewing this because I was so disappointed. Thankfully I've had a couple books as palate cleansers since finishing this.
Good queer rep, but that's about the only thing I really liked. The world-building was a bit sparse - it has potential, but that potential was definitely not realized in this book. Characters were uninteresting or unlikeable, and Misery, the titular character, was both. The writing was sometimes fine and sometimes distractingly bad; a lot of modern slang was used in this space sci fi book. "Yeet" was used in a sentence, and I almost gave up then. But the writing at other times was oddly formal and florid.
I put off reviewing this because I was so disappointed. Thankfully I've had a couple books as palate cleansers since finishing this.
adventurous
funny
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was really excited to read Neon Yang's work, especially a book deconstructing religion with queers and mechs in space, how exciting! But this definitely wasn't. I probably should have DNFed since this took me so long to read, but 1. I nominated this for book club and kinda felt like I had to finish it, and 2. I was genuinely curious to find out more about the religion here. Sadly we never really learned anything in the end, and what seemed to have been intended as the major reveals at the end were pretty obvious to me?? And I'm someone who can't predict plot twists to save my life. Like it was obvious Ruin was an alien/Heretic and not a delusion. I didn't predict it being an AI but it's not surprising at all cause it makes perfect sense. This is a sci-fi book, like obviously the religion is going to have some techy component to it. And it was obvious Misery was a telepath and not crazy so idk why everyone was so surprised.
The world building was the biggest highlight of this book. I really liked the straightforward use of pronouns too. The holystones, the entire religion, and history of that religion were all so interesting and kept me intrigued. But at the same time, it doesn't seem like Yang really thought things through... or maybe they are saving the explanations for book 2? But like what was the significance of the people who were saints / how were they chosen? And what about the saint clones, what was the purpose of them? And then randomly near the end the book mentioned stonecharge... what is that?? The holystones have to be CHARGED??
The characters were definitely the worst part. Misery started out really entertaining, as basically a irreverent non-believer constantly talking smack and taking advantage of others. But then about a third of the way in, sherandomly kills hundreds (thousands??) of people for seemingly no reason and no one else around her seems to care??? (And then she later tortures a dude simply because he tells her stuff she doesn't like and also again no one cares or does anything about it ) And then at the halfway point Misery suddenly became a believer, which unlike most 1-2 star reviewers I didn't mind because it did make sense after what she experienced , but she became such a bland ass character after that. Like she only spoke in meaningless platitudes lmao. And the same transformation happened to Lightning, though I'd argue it was even worse because it kind of happened without her consent... Like when we first meet her she literally tries to kill Misery. The two of them did have some hints of chemistry, but that was all lost in the second half. Lightning lost all sense of her personality and basically became a sex robot. It became even more uncomfortable when she told everyone that the Larex Forge told her she is meant to be Misery's companion. So like is she only having sex with Misery because her God told her to??? 😠And all the other side characters are basically cardboard cutout stereotypes just there to move the plot along...
I don't even want to talk about the sex scenes. They were the cringiest, unsexiest sex scenes I've ever read, god. And that one scene whereMisery, Lightning, and Spider have a threesome?? Not only does that seem risky to mess with the team's dynamic, but Misery is literally riding on Spider's dick asking him about his dead former coworkers like um??? what???
And the prose was such a weird mix of pretentious literary long ass sentences with in-depth descriptions of literally every setting the characters walk through, and 2010s era slang like "yeet" and "not the vibes." Some weird phrases I wrote down: "piquantly bitter", "Misery unsheathes her teeth", and "All of them sluice, piscine, toward a focal point". I wish I had started writing down weird stuff earlier because I swear Yang used so many strange words that I've never heard before when a much simpler word would have worked just as well. I saw some reviewers say that this was probably purposeful, to seem more like a religious text (and connected to the POV revealed at the end), and like... ok I guess, but it was still a drag to read.
As far as the plot goes, it felt like barely anything happened. Like this was all set up for a second book (that I didn't realize was a thing until after I started because both SG and GR list this as a standalone). There was so little intrigue (or connection with the characters) that I almost considered DNFing 96% into the book (with literally less than 20 pages left) because what was going on was so uninteresting. Like wow surprisethe siege was actually consensual and the Heretics aren't 100% evil, who woulda thunk??? And the reveals I was waiting for never happened.
Lastly, I was so disappointed in the themes. I expected a deconstruction of religion, but this barely even follows the Joan of Arc story like advertised? All we ever see is Misery talking about how evil all Heretics are and how she wants to genocide them all, and we never see anything to indicate otherwise except maybe the resolution of the siege briefly at the end. Misery goes from 100% unbeliever to 100% believer with nothing in between. Where is the nuance of both "sides" of this religion? Maybe Yang is planning to include that in the next book, but I don't think I'll be reading it.
The world building was the biggest highlight of this book. I really liked the straightforward use of pronouns too. The holystones, the entire religion, and history of that religion were all so interesting and kept me intrigued. But at the same time, it doesn't seem like Yang really thought things through... or maybe they are saving the explanations for book 2? But like what was the significance of the people who were saints / how were they chosen? And what about the saint clones, what was the purpose of them? And then randomly near the end the book mentioned stonecharge... what is that?? The holystones have to be CHARGED??
The characters were definitely the worst part. Misery started out really entertaining, as basically a irreverent non-believer constantly talking smack and taking advantage of others. But then about a third of the way in, she
I don't even want to talk about the sex scenes. They were the cringiest, unsexiest sex scenes I've ever read, god. And that one scene where
And the prose was such a weird mix of pretentious literary long ass sentences with in-depth descriptions of literally every setting the characters walk through, and 2010s era slang like "yeet" and "not the vibes." Some weird phrases I wrote down: "piquantly bitter", "Misery unsheathes her teeth", and "All of them sluice, piscine, toward a focal point". I wish I had started writing down weird stuff earlier because I swear Yang used so many strange words that I've never heard before when a much simpler word would have worked just as well. I saw some reviewers say that this was probably purposeful, to seem more like a religious text (and connected to the POV revealed at the end), and like... ok I guess, but it was still a drag to read.
As far as the plot goes, it felt like barely anything happened. Like this was all set up for a second book (that I didn't realize was a thing until after I started because both SG and GR list this as a standalone). There was so little intrigue (or connection with the characters) that I almost considered DNFing 96% into the book (with literally less than 20 pages left) because what was going on was so uninteresting. Like wow surprise
Lastly, I was so disappointed in the themes. I expected a deconstruction of religion, but this barely even follows the Joan of Arc story like advertised? All we ever see is Misery talking about how evil all Heretics are and how she wants to genocide them all, and we never see anything to indicate otherwise except maybe the resolution of the siege briefly at the end. Misery goes from 100% unbeliever to 100% believer with nothing in between. Where is the nuance of both "sides" of this religion? Maybe Yang is planning to include that in the next book, but I don't think I'll be reading it.
Characters: 1
Plot / Pacing: 2.5
Setting / World Building: 3
Writing Style: 2.5
Themes: 2
Rating: 2
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
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:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Religious bigotry, War, Classism
Moderate: Torture
Minor: Drug use, Death of parent