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A review by ajcousins
Prosperity by Alexis Hall
Having just written an incredibly sappy fangirling email to Alexis Hall (which may have included the sentence "You make me want to be a better writer", just to send all of the diabetics into a sugar coma), I'm stopping in here at GR just to say: HOLY CRAP, THIS BOOK IS BRILLIANT.
I know there are people who are put off by, or have hesitated to start this book, because it's written in cant. No one book will work for everyone & that's okay! But if you have been hesitating despite generally desiring to read books by Alexis, I highly encourage you to give it a go. My delight in the wordplay in Prosperity knows no bounds, but it is the characters who will stay with me forever. It's the moral complexity and the heartbreak and the beauty that will bring me back to this universe again and again.
Also, I found my own adoration of Wilkie Collins matched in Picadilly's, so now I love him extra hard. :)
"When we was done with Oliver Twist--which I thought started pretty promising but ended with a real disappointment--they found me sommat by this cove Wilkie Collins who should give Mr. Dickens some lessons in writing a good story, cos we're reading a serialized thing called The Woman in White, and it's fucking awesome. For serious."
I love how this books ends. It makes me happy. (I don't know if this quote is really a spoiler, but better safe than sorry.)
'Tis enough to feel Shadowless, and see the sky, and know that Byron Kae is waiting."
Indeed, it is enough.
I know there are people who are put off by, or have hesitated to start this book, because it's written in cant. No one book will work for everyone & that's okay! But if you have been hesitating despite generally desiring to read books by Alexis, I highly encourage you to give it a go. My delight in the wordplay in Prosperity knows no bounds, but it is the characters who will stay with me forever. It's the moral complexity and the heartbreak and the beauty that will bring me back to this universe again and again.
Also, I found my own adoration of Wilkie Collins matched in Picadilly's, so now I love him extra hard. :)
"When we was done with Oliver Twist--which I thought started pretty promising but ended with a real disappointment--they found me sommat by this cove Wilkie Collins who should give Mr. Dickens some lessons in writing a good story, cos we're reading a serialized thing called The Woman in White, and it's fucking awesome. For serious."
I love how this books ends. It makes me happy. (I don't know if this quote is really a spoiler, but better safe than sorry.)
Spoiler
"I don't mind the not knowing cos there's such a lot of it that it don't seem worth getting fussed over.'Tis enough to feel Shadowless, and see the sky, and know that Byron Kae is waiting."
Indeed, it is enough.