Review by undersea - The Resisters

undersea 's review for:

The Resisters by Gish Jen

3.25

adventurous dark funny slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I enjoyed this as a near-future dystopian read. We’re in a climate ravaged America that’s controlled by a governing AI that uses surveillance & persuasion to manipulate its society. There’s a really interesting class structure: “Netted” (read white, educated, wealthy) & “Surplus” (read everyone else). But interestingly the Netted are “producers” given education & privileges because they have skills the AI hasn’t learned yet. They work and have to “produce” constantly for the Surplus, who live on a UBI & don’t have to work but who aren’t really educated (since they don’t have to work) & are surveilled & kept compliant through a requirement to “consume” (food, media, activities) in order to gain “life points”, all while they’re being poisoned/sedated by something the AI government is putting in the food. It’s a really interesting next step view in capitalism. I would have been interested to see the idea of consumerism as oppression explored more, but it never went any deeper.

I love baseball but that plot line felt like it came from another book. The societal commentary never really met up with the baseball plot, other than commenting on a government co-opting something that comes through grass roots organizing & then corrupts it. There’s a whole third of the book with Gwen at college that felt completely unnecessary. The relationship with the coach…why? Truly what did that serve?

The past tense narration from the Dad didn’t help anything either. You feel pretty far removed from the action or emotions.

Overall enjoyable, the things it made me think about are worth the critiques I have with it.

Content Warnings