Scan barcode
A review by spiringempress
The Cerulean by Amy Ewing
3.0
"You're the fastest-runner in the City. You can eat more squash blossoms in one sitting than any twelve Cerulean combined. You climb everything with limbs and many without—I know you still sneak up to the top of the temple. Sera felt grateful for the millionth time that she had Leela in life. But the truth was, the only things Sera seemed to be good at besides running and climbing were loving her mothers and being friends with Leela."
Sera is a Cerulean and she lives in the City Above the Sky along with her three mothers, her best friend, Leela, and the rest of her people. However, Sera does not have a calling in life and feels left out as her friends settle into their professions. She's only drawn to asking questions and the tether—a magical bond that ties the City Above the Sky to the planets below.
One day that changes. The High Priestess announces that it is time for the City Above the Sky to move to a new planet, which involves breaking the tether. Sera is excited about the prospect of moving until it is revealed that she has been chosen as the sacrifice to break the tether. Fearful, Sera willingly sacrifices her life, but something goes wrong and she must find a solution on the planet, Kaolin, where she has no friends and cannot speak their language.
On Kaolin, Agnes and Leo are the children of a powerful businessman, who has recently decided to capture strange and exotic creatures as part of his final show. Desperate to prove himself, Leo offers to go on an expedition to scout out sprites in the Knottle Plains. Agnes, who wants to escape her restriction life, steals away on the expedition to find a scientific discovery and enter university. Neither sibling expected to find Sera, a strange blue-haired and silver-skinned creature, in the middle of the plains. Leo and Agnes both discover that Sera is more than they ever imagined and realize that she might be able to bring them together despite their differences.
The Cerulean starts off in a pretty interesting sci-fi environment. Sera lives in a city that exists by tethering itself to nearby planets. The tether serves as a channel between the city and the planet and brings much-needed resources to the Ceruleans. In the past, the city often moved but recently it has remained tethered to Kaolin. Ewing also introduces some tragic history known as the Great Sadness, where humans killed two hundred Ceruleans at their last planet, and this makes them hesitant to move around.
Beyond the environment, Ewing also sets up a rather interesting social structure in the city, where families are made up of three mothers, who are in a polyamorous relationship with one another. Each mother has a specific task, the green mother is the educator, the orange mother teaches prayer, and the purple mother is the nurturer and the one, who produces life. Off the bat, this book had an incredibly unique world with some very thoughtful and original world-building. Immediately, I was drawn into the world of the Ceruleans and investigated in the mysterious tether and Sera's fate.
However, the book does not remain solely focused on the Ceruleans and their city, but instead ventures down into Kaolin, which is not nearly as unique. Kaolin is a strictly patriarchal and heteronormative society, where women are basically controlled by the men. Agnes wants to be a scientist, but she is limited by her gender and her controlling father, who only wants to see her get married. This was the complete opposite of City and the society did not feel as unique, but instead, like a watered-down version of Firefly. I don't know why, but that is the visual representation I imagined and it was nowhere near as cool as the Ceruleans and the City.
Therefore, this book truly failed to mesh those two worlds together in a seamless and intriguing fashion. Instead, we have one totally fleshed out and unique society complete with a suspicious High Priestess and some mysterious backstory and then a redundant and forgettable planet with rampant sexism that failed to make an impression. Furthermore, the author failed to take advantage of her disparate societies and see the humor in the situation. I would have loved to see more of Sera's reaction to the culture of Kaolin and her feeling remorse for wanting to leave the City. Instead, it felt like the author did not know what to do in Kaolin except to get Sera back to the Ceruleans and it lost a lot of its original charm.
Sera is a Cerulean and she lives in the City Above the Sky along with her three mothers, her best friend, Leela, and the rest of her people. However, Sera does not have a calling in life and feels left out as her friends settle into their professions. She's only drawn to asking questions and the tether—a magical bond that ties the City Above the Sky to the planets below.
One day that changes. The High Priestess announces that it is time for the City Above the Sky to move to a new planet, which involves breaking the tether. Sera is excited about the prospect of moving until it is revealed that she has been chosen as the sacrifice to break the tether. Fearful, Sera willingly sacrifices her life, but something goes wrong and she must find a solution on the planet, Kaolin, where she has no friends and cannot speak their language.
On Kaolin, Agnes and Leo are the children of a powerful businessman, who has recently decided to capture strange and exotic creatures as part of his final show. Desperate to prove himself, Leo offers to go on an expedition to scout out sprites in the Knottle Plains. Agnes, who wants to escape her restriction life, steals away on the expedition to find a scientific discovery and enter university. Neither sibling expected to find Sera, a strange blue-haired and silver-skinned creature, in the middle of the plains. Leo and Agnes both discover that Sera is more than they ever imagined and realize that she might be able to bring them together despite their differences.
The Cerulean starts off in a pretty interesting sci-fi environment. Sera lives in a city that exists by tethering itself to nearby planets. The tether serves as a channel between the city and the planet and brings much-needed resources to the Ceruleans. In the past, the city often moved but recently it has remained tethered to Kaolin. Ewing also introduces some tragic history known as the Great Sadness, where humans killed two hundred Ceruleans at their last planet, and this makes them hesitant to move around.
Beyond the environment, Ewing also sets up a rather interesting social structure in the city, where families are made up of three mothers, who are in a polyamorous relationship with one another. Each mother has a specific task, the green mother is the educator, the orange mother teaches prayer, and the purple mother is the nurturer and the one, who produces life. Off the bat, this book had an incredibly unique world with some very thoughtful and original world-building. Immediately, I was drawn into the world of the Ceruleans and investigated in the mysterious tether and Sera's fate.
However, the book does not remain solely focused on the Ceruleans and their city, but instead ventures down into Kaolin, which is not nearly as unique. Kaolin is a strictly patriarchal and heteronormative society, where women are basically controlled by the men. Agnes wants to be a scientist, but she is limited by her gender and her controlling father, who only wants to see her get married. This was the complete opposite of City and the society did not feel as unique, but instead, like a watered-down version of Firefly. I don't know why, but that is the visual representation I imagined and it was nowhere near as cool as the Ceruleans and the City.
Therefore, this book truly failed to mesh those two worlds together in a seamless and intriguing fashion. Instead, we have one totally fleshed out and unique society complete with a suspicious High Priestess and some mysterious backstory and then a redundant and forgettable planet with rampant sexism that failed to make an impression. Furthermore, the author failed to take advantage of her disparate societies and see the humor in the situation. I would have loved to see more of Sera's reaction to the culture of Kaolin and her feeling remorse for wanting to leave the City. Instead, it felt like the author did not know what to do in Kaolin except to get Sera back to the Ceruleans and it lost a lot of its original charm.