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A review by octavia_cade
Psychopomp by Maria Dong
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
4.0
I got a review copy of this from the publisher - thank you very much! It has a great concept - I don't want to describe the twist, because that would spoil things for a lot of readers, but suffice to say that it involves a space elevator.
The book is also fairly dystopian, and that's very much reflected in the main character. Often with dystopias, I find, the protagonists frequently feel as if they don't come from a crapsack word. They're too often mentally healthy, are capable of forming solid and rewarding relationships, and so forth. This is not the case with Young. She's desperately fucked-up in any number of ways, which can admittedly be frustrating to read at times except that she is exactly the type of person who should exist in a world as terrible as this one. She gives a real sense of verisimilitude to the story, is what I'm saying, and it's a brave choice to make her so difficult to like. Brave and absolutely consistent.
Finally - and this is skirting around the spoiler again - I liked that there was, at the end, the possibility of a more hopeful future. I won't say for who, but that sense-of-wonder twist brings a sense of expansion and marvel into the text that was much appreciated.
The book is also fairly dystopian, and that's very much reflected in the main character. Often with dystopias, I find, the protagonists frequently feel as if they don't come from a crapsack word. They're too often mentally healthy, are capable of forming solid and rewarding relationships, and so forth. This is not the case with Young. She's desperately fucked-up in any number of ways, which can admittedly be frustrating to read at times except that she is exactly the type of person who should exist in a world as terrible as this one. She gives a real sense of verisimilitude to the story, is what I'm saying, and it's a brave choice to make her so difficult to like. Brave and absolutely consistent.
Finally - and this is skirting around the spoiler again - I liked that there was, at the end, the possibility of a more hopeful future. I won't say for who, but that sense-of-wonder twist brings a sense of expansion and marvel into the text that was much appreciated.