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A review by ryannrripley
The Shutouts by Gabrielle Korn
fast-paced
3.0
First, I want to say that I love Korn’s prose. It’s nimble and easy and makes me feel like a fast reader (I’m not).
Main thing: I loved finally getting the conclusion I wanted, ever since I read chapter one of Yours for the Taking, Orchid and Ava getting back together. Thank God, since their relationship was what hooked me into this world from the start.
What I didn’t like: the extreme focus on the concept of sexual reproduction at the end of the world. I didn’t like this aspect of book one, either, but it felt even more prominent in book two.
You know how in the Outlander series, the author is super obsessed with lineages and explaining who came from which uterus and the circumstances of their birth? Well, that’s what this book felt like. For example, we are asked to appreciate Ava and Brook’s relationship with July as being SPECIAL simply because July shared a womb with Brook (inside Ava). It’s this kind of woo-woo spirituality about the physicality of motherhood and sisterhood that pisses me off in real life, and the fact that it’s in Korn’s queer dystopian book pisses me off too.
I personally do not buy into any sort of mother-daughter spirituality at all. In fact, it’s a huge turn off for me, given that this is supposed to be a queer series. Mother-daughter spirituality almost seems anti-queer to me.
My personal experience of being queer IRL is that it’s about the found family that connects us, not the bloodline lineages that connect queer people.
Anyway, sorry for screaming into the void about this. I needed to tell someone.
If you’re a queer person who loves your mom, you’ll probably like this book more than I did! My mom was a bad person, so it’s kinda whatever to me.
Main thing: I loved finally getting the conclusion I wanted, ever since I read chapter one of Yours for the Taking, Orchid and Ava getting back together. Thank God, since their relationship was what hooked me into this world from the start.
What I didn’t like: the extreme focus on the concept of sexual reproduction at the end of the world. I didn’t like this aspect of book one, either, but it felt even more prominent in book two.
You know how in the Outlander series, the author is super obsessed with lineages and explaining who came from which uterus and the circumstances of their birth? Well, that’s what this book felt like. For example, we are asked to appreciate Ava and Brook’s relationship with July as being SPECIAL simply because July shared a womb with Brook (inside Ava). It’s this kind of woo-woo spirituality about the physicality of motherhood and sisterhood that pisses me off in real life, and the fact that it’s in Korn’s queer dystopian book pisses me off too.
I personally do not buy into any sort of mother-daughter spirituality at all. In fact, it’s a huge turn off for me, given that this is supposed to be a queer series. Mother-daughter spirituality almost seems anti-queer to me.
My personal experience of being queer IRL is that it’s about the found family that connects us, not the bloodline lineages that connect queer people.
Anyway, sorry for screaming into the void about this. I needed to tell someone.
If you’re a queer person who loves your mom, you’ll probably like this book more than I did! My mom was a bad person, so it’s kinda whatever to me.