A review by gianaf
Up the Walls of the World by James Tiptree Jr.

2.0

I'll admit, I read this for class off of pages that were photocopied and uploaded to onto the school site (for legal reasons, I had nothing to do with this, don't come after me) so all of those factors may have influenced my dislike for this book. Between the obvious tokenization and quite literal dehumanization of the only character of color and the jarring shifts in point of view, I just left this story with a bad taste in my mouth. I also really had very little idea what was going on. I understand that the themes of this book challenged gender norms, the the concept of gender entirely, and that was quite refreshing to read, but I just found it difficult to follow the plot. The rising action moved at a snail's pace and then suddenly everything was happening, but then it ended as soon as it began. The collision of the worlds was clunky and awkward and I felt like it could've been explored way better. I would've been more interested in reading a story where the Tyranee and the humans lived in each other's shoes and got a sense for the others' world, but that was such a small part of the book and the shattering of gender norms was a mere afterthought in the characters' minds. All in all, disappointed