A review by aw21594377
The Forever War by Marvano, Joe Haldeman

3.0

This book didn't particularly resonate with me. I think for being written in the '70's it had some interesting ideas, but also some very, very problematic ones, too (living the homo life...). Generally, the female characters were flat - but most of the secondary ones were. The only really fleshed out character was the main character. I guess an argument can be made that because the protagonist was in war, traveling through time/space, etc. he really didn't have time to form very meaningful relationships with people. The apathy born from trauma and feeling like people are going to disappear and/or die was real. The social ideas felt a little tone-deaf and antiquated; considering there were some large movements in the '70s for queer people and women, there was virtually no representation of queer people (except that the government made people gay for population control), no trans or bisexual people, and the women were flat and 1-dimensional.

I think this book stayed a 3 star for me because several people pointed out some fair/relevant contextual points. Even still, was fairly uncomfortable at parts to read. Would probably not read again. And to be fair, I really zoned out at times and probably didn't give this book enough attention to have super strong opinions - hence my rating. It's a book, I read it, the writing style was fine/concise, it made points, explored some ideas. Ok. Still, overall felt fairly meh about it.