jassmine 's review for:

The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang
2.0
"And what are you here to do?"
It's a trap, this query. She answers it the way the Church always answers difficult questions: with soapwater bullshit. "I have come to do what I am asked."

This book is a Joan of Arc retelling set in space (sci-fantasy?) where queerness and polyamory are "normalised" and you almost always get characters pronouns right when they are introduced. I feel like Yang went all the way out on the pronouns in this one (the book includes several neopronouns) and I really loved that! The worldbuilding is also intriguing, especially the bits about holy-stones that are a sort of magical element in this world. I have a complicated relationship with our protagonist Misery, but I really liked her love interest Lady Alodia Lightning, the royal princess aka the deranged lady with sword. This book was really hard for me to get through and... I liked the characters until I started to be extremely annoyed by them and in the end... actually not really caring about them at all.

Okay... so I have to be honest here. If this wasn't [a:Neon Yang|20723446|Neon Yang|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1615449393p2/20723446.jpg]'s book I would have DNFed it. Right, I hate DNFing books, I have huge respect for people who can do it, but generally I can't (I DNF like 1 book a year). I guess I just like to wallow in Misery (ha!). My point is, I should have DNFed but I'm really enjoying Tensorate series right now and I hope that even though this read was full of misery for me, I would at least be rewarded by the way things will come together at the end, but... nope.

I'm balancing on a thin blade here, because I'm not actually entirely sure what went wrong with me for this read. I guess it was partly that I expected the story to be different. To keep it vague, Misery is very likeable protagonist, but also very grey one, but for a big chunk of the book, I wasn't sure if the author even realised what kind of character they were writing because there was no reassurance! It was highly uncomfortable position to be in, even though you would think that after
Spoilercommitting a mass murder & torturing a helpless prisoner
I shouldn't have to doubt the author's intentions, but yet I did. I mean, I'm a pretty smart reader so it's baffling to me... but I would appreciate more... clarity, I guess? Like this story managed to be both on the nose and confusing...

I read this book over a month, because I couldn't get through it, even when I thought the book was cool (at the beginning) I wasn't really invested at all and gradually I started to feel extremely uncomfortable. This might be the author's intent and I think uncomfortable books are so important (and I tend to like them! Like [b:Manhunt|53329296|Manhunt|Gretchen Felker-Martin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1623167555l/53329296._SY75_.jpg|80731563]), but it just didn't work for me. I mean [a:N.K. Jemisin|2917917|N.K. Jemisin|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1438215930p2/2917917.jpg] and [a:Kameron Hurley|4369922|Kameron Hurley|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1616250384p2/4369922.jpg] also write deeply uncomfortable books, but they are capable of reassuring me along the way that they are going to handle things all right, even if they'll crush my heart in the process. I didn't feel that here. Which is strange, because previously I thought it was about the trust you had in the author, which I would say that I have in Yang.

About quarter in, I switched to the audiobook, which actually made finishing of this book possible for me and I'm so grateful for it's existence! But I wasn't the biggest fan of that either... Idk, I guess I just didn't vibed with the narrator.

To sum this up; I have no idea what happened here. I thought the idea behind this book was pretty solid, but the execution didn't work for me. I feel like this book was trying to be nuanced, but missed the mark. Futuristic religions is usually something that I enjoy seeing, but it felt over-repeated and not so interesting here. If you are looking for a book to try out Yang, I would recommend you check out [b:The Black Tides of Heaven|33099588|The Black Tides of Heaven (Tensorate, #1)|Neon Yang|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1634814752l/33099588._SY75_.jpg|53763120] instead!

P.S. Some commentors seem to think this is going to be a trilogy? Really?! I thought that it worked pretty well as a stand-alone and can't really imagine what you could do with two more books? But I guess getting more from the Heretics POV would be nice... I kind of don't want the next book to happen though, because then I would be tempted to read it... I know myself too well.
BRed at WBtM: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/22495413-the-genesis-of-misery-by-neon-yang---july-2023?page=1