A review by bookgirlie_unbound
Metal from Heaven by August Clarke

4.0

Hidden away in the socialist utopia of The Fingerbluffs, Marnie dreams of exacting her revenge on the industry leader who ordered her family’s death. The best part of this book is how the reader is forced to participate actively through Marnie’s first-person narration, breaking the fourth wall. We the reader, are “you,” her first love lost in the same brutal killing that took away her parents. This literary trick heightened my enjoyment and investment in the book and was one of the best literary surprises I’ve encountered. 

Overall, this book is solid. The plot is moderately paced, like Marnie’s assured confidence that she WILL kill Yann Industry Chauncy and does not need to rush. This has its pros and cons, as several parts of the book that I felt were excruciatingly drawn out as a way to belabor the moral and philosophical superiority of the Highwayman’s Choir and the “Hereafter”- a glorious period in which the universe is freed from the yoke of capitalism. 

Readers should be aware that sex is used as an allegory for greed and overconsumption, and is omnipresent in the last third of the book. I understand its use as a literary device, and I still think the book had strong enough characters, sub-stories, and mysticism to carry on to the finish without so much gratuitous, abusive, and graphic sex. I would gladly trade several of the sex scenes for more information about the magic Marnie wields or the complex religious codes observed by the many nations and communities within this sprawling world. 
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