A review by jaelynx
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

4.0

Set on a generational ship set for a mythical promised land, the HSS Matilda, humanity is divided by a strict class and racial system. Aster lives in the slums as a doctor, attempting to help the workers through the strict “moral” laws of the Sovereign and the harshness of the guards, though she is often singled out for special punishment from those above.

When the Sovereign dies of a mysterious condition, making way for someone even more ruthless, Asther sees a link between this and the death of her mother. This begins her path to finding out the truth about the ship, what happened to her mother and how to overthrow the brutal regime.

It’s an interesting dystopian world with strong connections to slavery, the slave trade (the upper decks being the white owners while the black lower deckers, often referred to as less than human, pack the lower decks) and the intersection of those processes with native queerness in how the upper decks’ rigid gender binary clashes against the greater fluidity of the lower decks. The characters are compelling as they try to navigate and survive in this world though I feel some of the side characters could have been more developed.