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A review by zachyypooo
The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal
2.0
The vibe was hard to feel out here. The heavy drinking, 20's femme fatale reversal thing didn't draw me in immediately and it quickly wore thin. The dialogue earlier on is wholly insufferable and hurt establishing Tesla and Shal as characters instead of caricatures. The writing for Fantine hurt to read. It felt like a knockoff version of Sorkin at his worst.
My biggest frustrations with the book both centered on the privilege and disability. I don't think the work had much to say on either despite focusing so heavily on both. Just because Tesla acknowledges the money she casually throws around or hesitates briefly before dressing down the help doesn't mean anything. The disability inclusion could have been really cool, too, but it just felt short. It didn't consistently interact with the plot in a meaningful way. I was even onboard with the DBPS concept, and I assumed the over reliance on it could have led to some interesting loss of sensory interactions, but instead we were just left with static "blinding white pain" sentences that didn't impact the surroundings whatsoever. I do think the trauma aspects were handled decently and integrated into the story meaningfully, though. So one win for inclusion.
The story did pick up at the end which helped me finish it out. I think there were enough breadcrumbs throughout that the resolution made sense but I was a little disappointed with how disparate some of the pieces felt.
It's just barely scraping up on that 3 star rating but I think I'd have a difficult time recommending this to somebody who wasn't already sold on sci-fi and mysteries.
My biggest frustrations with the book both centered on the privilege and disability. I don't think the work had much to say on either despite focusing so heavily on both. Just because Tesla acknowledges the money she casually throws around or hesitates briefly before dressing down the help doesn't mean anything. The disability inclusion could have been really cool, too, but it just felt short. It didn't consistently interact with the plot in a meaningful way. I was even onboard with the DBPS concept, and I assumed the over reliance on it could have led to some interesting loss of sensory interactions, but instead we were just left with static "blinding white pain" sentences that didn't impact the surroundings whatsoever. I do think the trauma aspects were handled decently and integrated into the story meaningfully, though. So one win for inclusion.
The story did pick up at the end which helped me finish it out. I think there were enough breadcrumbs throughout that the resolution made sense but I was a little disappointed with how disparate some of the pieces felt.
It's just barely scraping up on that 3 star rating but I think I'd have a difficult time recommending this to somebody who wasn't already sold on sci-fi and mysteries.