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A review by kateywumpus
Rhapsody by Molly J. Bragg
2.0
Boy, what a disappointment. I've liked the Hearts of Heroes to various degrees so far. Scatter was excellent. Transistor was okay, but entertaining. Aether, was really good. And this? I don't know. It felt like the author just kind of phoned it in. I think she's gotten tired of the setting and it shows. I don't want to say it was lazy writing, because work was put into it. But there were... shortcuts.
First and foremost at about the third-way mark of the book, the main character gets a chance to explain her situation, so she does so. In length, almost three times in a row. She tells one character who takes her to another character and tells her to tell them, which she does, who then takes her to yet another character and tells her to tell them which she does. Again. In detail. I ended up skipping most of these recaps because they were just blocks of text saying the same thing over and over again, without interruption. It was really frustrating.
Secondly, the power that the main character receives is... Venom. She gets an 'augment' grafted to her that works exactly like the Venom symbiote, save for a few upgrades. I mean, sure, there's enough to legally distinguish the two but at the end of the day it's just... Venom. It's rather disappointing since the powers and abilities from the other three novels were unique and interesting.
The only good thing that the book did, in my opinion, is that at the end of it, the main character decides not to become a superhero. Not enough superhero media gives that option any serious thought. 'With great power must come great responsibility' and all that. What about the responsibility to yourself? What about your own happiness? Should you throw that away just because you've got alien goo coursing through your veins? The option to just live your life as a regular person is always shown as giving up, letting the bad guys win, and letting everybody down, and I like that in this book, they try to do that to the main character and the main character spits in their face with a 'fuck you, I'll live as I please.' Couple onto that, the main character is trans, so the sentiment hits much harder.
Unfortunately, that's not enough to overcome the book's other shortcomings. I really hate giving a fellow trans author such a low score for their work. It feels like a betrayal. We should stick together and lift ourselves up, which means that I'm more likely to give trans authors a little more leeway with my reviews but... there's only so much leeway I can give. I'm giving this book two stars, but I do recommend at least giving Scatter and Aether a try. They're both excellent books and you can read them independently of each other.
First and foremost at about the third-way mark of the book, the main character gets a chance to explain her situation, so she does so. In length, almost three times in a row. She tells one character who takes her to another character and tells her to tell them, which she does, who then takes her to yet another character and tells her to tell them which she does. Again. In detail. I ended up skipping most of these recaps because they were just blocks of text saying the same thing over and over again, without interruption. It was really frustrating.
Secondly, the power that the main character receives is... Venom. She gets an 'augment' grafted to her that works exactly like the Venom symbiote, save for a few upgrades. I mean, sure, there's enough to legally distinguish the two but at the end of the day it's just... Venom. It's rather disappointing since the powers and abilities from the other three novels were unique and interesting.
The only good thing that the book did, in my opinion, is that at the end of it, the main character decides not to become a superhero. Not enough superhero media gives that option any serious thought. 'With great power must come great responsibility' and all that. What about the responsibility to yourself? What about your own happiness? Should you throw that away just because you've got alien goo coursing through your veins? The option to just live your life as a regular person is always shown as giving up, letting the bad guys win, and letting everybody down, and I like that in this book, they try to do that to the main character and the main character spits in their face with a 'fuck you, I'll live as I please.' Couple onto that, the main character is trans, so the sentiment hits much harder.
Unfortunately, that's not enough to overcome the book's other shortcomings. I really hate giving a fellow trans author such a low score for their work. It feels like a betrayal. We should stick together and lift ourselves up, which means that I'm more likely to give trans authors a little more leeway with my reviews but... there's only so much leeway I can give. I'm giving this book two stars, but I do recommend at least giving Scatter and Aether a try. They're both excellent books and you can read them independently of each other.