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A review by theeuphoriczat
The Actual Star by Monica Byrne
3.0
First, I have to state that I have only read up to page 330 and my impression of this book would be of that. One can tell that the author has done some research and the glossary included in this book definitely helped.
This book is described as David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas meets Octavia Butler's Earthseed series, while I have not read the first book, I can definitely see its relation to Earthseed series in terms of climate changes and religion and cultural progression. This book follows three timelines, 1012, 2012, 3012, 3 souls who seem distant but interconnected (reincarnation; a major theme) as they go through life, seeing humanity merge and diverge. Civilizations rise and fall, socialist and communist ideas take foot and lose standing as we observe through a Mesoamerican cultural lens.
I do think that there is a voyeuristic tendency that the author has with describing things like sex, mutilation, colonisation, white capitalism, white passing and much more. I am still trying to figure out if the author was doing it on purpose to make my skin crawl. The strangeness of this book felt familiar to me, especially when I reflect on my feelings of DUNE. We did not need to discuss every currently relevant topic in the scope of this book . While I understand the discourse around gender fluidity, I don't think erasure or metamorphosis is the answer.
Like I said, I am still reading it and my impression is that this is a well-structured, appropriately researched, definitely ambitious book. Loving how well planned the intercorrelations of the timelines are, you can almost feel the atmosphere shift as you move from one timeline to the next. I just want to know how it ends because I elbows deep in it.
Thanks to Pride Book Tour for making this book available to me.
This book is described as David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas meets Octavia Butler's Earthseed series, while I have not read the first book, I can definitely see its relation to Earthseed series in terms of climate changes and religion and cultural progression. This book follows three timelines, 1012, 2012, 3012, 3 souls who seem distant but interconnected (reincarnation; a major theme) as they go through life, seeing humanity merge and diverge. Civilizations rise and fall, socialist and communist ideas take foot and lose standing as we observe through a Mesoamerican cultural lens.
I do think that there is a voyeuristic tendency that the author has with describing things like sex, mutilation, colonisation, white capitalism, white passing and much more. I am still trying to figure out if the author was doing it on purpose to make my skin crawl. The strangeness of this book felt familiar to me, especially when I reflect on my feelings of DUNE. We did not need to discuss every currently relevant topic in the scope of this book . While I understand the discourse around gender fluidity, I don't think erasure or metamorphosis is the answer.
Like I said, I am still reading it and my impression is that this is a well-structured, appropriately researched, definitely ambitious book. Loving how well planned the intercorrelations of the timelines are, you can almost feel the atmosphere shift as you move from one timeline to the next. I just want to know how it ends because I elbows deep in it.
Thanks to Pride Book Tour for making this book available to me.