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A review by readerpants
Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi
3.0
Gosh, this set off all my catnip alerts, but I'm afraid it just didn't have the solid writing/worldbuilding/emotional craft I needed to be able to enter the story.
I just skimmed through some of the other reviews and found many of the same disappointed complaints I had about the worldbuilding and character development. I think it's interesting, though, how many are like, well, this isn't really SF, it's a romance, maybe that's the problem. But in a romance novel, I have even *higher* expectations for the crafting of the relationships, the tensions and resolutions, and intensive, interesting character development. Because good romance novels do that, even if the "plot" is virtually nonexistent. I would have been thrilled if Ascension had worked through actual family/romantic/etc relationships (not just Heather-has-two-mommies-style didacticism around poly life) and challenges.
I'm a children's librarian, so I see value in presenting issues of visibility in tidy terms when working with kids and families... developmentally, some didacticism is useful for my kids, especially in an educational setting. But this book is for grownups, ostensibly for ME, so I expect more sophistication, depth, realistic messiness. Who is this written for, those of us inside looking out or those outside looking in? I guess representation is less satisfying to me if it's primarily intended to make me palatable to others. /grouch
I just skimmed through some of the other reviews and found many of the same disappointed complaints I had about the worldbuilding and character development. I think it's interesting, though, how many are like, well, this isn't really SF, it's a romance, maybe that's the problem. But in a romance novel, I have even *higher* expectations for the crafting of the relationships, the tensions and resolutions, and intensive, interesting character development. Because good romance novels do that, even if the "plot" is virtually nonexistent. I would have been thrilled if Ascension had worked through actual family/romantic/etc relationships (not just Heather-has-two-mommies-style didacticism around poly life) and challenges.
I'm a children's librarian, so I see value in presenting issues of visibility in tidy terms when working with kids and families... developmentally, some didacticism is useful for my kids, especially in an educational setting. But this book is for grownups, ostensibly for ME, so I expect more sophistication, depth, realistic messiness. Who is this written for, those of us inside looking out or those outside looking in? I guess representation is less satisfying to me if it's primarily intended to make me palatable to others. /grouch