A review by brandonotis
Unquenchable Fire by Rachel Pollack

4.0

I wish I knew how to immediately describe how I feel about Unquenchable Fire, sadly I don’t. This is an extraordinarily complex and packed book, chapter 1 throws you into a world that is so close to our own, but so completely altered culturally, and there are no introductory lessons you’re just placed in the very center of it all. I could see this book going two ways for a lot of people, either they hate it and its too confusing 1 star, OR its everything they’ve been looking for and its their new bible 5 stars, for me I think I fall in the middle but obviously closer to the latter, I’d give it a solid 3-4 stars (rounding up to 4 on goodreads) because it honestly wasn’t my favorite thing that I’ve ever read, but I was able to get so much out of it. For me, the book focuses on certain tense and obnoxious moments that are some of my least favorite in all of media, such as annoying neighbors pushing around the protagonist (for reference the 2017 film Mother! Featured a character being steamrolled and attacked for 2 hours, and it got so bad I was genuinely annoyed for days later, there’s more to that story but its not the point) so when these moments would happen I’d obviously be annoyed that it was happening, but also for our main character, I found myself able to connect more than just deflect in annoyance. There also are extremely outlandish portions of the book dedicated to telling a story from the story, I often times found myself not interested in these sections, but something about them made me keep reading, I just know If I were more educated in spirituality I would be able to recognize the references and origins of that plots theming. This leads me to talking about the author, Rachel Pollack, she is VERY known for her books on spirituality and tarot, and also for her stint on the DC comic Doom Patrol. Something really random happened to me prior to starting this book, I’m not sure why but I really felt connected to the author, something about her just drew me in and I started watching interviews she’d done and subsequently I feel like I do have an appreciation for this book that I wouldn’t have if I had just randomly picked it up. This connection with the author did also translate into a connection with this book, though I felt like some of it was confusing, and it wasn’t always my favorite, I finished the book and felt like I could just go right back to the beginning, I wanted more from the world that was heavily built, and I think ultimately I just wanted more Rachel Pollack. She created something really unique and special with this book, and I just know that this book will stay with me for a really long time.