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A review by emryser
The Record Keeper by Agnes Gomillion
4.0
It’s funny how this book grabbed my attention: it was like someone tapping my shoulder and asking a question when I haven’t even taken my earphones off. This book kind of interrupted what I was doing and demanded to be read – right then, right there. (I ended up taking it on holiday with me and, let me tell you, this is NOT a light, summery read so don’t make the same mistake. I mean it in the best possible way, though).
The Record Keeper is a scary eye-opener. It’s a horrific possibility and an excruciating reminder. It’s a horrendous past and a revolting future. It’s frightening in the way that it wakes a rooted fear that we could let history repeat itself in the future and add technology and science to make everything a thousand times worse. The Record Keeper is very complex and brave and ultimately groundbreaking. I’ve never read anything like it before (and I literally spend my life reading dystopian stories).
It’s not easy to get into it. It might take you a few chapters to actually understand what’s going on and what kind of world you were thrown into this time. It’s also very frustrating when you realise that the main character has been mind-washed and trained to obey and respect every law that is supposed to keep the society she’s in balanced. But it’s glorious to see how she develops and becomes exactly what she needs to be to make a difference (and to compensate all the nail-biting, wall-punching, nerve-racking moments she put you through in the first place). But the world is so well-crafted and the writing is so fitting the whole story becomes irresistible.
This is a book about racism, supremacism, and slavery – three themes that have been explored time and time again in dystopian fiction. The difference here is that The Record Keeper still managed to bring a whole new concept into the mix: what if slaves could stop seeing themselves as slaves with the help of technology and medicine? What if their desires, their instincts and even their thoughts could be taken away and turn into nothing so they could be exploited without complaining until they die?
That’s why The Record Keeper is so scary – because it brings another ‘what if’ to the table, an unthinkable hypothesis, something so horrendous it forces the reader to think of the darkness in humanity getting even darker. Agnes Gomillion did a brilliant job at conjuring my sense of justice, without even needing to write a historical fiction novel about the millions of victims of slavery throughout our history. This sci-fi novel proved to be as efficient at honouring slavery victims as any memoir written by one. If you love thought-provoking dystopian stories, you shouldn’t miss out on this one.
Follow Parabatai Reviews for more.
The Record Keeper is a scary eye-opener. It’s a horrific possibility and an excruciating reminder. It’s a horrendous past and a revolting future. It’s frightening in the way that it wakes a rooted fear that we could let history repeat itself in the future and add technology and science to make everything a thousand times worse. The Record Keeper is very complex and brave and ultimately groundbreaking. I’ve never read anything like it before (and I literally spend my life reading dystopian stories).
It’s not easy to get into it. It might take you a few chapters to actually understand what’s going on and what kind of world you were thrown into this time. It’s also very frustrating when you realise that the main character has been mind-washed and trained to obey and respect every law that is supposed to keep the society she’s in balanced. But it’s glorious to see how she develops and becomes exactly what she needs to be to make a difference (and to compensate all the nail-biting, wall-punching, nerve-racking moments she put you through in the first place). But the world is so well-crafted and the writing is so fitting the whole story becomes irresistible.
This is a book about racism, supremacism, and slavery – three themes that have been explored time and time again in dystopian fiction. The difference here is that The Record Keeper still managed to bring a whole new concept into the mix: what if slaves could stop seeing themselves as slaves with the help of technology and medicine? What if their desires, their instincts and even their thoughts could be taken away and turn into nothing so they could be exploited without complaining until they die?
That’s why The Record Keeper is so scary – because it brings another ‘what if’ to the table, an unthinkable hypothesis, something so horrendous it forces the reader to think of the darkness in humanity getting even darker. Agnes Gomillion did a brilliant job at conjuring my sense of justice, without even needing to write a historical fiction novel about the millions of victims of slavery throughout our history. This sci-fi novel proved to be as efficient at honouring slavery victims as any memoir written by one. If you love thought-provoking dystopian stories, you shouldn’t miss out on this one.
Follow Parabatai Reviews for more.