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A review by emslund
Pills and Starships by Lydia Millet
2.0
When I was going to choose this book I read one review that complained about its title not making any sense - eh, not really true. The entire novel is framed with a narrative of journal entries written to another imaginary teen in a starship orbiting earth. The novel starts and ends with this idea in mind - so it's pretty clear to me that was tied into the title of the novel since it's the entire frame of it. And the pills - they take pills throughout this whole novel too. In fact, the pills become a major plot point that come about towards the end, but I won't say anything more. So while I started this novel thinking I would also be just as confused by the title or something - I totally wasn't, haha. But anyway, that wasn't why I gave it three stars.
I wasn't very impressed by the plot. I didn't mind the character's voice - though look at me, I've already forgotten her name. At first my biggest gripe were the kids' parents - who seemed to be making their decisions completely nonsensically to me without clear motivation. The fact that they were the youngest contracts and had the youngest children - they kept saying things like, "We think it's best if you live on your own from now on because you are both so independent" (the MC and her brother Sam). Well uh, after the whole contract thing, Sam and - Nat (! I think I remembered?) actually have to be relocated to a community living place for minors. So if your kids aren't even old enough to be legally living on their own - why the hell would you just think it's right to go abandon them? That bothered me through the entire book until the end, when it's kind of explained through a plot point. Okay - that's fine. But I was just clueless on picking up the foreshadow for that one. I guess I just didn't "get" the characterization of the parents at all right off the bat.
That sort of led into the later plot of the novel, which I felt just had too many conveniences. At no point here did I ever think any character was going to die or there was a major threat or anything. There's a plot point of a giant storm towards the end that does uh - nothing, but perhaps provide the author time to coup the characters together so they can talk and then relates back to a Sam plot point - but I'm not sure that the whole storm needed to happen for that. It might've been more fun / action packed to write a jail break scene instead of avoid it. BUT I think as a writer, it also shows the confines of writing in a journal-frame. You can't do as much because you've got to allow your character realistic time to go back and write it all down. I never really liked that form because I often find it unbelievable - that people remember dialogue that other people say, etc. and then of course inherently unreliable too - what would the story be like from Sam's perspective, completely different? Is Nat just paraphrasing, is she just summarizing the conversations she has with people? etc.
Things I did like, though that stopped me from rating this lower - I liked the non-traditional YA aspect of this being about a brother/sister. Though I will say, I didn't feel like there was a whole lot of characterization of Sam. By the end he was still sort of a mystery or at least - defined by his archetype "hacker kid" without ever going into it. Again - I felt like the author might've been avoiding things. Like writing an engaging scene where we actually see Sam using his hacking skills or something. That never really happened, which was a shame. There were so many moments where there could've been some crazy action going on in this novel and high risks - but it felt all avoided. Anyway though, back to the good stuff. So I liked the brother/sister dichotomy. I also liked Nat being more passive at the opening of this novel. That was cool. She's not a Katniss, that's for sure, which was almost a breath of fresh air for me because she felt more relatable - to me, anyway. Still though, once she gets roped into the world that her brother shows her - I would've liked to have seen less passivity and more action/independence.
I'm glad I read this. I wasn't too bothered by the overarching messages of carbon footprints and the destruction of nature. But that's a big theme. I'm always interested in seeing the reimagining of a dystopic future. Though this world had a lot of potential - and in the end it felt like the narrative was holding way back. This really could've been quite the fast action-packed ride a la Lunar Chronicles or something with huge conspiracies and running from robo corp cops or something, but alas, it just wasn't - and fell a bit flat because of it.
I wasn't very impressed by the plot. I didn't mind the character's voice - though look at me, I've already forgotten her name. At first my biggest gripe were the kids' parents - who seemed to be making their decisions completely nonsensically to me without clear motivation. The fact that they were the youngest contracts and had the youngest children - they kept saying things like, "We think it's best if you live on your own from now on because you are both so independent" (the MC and her brother Sam). Well uh, after the whole contract thing, Sam and - Nat (! I think I remembered?) actually have to be relocated to a community living place for minors. So if your kids aren't even old enough to be legally living on their own - why the hell would you just think it's right to go abandon them? That bothered me through the entire book until the end, when it's kind of explained through a plot point. Okay - that's fine. But I was just clueless on picking up the foreshadow for that one. I guess I just didn't "get" the characterization of the parents at all right off the bat.
That sort of led into the later plot of the novel, which I felt just had too many conveniences. At no point here did I ever think any character was going to die or there was a major threat or anything. There's a plot point of a giant storm towards the end that does uh - nothing, but perhaps provide the author time to coup the characters together so they can talk and then relates back to a Sam plot point - but I'm not sure that the whole storm needed to happen for that. It might've been more fun / action packed to write a jail break scene instead of avoid it. BUT I think as a writer, it also shows the confines of writing in a journal-frame. You can't do as much because you've got to allow your character realistic time to go back and write it all down. I never really liked that form because I often find it unbelievable - that people remember dialogue that other people say, etc. and then of course inherently unreliable too - what would the story be like from Sam's perspective, completely different? Is Nat just paraphrasing, is she just summarizing the conversations she has with people? etc.
Things I did like, though that stopped me from rating this lower - I liked the non-traditional YA aspect of this being about a brother/sister. Though I will say, I didn't feel like there was a whole lot of characterization of Sam. By the end he was still sort of a mystery or at least - defined by his archetype "hacker kid" without ever going into it. Again - I felt like the author might've been avoiding things. Like writing an engaging scene where we actually see Sam using his hacking skills or something. That never really happened, which was a shame. There were so many moments where there could've been some crazy action going on in this novel and high risks - but it felt all avoided. Anyway though, back to the good stuff. So I liked the brother/sister dichotomy. I also liked Nat being more passive at the opening of this novel. That was cool. She's not a Katniss, that's for sure, which was almost a breath of fresh air for me because she felt more relatable - to me, anyway. Still though, once she gets roped into the world that her brother shows her - I would've liked to have seen less passivity and more action/independence.
I'm glad I read this. I wasn't too bothered by the overarching messages of carbon footprints and the destruction of nature. But that's a big theme. I'm always interested in seeing the reimagining of a dystopic future. Though this world had a lot of potential - and in the end it felt like the narrative was holding way back. This really could've been quite the fast action-packed ride a la Lunar Chronicles or something with huge conspiracies and running from robo corp cops or something, but alas, it just wasn't - and fell a bit flat because of it.