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twilliamson 's review for:
Saltcrop
by Yume Kitasei
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Disclosure Statement: I received an advanced reader's copy of this novel from the publisher. My thoughts and opinions are entirely my own and have not been influenced in any way by either publisher or author.
I love speculative fiction, because it isn't really about predicting our futures but about conversing with our moment now. And Saltcrop is a book that is very much about our now. Sure, it's set in the near future and features some sci-fi tech and an environmental disaster that we haven't seen (yet) on our Earth, but it's very grounded in what it feels like to live in a world that is falling apart around our ears.
The book remains tightly focused on the story of three sisters, but its depiction of their lives is painful, harrowing at times, and borne of a consistent anxiety about hunger and poverty. Kitasei depicts a world that is no longer plenty, forced into scarcity by human avarice. The book is a poignant statement on our world's commitment to overconsumption, but the book works because it is so deeply rooted in showing the emotional and physiological effects of that destruction on the main characters of the novel.
And it feels like the world of Saltcrop is ultimately the world our next generations will inherit. As corporations consolidate more of their power and as people become too divorced from their own agency on account of their individual lack of power and economic durability, power shifts away from any one person's ability to affect their individual outcomes. This is the reality many are starting to feel even now. How many crop failures are we from societal meltdown?
Even still, the book isn't totally hopeless. It shows that we can actually be resilient, that change is still possible, that accountability may not radically fix our problems, but it moves us forward. That community still matters, that who we see around us, who we find along the way, all matter toward contributing to a better circumstance than before. Life doesn't end, but the shape of it might change.
There's hope in that.
I love speculative fiction, because it isn't really about predicting our futures but about conversing with our moment now. And Saltcrop is a book that is very much about our now. Sure, it's set in the near future and features some sci-fi tech and an environmental disaster that we haven't seen (yet) on our Earth, but it's very grounded in what it feels like to live in a world that is falling apart around our ears.
The book remains tightly focused on the story of three sisters, but its depiction of their lives is painful, harrowing at times, and borne of a consistent anxiety about hunger and poverty. Kitasei depicts a world that is no longer plenty, forced into scarcity by human avarice. The book is a poignant statement on our world's commitment to overconsumption, but the book works because it is so deeply rooted in showing the emotional and physiological effects of that destruction on the main characters of the novel.
And it feels like the world of Saltcrop is ultimately the world our next generations will inherit. As corporations consolidate more of their power and as people become too divorced from their own agency on account of their individual lack of power and economic durability, power shifts away from any one person's ability to affect their individual outcomes. This is the reality many are starting to feel even now. How many crop failures are we from societal meltdown?
Even still, the book isn't totally hopeless. It shows that we can actually be resilient, that change is still possible, that accountability may not radically fix our problems, but it moves us forward. That community still matters, that who we see around us, who we find along the way, all matter toward contributing to a better circumstance than before. Life doesn't end, but the shape of it might change.
There's hope in that.