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A review by being_b
Planetfall by Emma Newman
4.0
Like many other reviewers, I was delighted by the excellent portrayal of a mentally ill protagonist (anxiety! OCD!) and pleased to have a queer protagonist. The novel reminded me of [b: Crime and Punishment|7144|Crime and Punishment|Fyodor Dostoyevsky|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1382846449s/7144.jpg|3393917]: It explores how a terrible secret can warp a person and eventually an entire community, and the awful winding tension it causes in Ren's internal life as it fractures her relationships to others.
This brings us to the SFnal elements. The worldbuilding for the Earth they left behind was excellent, detailed yet lying lightly on the story rather than weighting it down with infodumpery. Unfortunately, the worldbuilding for their new planet was absolutely sparse. I think this may have been an intentional choice meant to further illustrate the isolating effect of secrets, and how the great lie at the foundation of the colony has prevented them from becoming truly part of their new world. Since the SFnal elements are primarily in the setting, however, this has the effect of divorcing the genre elements from the plot:
The ending was disappointing:
Still, the first 90% of the book was fantastic.
This brings us to the SFnal elements. The worldbuilding for the Earth they left behind was excellent, detailed yet lying lightly on the story rather than weighting it down with infodumpery. Unfortunately, the worldbuilding for their new planet was absolutely sparse. I think this may have been an intentional choice meant to further illustrate the isolating effect of secrets, and how the great lie at the foundation of the colony has prevented them from becoming truly part of their new world. Since the SFnal elements are primarily in the setting, however, this has the effect of divorcing the genre elements from the plot:
Spoiler
The heart of the story could easily have been told without traveling to another planet.The ending was disappointing:
Spoiler
Ren's struggles are swept away by God's city, which seems to magically "cure" her mental illness. There's no real hint as to why Ren was able to see what the enigmatic Suh couldn't. Ren's discovery, "cure," and ascension feel tacked-on, like the author had written themselves into a corner- after a story so focused on Ren's interior life and her struggles relating to others, it felt really cheap to have an ending that takes her away from everyone else and uses an unknown mechanism to "fix" her.Still, the first 90% of the book was fantastic.