A review by citrus_seasalt
Pluralities by Avi Silver

5.0

I wondered if this was part of settling into adulthood, shedding the impulse to hate who we are. It was such a bewildering thing; most kids walked the world with full confidence in themselves, proudly announcing that they were right all the time and that everyone else had better get used to it. How did that get so eroded over the years? Why did we all end up having to learn how to be children again?

“Pluralities” is not a sci-fi book meant for everyone, but I loved it to pieces. While there’s a lack of worldbuilding and fleshing out some of the elements(like the “she” stamps), I was, surprisingly, able to overlook it. Because a lot of this is the metaphorical, deeply personal representation of gender, and the messy (ongoing) journey to find a way to fit into it. It’s not <i>meant</i> to be some detailed, lush sci-fi novella. Thankfully, the characters were able to compensate for the bare bones setting. 

My upbringing was only loosely similar to the first POV’s, but I still found that their thoughts articulated much of my gender and the different facets of it. (They never had a name, should I just call them They because of the pronoun stamp stuff?) It’s so cool to have that kind of representation. And the power of T4T friends (with benefits lol)!! They felt seen by Theseus, and how he provided a space for them to figure out themself, but They still kept a very separate gender identity and experience with it. The two were in very different stages of their transition and that was represented interestingly in their characters. But also, I loved how real their friendship felt. From the shared early twenties angst, to the Stardew Valley references haha. 

And nobody told me there was going to be a heart-wrenching platonic love story between a spaceship and a prince(with two sets of eyes)??!! Ugh. Cornelius’s impulsiveness, naïveté and unintentional selfishness got on my nerves sometimes but he couldn’t help it. He was raised as a prince for god’s sake and the same time he tried figuring out himself was when he went and saw the rest of the world(and its threats) that he couldn’t really be in growing up. And how Bo would love him through that, because Cornelius cared just as much, the entire time, in his own flawed way…that was so sweet. 

If he could speak, Cornelius would ask why it came for him. If it could reply, Bo would tell him the truth: Because we're no good without the other. Because even at your worst, you do not deserve the pain you house. Because I do not do enough to show just how much faith I have in you. Because I've run a thousand simulations through my core, imagining what our lives would be apart, and it just doesn't work, Cornelius. It just doesn't work.

Overall, beautiful book that I highly recommend. I definitely cried.