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novella42 's review for:
The Mimicking of Known Successes
by Malka Older
adventurous
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I really need to stop trying to read mysteries. I had hoped that good worldbuilding and a queer romance would be enough for me, but this book moved like molasses for me. I only really enjoyed the book by the very end when everything was finally coming clear.
Things I thought were done well: many elements of the worldbuilding of life on Jupiter felt tactile and genuinely lived-in; the aesthetics of noir mystery set in a swirling-mist world beset by storms; the inherited grief of a lost world and the ways different people respond to that even generations later. Oh, and two autistic-coded people navigating romantic history together.
If you enjoyed the eerie ambiance of Solaris by Stanislaw Lem, but wished the toxic relationship was healthy and queer, and the brutal violence of it was held at arm's length with many pots of tea and plates of scones, then this might be your jam.
Weirdly, even though the vibes were excellent, the actual details were often lacking. I had the damnedest time visualizing the trains, the platforms, the ways the rails intersected (I kept wishing for a map, especially since they're constantly referencing maps, globes, etc.) or how the settlements looked in relation to Jupiter itself. I got the sense that the author picked scones and tea because they're inherently cozy and easy to repeat again and again. But it seemed to me that much of the food and the cozy elements might have been added in as an afterthought at someone else's suggestion, rather than it coming from a love of culinary delights. For example, more than once the characters consume vague "food packets" or something that is a layered protein cylinder?
At times both main characters sounded so similar that it kept taking me out of the story. It seemed like you might have switched up their dialogue and not really noticed, much of the time.
Also, the main reason this book felt like a chore: I found the writing so stilted, convoluted, and formal that it left me frustrated and unable to write my own work, because my own mental "voice" has taken on her specific patterns.
This book probably deserves more than three stars, but I have to balance my appraisal of the success the author had in doing what she set out to do, with the fact that I really had to force myself to finish it. It just wasn't for me, but I shouldn't punish the author for that.
Things I thought were done well: many elements of the worldbuilding of life on Jupiter felt tactile and genuinely lived-in; the aesthetics of noir mystery set in a swirling-mist world beset by storms; the inherited grief of a lost world and the ways different people respond to that even generations later. Oh, and two autistic-coded people navigating romantic history together.
If you enjoyed the eerie ambiance of Solaris by Stanislaw Lem, but wished the toxic relationship was healthy and queer, and the brutal violence of it was held at arm's length with many pots of tea and plates of scones, then this might be your jam.
Weirdly, even though the vibes were excellent, the actual details were often lacking. I had the damnedest time visualizing the trains, the platforms, the ways the rails intersected (I kept wishing for a map, especially since they're constantly referencing maps, globes, etc.) or how the settlements looked in relation to Jupiter itself. I got the sense that the author picked scones and tea because they're inherently cozy and easy to repeat again and again. But it seemed to me that much of the food and the cozy elements might have been added in as an afterthought at someone else's suggestion, rather than it coming from a love of culinary delights. For example, more than once the characters consume vague "food packets" or something that is a layered protein cylinder?
At times both main characters sounded so similar that it kept taking me out of the story. It seemed like you might have switched up their dialogue and not really noticed, much of the time.
Also, the main reason this book felt like a chore: I found the writing so stilted, convoluted, and formal that it left me frustrated and unable to write my own work, because my own mental "voice" has taken on her specific patterns.
This book probably deserves more than three stars, but I have to balance my appraisal of the success the author had in doing what she set out to do, with the fact that I really had to force myself to finish it. It just wasn't for me, but I shouldn't punish the author for that.