A review by kappafrog
The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull

dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This was a tough book to get through. It was way more violent and dark than most of what I read. I wanted to see it through because I was really interested in seeing a sci-fi story told from the perspective of Virgin Islanders. And there was a lot of good stuff in here - Turnbull had some really moving character moments and managed to convincingly portray a range of perspectives about the Ynaa. It was an approach to first contact that was unlike any I'd read before.

My main issue though, besides the compatibility issues mentioned above, is that there was too much left unclear about the aliens by the end of the book.
How did Mera escape punishment from the other Ynaa? What was she trying to do to Derrick's body in the "dreams" Patrice saw? But on a much bigger level - what was the everlasting life (Yn Altaa), why could it be condensed in a blue pearl, why did it take hundreds of years of research for Mera to develop, and why was Earth the only planet where it could be found out of countless others the Ynaa searched? Those last questions also make it hard for me to see this as a great analogy for colonialism, since they don't seem applicable at all in human colonialism, slavery, etc.


I had a nagging issue with the worldbuilding - fair enough that the aliens decide to stay in the Virgin Islands, but why were other world governments completely absent from the story? It's really hard to imagine that the rest of the world wouldn't be crowding into the islands to get better access to the aliens. On the flip side, the worldbuilding around Mera's history on the island was really interesting. Although I never felt satisfied in finding out the reasons she was doing what she was doing, it was interesting piecing things together alongside characters like Jackson and Henrietta.

I appreciated reading a book from a perspective totally different from most of what I read. Seeing the Caribbean from the eyes of local people instead of tourists is really interesting. There were a lot of great ideas in this book, but for me, they didn't all form a cohesive whole. I'm interested to see what more this author writes, though this was way too violent for me so I hope his future work is less so!
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