phntasmagoria 's review for:

Metal from Heaven by August Clarke

4.5

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

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this made me tear up in the end! i think if you are queer, you would like this book a lot. it really captured the magnetic feeling you get from other gay, genderqueer people. i also enjoyed how it engaged marxist critiques and anarchist futurities without veering into being preachy. i do feel like it could have been like 50 pages longer --

it needed just a bit more time to set up the relevance of the new characters in the second half of the book. the introduction of all of the different suitors made it feel as though the narrative would spend more time with them, but it felt a bit rushed.

i'm in two minds about the novel's prose, though. on one hand, it was poetic and created a strong sense of POV despite feeling so sparse. it culminated really well in the climax of the book and thematically made sense. on the other hand, the rhythm felt a little repetitive at times (it was very much Subject Verb Object. Subject Verb Object. for most of the novel) and i'm not sure it would work for me outside of marney's perspective. 

quick edit after skimming the other reviews -- i personally wouldn't call this purple prose at all? purple prose is ornate and figurative to the point of being almost incomprehensible for no reason. the section at the end

is deliberately written like more like prose poetry because her individual sense of self is basically fractured and then remade after becoming part of the ichorite

and i literally can't really think of anything that felt like purple prose. if anything i feel like it was too literal sometimes. are y'all okay.