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A review by melcanread
The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
When a man goes missing on a remote outpost of a human colony on Jupiter, Investigator Mossa begins to dig deeper and uncover the secrets of his disappearance. To do this efficiently, she enlists the help of her ex-girlfriend to solve the case and bring about justice for the victim.
I picked this book up because I heard about the sequel and I wanted to read the first one before the sequel's release date. I had high hopes for this book, given that it was a sapphic, murder-mystery based on the planet Jupiter. Alas, I find myself more disappointed than satisfied with this one.
First and foremost, this book, despite its unintimidating size, was an absolute slog to get through. What should have taken me only three hours ended up taking me threw days, purely because me and it just were not vibing well at all. The narrative style of Older reads like a piece of classical literature that you're forced to read in secondary school and have absolutely no interest in it whatsoever. Which is a shame because the premise of this book is absolutely exceptional.
While some authors hold your hand during the book, I feel like Older pushed me into a swimming pool in an attempt to teach me how to swim. It felt like I'd been dumped into the story in the middle of a series. She used terminology that I didn't know as if I should know what everything was. And yet, I couldn't find anywhere that said that this was part of another series. There was a vital lack of world building in order for me to truly be invested in both the plot and the characters, and just left me incredibly confused. Futhermore, Older would add details in random places that took the tension out of the action - details that should have been at the beginning of the book, i.e. Pleiti's fear of the planet exploding. We learned about this 90% the way through the book during what should have been the climactic ending.
The use of political terminology during this made me uncomfortable enough to question Older's personal politics, too. Though, of course, she is the author of a sapphic short novel, it's unlikely that she's writing from the right-winged side of the political spectrum, the use of the word "conservative" described as a slur was very... icky to me. And then, later on, Pleiti is snivelling to Mossa that their enemy called her "the c-word", referencing conservative.
I also found it peculiar how the book is described and advertised with Mossa being the main character, but the book itself is told from Pleiti's perspective. I can't lie to you and say that it didn’t throw me off for the first chapter, because it did. When the prologue itself is written in third person, chapter one makes a very abrupt change into first person with Pleiti being the one telling the story, which I didn't like.
I liked how they didn’t seem human, weirdly enough. Like they're aliens cosplaying as humans. I suppose that's because they're in the other half of the Solar System. The dialogue was written from a modern perspective, using the formal speak you'd find in a period drama. Which - oddly enough, I did kind of enjoy.
Overall, the book was enjoyable enough for me to have read it to completion, but irritating enough for me to probably not read the sequel.
I picked this book up because I heard about the sequel and I wanted to read the first one before the sequel's release date. I had high hopes for this book, given that it was a sapphic, murder-mystery based on the planet Jupiter. Alas, I find myself more disappointed than satisfied with this one.
First and foremost, this book, despite its unintimidating size, was an absolute slog to get through. What should have taken me only three hours ended up taking me threw days, purely because me and it just were not vibing well at all. The narrative style of Older reads like a piece of classical literature that you're forced to read in secondary school and have absolutely no interest in it whatsoever. Which is a shame because the premise of this book is absolutely exceptional.
While some authors hold your hand during the book, I feel like Older pushed me into a swimming pool in an attempt to teach me how to swim. It felt like I'd been dumped into the story in the middle of a series. She used terminology that I didn't know as if I should know what everything was. And yet, I couldn't find anywhere that said that this was part of another series. There was a vital lack of world building in order for me to truly be invested in both the plot and the characters, and just left me incredibly confused. Futhermore, Older would add details in random places that took the tension out of the action - details that should have been at the beginning of the book, i.e. Pleiti's fear of the planet exploding. We learned about this 90% the way through the book during what should have been the climactic ending.
The use of political terminology during this made me uncomfortable enough to question Older's personal politics, too. Though, of course, she is the author of a sapphic short novel, it's unlikely that she's writing from the right-winged side of the political spectrum, the use of the word "conservative" described as a slur was very... icky to me. And then, later on, Pleiti is snivelling to Mossa that their enemy called her "the c-word", referencing conservative.
I also found it peculiar how the book is described and advertised with Mossa being the main character, but the book itself is told from Pleiti's perspective. I can't lie to you and say that it didn’t throw me off for the first chapter, because it did. When the prologue itself is written in third person, chapter one makes a very abrupt change into first person with Pleiti being the one telling the story, which I didn't like.
I liked how they didn’t seem human, weirdly enough. Like they're aliens cosplaying as humans. I suppose that's because they're in the other half of the Solar System. The dialogue was written from a modern perspective, using the formal speak you'd find in a period drama. Which - oddly enough, I did kind of enjoy.
Overall, the book was enjoyable enough for me to have read it to completion, but irritating enough for me to probably not read the sequel.