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A review by grouchomarxist
Red Clocks by Leni Zumas
4.0
I'm not sure how to rate this. It vacillated between 3 star and 5 star, but by the end it was more "three star" in that I'd rate it as a weak 4 stars. There were parts I loved but I agree with the other reviewers who said it was choppy. I also felt like the "coincidences" by which the characters were tied together were almost Dickensian (and I do love Dickens, but there's no coincidences there). If it was trying to emphasize just how small this town was, it definitely did that to the point of being parodic. If it wasn't, it Further, I didn't like how deliberately "disgusting"-ly (to use a term from the book) Susan, "the wife" was painted. Whether it was her internal monologue or not, she was much more embodied than the other characters, with coarse descriptions of her body and a kind of cruel, self-deprecating narration of her feelings. The excerpts from the biographer's book felt a little excessive after a while, even when they showed "her" narration breaking through, and I felt the way it tied in at the end was a little pat and overly neat.
The Handmaid's Tale was long one of my favorite books, in that it was SO revolutionary to me when I read it at age 14, I then deliberately avoided the rest of Atwood's books until I was almost 23. That was dumb. Anyway, I think the dystopian premises, as well as the dystopia that we live in, have just about reached a point of saturation. This book was certainly derivative of The Handmaid's Tale, but seemed even more terrifyingly realistic. At this point, I feel like this is just the world of 2019 or 2020, and I'm already white-knuckling it through every day because literally everything I care about, have worked for, or value is being wiped out of existence by ignorant right-wingers who truly do not even consider me a person. Sometimes, I just want to read a book that doesn't remind me of how grotesquely unfair and horrible it is, along with the likelihood that my life will be short and painful, defined by financial insecurity and the complete lack of a social safety net as the planet's ecosystems completely collapse - all while the babbling lunatics in power continue to shriek that none of this is real (Gaslight, Obstruct, Project!)
Still, it was an enjoyable read and I finished it really quickly...so I'd definitely recommend it as a lot of the things I didn't like are probably just unique to me.
The Handmaid's Tale was long one of my favorite books, in that it was SO revolutionary to me when I read it at age 14, I then deliberately avoided the rest of Atwood's books until I was almost 23. That was dumb. Anyway, I think the dystopian premises, as well as the dystopia that we live in, have just about reached a point of saturation. This book was certainly derivative of The Handmaid's Tale, but seemed even more terrifyingly realistic. At this point, I feel like this is just the world of 2019 or 2020, and I'm already white-knuckling it through every day because literally everything I care about, have worked for, or value is being wiped out of existence by ignorant right-wingers who truly do not even consider me a person. Sometimes, I just want to read a book that doesn't remind me of how grotesquely unfair and horrible it is, along with the likelihood that my life will be short and painful, defined by financial insecurity and the complete lack of a social safety net as the planet's ecosystems completely collapse - all while the babbling lunatics in power continue to shriek that none of this is real (Gaslight, Obstruct, Project!)
Still, it was an enjoyable read and I finished it really quickly...so I'd definitely recommend it as a lot of the things I didn't like are probably just unique to me.