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alicechris's reviews
201 reviews
A mixed bag, enjoyed the later stories much more than the first ones. The stories in first person were more effective for me - the narrators were really well crafted.
Long and absorbing, dragged a little in the middle. Really enjoyed that the audiobook is read by Zadie Smith, who does a really good job of performing it.
I really enjoyed the premise of it, and this book is hilarious and surprisingly joyful given it's set during the literal actual apocalypse. However the pacing is all over the place and the second half of the book just couldn't live up to the first.
The romance between Mel and Ella was very predictable to me, but still felt like it went 0-100 and I would have preferred a little more build up. I am a fan of the lesbian getting with the mean girl trope (a la Booksmart?) though this may be a left over Coping Mechanism.
Finding out this was a set of short stories first made a lot of sense and made me feel a bit more forgiving towards this book. In one book it doesn't reach any kind of conclusion and feels quite unsatisfying. I also found it very hard to get away from there being only three women (who appear extremely briefly) in the book - none of them have names.
I did enjoy the premise but found it a bit frustrating that Asimov seems to want to emphasise the importance of non-individual historical forces, but all the vignettes in the book focus on one individual, a heroic man who by making great decisions sorts everything out. There was nothing distinct to me about these lead characters.
I did enjoy the premise but found it a bit frustrating that Asimov seems to want to emphasise the importance of non-individual historical forces, but all the vignettes in the book focus on one individual, a heroic man who by making great decisions sorts everything out. There was nothing distinct to me about these lead characters.
I really wanted to like this, and did enjoy the first half of the book. It all went downhill from there for me - the bringing together of the different strands felt rushed and way too much time was spent on the dolphin patriarchy situation. Some characters I had got to like were either underdeveloped (e.g. Chit) or dropped off completely (e.g. the Remora). The ending was also strange and felt it went against the message of the book that they all got to go off and live somewhere completely safe (also undercut by the prologue so you know they make it).
I loved the creativity and world building and was excited to read something that felt so different from other books, but ultimately this just didn't work for me.
I loved the creativity and world building and was excited to read something that felt so different from other books, but ultimately this just didn't work for me.
