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amaranthpalmer's reviews
269 reviews
Our Hideous Progeny by C.E. McGill
adventurous
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
2.0
I think people would have appreciated this book more if published 10 years ago, but now, the kind of anti-chauvinist feminism is dated. I understand the Wolstencraft-esc critique, thematically, but the languid misunderstanding of systemic oppression is tiresome.
The story was also okay, I most appreciated the retelling of the various papers and research. The plot was just fine, not at all suspenseful, but a set of pastoral quarrels that were supposed to foreshadow the sensational climax.
There are only recycled moral or ethical questions from the source material, and even those are poorly executed. In comparison to Frankenstein, the questions of life-giving, of blame, of redemption are defining. In this book, they’re a mere afterthought. Perhaps this is a consequence of avoiding the creature’s point of view.
The story was also okay, I most appreciated the retelling of the various papers and research. The plot was just fine, not at all suspenseful, but a set of pastoral quarrels that were supposed to foreshadow the sensational climax.
There are only recycled moral or ethical questions from the source material, and even those are poorly executed. In comparison to Frankenstein, the questions of life-giving, of blame, of redemption are defining. In this book, they’re a mere afterthought. Perhaps this is a consequence of avoiding the creature’s point of view.
Around the World in One Shabbat: Jewish People Celebrate the Sabbath Together by Durga Yael Berghard
1.0
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
The negative elements included:
My additional critiques are based on personal preferences. The white characters receive an explanatory treatment for their racism in long backstories. This sympathy is unnerving, for the same treatment is not afforded to the Black characters. Even though Nate, Dodo, and Addie have more interesting histories.
The author relies on Dodo’s ability to lipread even if unrealistic. Lipreading is often not as reliable as we hearies assume, and the book presents Dodo with the ability to lipread long conversations (even when faces are partially obstructed). Further, one particular quote about Dodo irked me. “His immobility actually saved him, for he was an active, athletic child by nature with arms and legs that lived in constant motion. But now he was in pain, drugged, and immobile, all of while kept him still and allowed his body to heal.” Any justification of straitjackets, or restraint in general, weakens the “asylum-break” plot, as well as being insulting to the character. On the same page, the author asserts that Dodo was an intelligent being trapped in his body, which was easily disproven by the description of his adult life courtesy of the epilogue.
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
I had high hopes for this book and was disappointed. It wasn’t awful but a mixed-bag with unpleasant elements that outbalanced the good.
Of the positive, I enjoyed:
- The sheer amount of characters: a happy surprise for a contemporary fiction novel which usually rests on minimal casts.
- The multiple perspectives were beneficial for empathizing with the characters.
The negative elements included:
- An imbalance of time afforded to the white characters’ perspectives and backstories.
- Dodo, arguably the lead character and driver of the story, is painfully underdeveloped. His one trait is that he is physically active.
- Climatic scenes are written via retellings of the characters.
- Heavy-handed and preachy foreshadowing, such as this quote: “The collective history of this sad troupe moving down the hospital corridor would become tiny blots in an American future that would one day scramble their proud histories like eggs, scattering them among the population while feeding mental junk to the populace on devices that would become as common and small as the hot dog that the dying woman thought she smelled; for in death, Chona had smelled not a hot dog but the future, a future in which devices that fit in one’s pocket and went zip, zap, and zilch delivered a danger far more seductive and powerful than any hot dog, a device that children of the future would clamor for and become addicted to, a device that fed them their oppression disguised as free thought.”
My additional critiques are based on personal preferences. The white characters receive an explanatory treatment for their racism in long backstories. This sympathy is unnerving, for the same treatment is not afforded to the Black characters. Even though Nate, Dodo, and Addie have more interesting histories.
The author relies on Dodo’s ability to lipread even if unrealistic. Lipreading is often not as reliable as we hearies assume, and the book presents Dodo with the ability to lipread long conversations (even when faces are partially obstructed). Further, one particular quote about Dodo irked me. “His immobility actually saved him, for he was an active, athletic child by nature with arms and legs that lived in constant motion. But now he was in pain, drugged, and immobile, all of while kept him still and allowed his body to heal.” Any justification of straitjackets, or restraint in general, weakens the “asylum-break” plot, as well as being insulting to the character. On the same page, the author asserts that Dodo was an intelligent being trapped in his body, which was easily disproven by the description of his adult life courtesy of the epilogue.