Scan barcode
emergencily's reviews
116 reviews
He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan
5.0
An incredible follow-up and conclusion to She Who Became the Sun. The book rotates through the POVs of 3 main characters. Zhu, who has passed the moral point of no return in her rise to power as the self-titled Radiant Emperor, leading an army to the capital to take the throne; Ouyang, on a frenzied death march away from the wreckage he wrought on his own life, towards the culmination of his revenge and self-annihilation; and Wang Baoxiang, working in the shadows as he angles to set himself on the Mongol throne to spite the ghosts of his father and brother.
These are characters maligned by the world for the essence of who they are: for their transgressions against traditional morality, and for blurring the lines of gender and sexuality. Zhu is recriminated for her ambitions of power as a woman (disguised) and for her missing limb, considered a shameful mutilation of her body that makes her unfit to lead. Ouyang, as a eunuch, is considered the embodiment of the ultimate shame, daring to stay alive in a dishonorable life. Wang Baoxiang, outcast by his own family, is seen as unforgivably effeminate - a "peach-bitten f*ggot" - by Mongol standards of masculinity.
The addition of Wang Baoxiang's POV is a breath of fresh air - apart from Ouyang and Zhu of course, he was one of the most interesting and complex characters in the first book. In contrast to Ouyang, who, shamed by the manhood that others deny him and that he sees as his stolen entitlement, tries to emulate masculinity in other ways (warmaking & woman-hating, the classics of toxic masculinity!) he delights in spitting on gender norms, and turns that into his weapon. WBX works in the shadows, subtly manipulating Ouyang and Zhu throughout the entire book. By his design, Ouyang and Zhu, inexorably drawn together in the first book but always pitted against each other, find themselves in a tentative alliance when their goals align. The respect and understanding they form of each other, as two people cast out for their difference and forced to claw their way towards survival, is probably some of the only nice stuff in the book. Ouyang is basically a sopping wet feral cat that Zhu is trying to bring in from the cold, with varying degrees of success. Having known powerlessness, they understand each other in ways no one else can. Knowing that they're stronger together, you even let yourself feel hope of seeing a better ending to their stories - which of course makes it all the more painful when it inevitably crumbles (again, by WBX's hand!). This book is emotionally devastating from start to finish - no one in this book, ever, is having a good fucking time!
On that note, no one in this book, except Ma and Zhu (our only semi-healthy relationship), is having the sex they want. We have a stone top lesbian having sex with a man for the sake of securing a military alliance; a straight man having gay sex with a closeted homophobic gay guy for political protection; a closeted subby gay guy pining his dead straight boy crush in a non-sexual BDSM relationship with the stone top lesbian, disguised as a man; a woman so estranged from her own body and emotions that she disassociates through sex with the man she can't admit she loves until he's gone; etc. The characters in this book make weapons of sex and gender for their personal and political gain.
While the first book was dark and somber, this one is downright grim - this is absolutely a tragedy. I went through the whole book gritting my teeth and dreading the tragic endings that each character was knowingly, stubbornly marching themselves towards - not to mention the constant personal losses of self, dignity, morality and love that they endure over the course of the book. It's like watching someone slowly die by a thousand cuts as they keep willingly walking themselves into the knife. This story is about the weight of fate - how the characters re-enact cycles of harm and violence in their respective quests for revenge, power, and recognition. In the end, Zhu and Ma make the choice to break those cycles and to forge a new fate from the ashes of the old empire. It's a beautiful and hopeful ending, but this is where my one complaint about the book lies.
At the end of the last book, Zhu commits an act that is, no matter how you slice it, unforgivably morally reprehensible. In this book, she continues on to do more of the same. The message of the ending is of course, that there is no such thing as a point of no return - you always have the choice and agency to change your fate. That lesson is driven home by Ouyang sacrificing everything he loves and walking towards his own miserable self-destruction (despite Zhu and others giving him a chance to stop), for a "fated" revenge quest that proves to be completely meaningless (SPC, you are cruel as hell for that last twist). But Zhu spends two long books stopping at literally no cost to gain power - even the loss of her closest friend, Xu Da, the only truly good, kindhearted person in this book (along with Ma), isn't enough to stop her. This makes her change of heart near the end of the book feel too sudden. I wish Ma, who is Zhu's (hell, everyone's) moral compass and North star, wasn't so underutilized for most of the book. If she had been more present throughout the narrative to engage with Zhu and make the changes in her heart more gradual, her decision at the end would have felt a lot more believable. Because it doesn't, it somewhat cheapens the impact of what could have been, if executed a little more neatly, an incredibly moving ending about agency, love, forgiveness, and compassion.
Regardless, this is still a 5 star book to me. This is one that's going to stay with me for a long time. I almost want this book to go viral so there's an active fandom and I have fix-it fanfic to nurse my deep emotional wounds, but I also don't trust people to not flatten the nuanced morality and genderfuckery in this book.
These are characters maligned by the world for the essence of who they are: for their transgressions against traditional morality, and for blurring the lines of gender and sexuality. Zhu is recriminated for her ambitions of power as a woman (disguised) and for her missing limb, considered a shameful mutilation of her body that makes her unfit to lead. Ouyang, as a eunuch, is considered the embodiment of the ultimate shame, daring to stay alive in a dishonorable life. Wang Baoxiang, outcast by his own family, is seen as unforgivably effeminate - a "peach-bitten f*ggot" - by Mongol standards of masculinity.
The addition of Wang Baoxiang's POV is a breath of fresh air - apart from Ouyang and Zhu of course, he was one of the most interesting and complex characters in the first book. In contrast to Ouyang, who, shamed by the manhood that others deny him and that he sees as his stolen entitlement, tries to emulate masculinity in other ways (warmaking & woman-hating, the classics of toxic masculinity!) he delights in spitting on gender norms, and turns that into his weapon. WBX works in the shadows, subtly manipulating Ouyang and Zhu throughout the entire book. By his design, Ouyang and Zhu, inexorably drawn together in the first book but always pitted against each other, find themselves in a tentative alliance when their goals align. The respect and understanding they form of each other, as two people cast out for their difference and forced to claw their way towards survival, is probably some of the only nice stuff in the book. Ouyang is basically a sopping wet feral cat that Zhu is trying to bring in from the cold, with varying degrees of success. Having known powerlessness, they understand each other in ways no one else can. Knowing that they're stronger together, you even let yourself feel hope of seeing a better ending to their stories - which of course makes it all the more painful when it inevitably crumbles (again, by WBX's hand!). This book is emotionally devastating from start to finish - no one in this book, ever, is having a good fucking time!
On that note, no one in this book, except Ma and Zhu (our only semi-healthy relationship), is having the sex they want. We have a stone top lesbian having sex with a man for the sake of securing a military alliance; a straight man having gay sex with a closeted homophobic gay guy for political protection; a closeted subby gay guy pining his dead straight boy crush in a non-sexual BDSM relationship with the stone top lesbian, disguised as a man; a woman so estranged from her own body and emotions that she disassociates through sex with the man she can't admit she loves until he's gone; etc. The characters in this book make weapons of sex and gender for their personal and political gain.
While the first book was dark and somber, this one is downright grim - this is absolutely a tragedy. I went through the whole book gritting my teeth and dreading the tragic endings that each character was knowingly, stubbornly marching themselves towards - not to mention the constant personal losses of self, dignity, morality and love that they endure over the course of the book. It's like watching someone slowly die by a thousand cuts as they keep willingly walking themselves into the knife. This story is about the weight of fate - how the characters re-enact cycles of harm and violence in their respective quests for revenge, power, and recognition. In the end, Zhu and Ma make the choice to break those cycles and to forge a new fate from the ashes of the old empire. It's a beautiful and hopeful ending, but this is where my one complaint about the book lies.
At the end of the last book, Zhu commits an act that is, no matter how you slice it, unforgivably morally reprehensible. In this book, she continues on to do more of the same. The message of the ending is of course, that there is no such thing as a point of no return - you always have the choice and agency to change your fate. That lesson is driven home by Ouyang sacrificing everything he loves and walking towards his own miserable self-destruction (despite Zhu and others giving him a chance to stop), for a "fated" revenge quest that proves to be completely meaningless (SPC, you are cruel as hell for that last twist). But Zhu spends two long books stopping at literally no cost to gain power - even the loss of her closest friend, Xu Da, the only truly good, kindhearted person in this book (along with Ma), isn't enough to stop her. This makes her change of heart near the end of the book feel too sudden. I wish Ma, who is Zhu's (hell, everyone's) moral compass and North star, wasn't so underutilized for most of the book. If she had been more present throughout the narrative to engage with Zhu and make the changes in her heart more gradual, her decision at the end would have felt a lot more believable. Because it doesn't, it somewhat cheapens the impact of what could have been, if executed a little more neatly, an incredibly moving ending about agency, love, forgiveness, and compassion.
Regardless, this is still a 5 star book to me. This is one that's going to stay with me for a long time. I almost want this book to go viral so there's an active fandom and I have fix-it fanfic to nurse my deep emotional wounds, but I also don't trust people to not flatten the nuanced morality and genderfuckery in this book.
My Solo Exchange Diary Vol. 2 by Nagata Kabi
3.75
i don't think the solo exchange diary format/concept and subject matter should have been stretched out over 2 volumes, especially cause the content in volume 2 doesn't feel as strongly written as in volume 1. i do think she could have edited down the included comics a bit more into one volume to create something a little tighter and more cohesive in its vision.
My Solo Exchange Diary Vol. 1 by Nagata Kabi
4.25
i think this is a great continuation to "my lesbian experience with loneliness." the art style is cutesy but expressive and effective - but i do think she has a tendency to rely on visual diagrams a little too much to convey her meaning.
this volume focuses more on her struggle to find independence and self-identity as an adult, to find self-confidence in her work as an artist, and to separate herself from internalizing her family's expectations and values. the new format of the "solo exchange diary" where she writes letters to herself is cute, and i loved that each chapter she concludes with a well wish for herself or a reflection on her future hopes. i found myself relating a lot to some of her struggles with her mother and her family as well. she walks a tightrope balance between wanting her approval and pride, resenting her for the burden of her expectations and irreconcilably different values, wanting to break out and live for herself, and also feeling guilty and worried to leave her alone. typical mid 20's anxieties LOL
this volume focuses more on her struggle to find independence and self-identity as an adult, to find self-confidence in her work as an artist, and to separate herself from internalizing her family's expectations and values. the new format of the "solo exchange diary" where she writes letters to herself is cute, and i loved that each chapter she concludes with a well wish for herself or a reflection on her future hopes. i found myself relating a lot to some of her struggles with her mother and her family as well. she walks a tightrope balance between wanting her approval and pride, resenting her for the burden of her expectations and irreconcilably different values, wanting to break out and live for herself, and also feeling guilty and worried to leave her alone. typical mid 20's anxieties LOL
Witch Hat Atelier, Volume 1 by Kamome Shirahama
5.0
i'm super blown away by her linework, posing and panelling. every few pages, i turn a new page and gasp out loud at how beautiful and creative she is with her panelling and composition. she casually drops insanely detailed and creative full page spread masterpieces every chapter. i love the art nouveau influence in her work in this manga. she really has an intuition for panelling and for making full use of manga as a medium.
(this is a sadly low bar to clear in popular manga) but it really is refreshing and heartening to see a fairly popular manga purposefully and mindfully try to reckon with disability, queerness, sexual violence, poverty and inequity as part of its world and characters in a thoughtful way. i really appreciate her consideration of what living with a disability and what accommodations for disability would look like in a magical fantasy setting without just using hand-wavey cure-all magic erasure, as is common in these kinds of settings.
the manga is still ongoing and the plot is getting really meaty and juicy right now, so i look forward to the future of this manga and to seeing her expand more on the themes of inequity and access to magic (i.e. access to power, education, social standing, money) in her world that she's been laying the groundwork for.
i also love love love the way the magic system in the world works. knowing from her author’s note that her inspiration for this story came from this idea of seeing the ability to draw and create art as magical puts it in perspective. there’s so many parallels drawn with the witches as artists, and magic as an act of artistic creation and expression. so much of this story is about love and joy for art, finding the bravery and self belief to create art authentic to yourself, dealing with insecurities and comparison to others as an artist, having to balance public reception and demand, finding community with other artists. above all when you read witch hat atelier, you can feel the author’s sense of joy, hope and love for art and for the world we live in.
Seven Little Sons of the Dragon: A Collection of Seven Stories by Ryoko Kui
All in all, I was impressed with the collection and the range of tones, settings and themes she packed in here. I also thought her use of fantasy elements to make commentary on things like inequality, disability, and gender were really interesting.
4.5
Ryoko Kui, your pen is absolutely unmatched. RYOKO KUI IM YOUR FAN!!!! YOUR FAN!!!!
A collection of 7 short fantasy stories from Ryoko Kui, author of Dungeon Meshi (my favourite manga series ever).She's great at conveying emotion and expressiveness, even when her character art leans towards the simpler side, and I think she really excels at making designs that are simple but still distinctive and meaningful. I was also impressed by the range and variation in her art style across the stories, especially in "Byakuroku the Penniless," where she mixed in traditional Japanese illustration styles.
My favourite stories:
A collection of 7 short fantasy stories from Ryoko Kui, author of Dungeon Meshi (my favourite manga series ever).She's great at conveying emotion and expressiveness, even when her character art leans towards the simpler side, and I think she really excels at making designs that are simple but still distinctive and meaningful. I was also impressed by the range and variation in her art style across the stories, especially in "Byakuroku the Penniless," where she mixed in traditional Japanese illustration styles.
My favourite stories:
- "My God," about a Japanese middle schooler who befriends the small fish god of a mountain stream that's been plugged up to build apartment buildings. She takes the weakened fish god home, now the god of nothing at all, and cares for them lovingly inside her home aquarium as they slowly disappear. The story reminded me a lot of Natsume Yuujinchou, and I really liked how she wove in magic and spirituality as part of the everyday life of a child. For such a short story, it packed a punch with implied themes about the tensions between humanity, technology and modernity with nature and spirituality, but with a really beautiful optimism about finding a new way forward in harmony.
- "Wolves Don't Lie," a two part story about a mother whose son is born with Werewolf Syndrome (passed down genetically in the maternal line, in this world). I thought it was a really interesting look at living with a disability with a supernatural and fantasy twist, and I liked that it dealt with both the mom's perspective of trying her best to learn how to care for and support her son, and the son's own feelings on living with a stigmatized and sometimes debilitating condition as he grows and tries to find a place in the adult world.
- "Byakurou the Penniless," taking place in Ye Olden Japan, about a painter so talented that he could make his paintings leap off the scroll and come to life. To prevent his painting from running off the pages, he always ensures to leave one eye unfilled. Betrayed by his apprentice and estranged from his son, he falls on hard times and brings a counterfeit copy of one of his works to life to help him journey to visit his old masterpieces of fantastical tigers, lions and dragons, bring them to life, and sell them for a buck. It was a really touching story about familial reunion and the personal, emotional meaning of art versus its productive value.
- "The Inutanis," a humorous story about a family where each person has different supernatural powers such as pyrokinesis, teleportation, dimension shifting, invisibility...and the ability to turn clothes into pajamas at will. It ends up being a hilarious parody of detective stories as they use their powers to try to evade a detective convinced there's been a murder at their home, but keep getting themselves into hotter water. Made me laugh out loud more than a few times. Ryoko Kui is seriously underrated for how funny she is.
All in all, I was impressed with the collection and the range of tones, settings and themes she packed in here. I also thought her use of fantasy elements to make commentary on things like inequality, disability, and gender were really interesting.
Look Back by Tatsuki Fujimoto
4.5
I've always loved Fujimoto's art and linework and I enjoy how expressive and emotional his faces are, so I loved the art in the story. He's also very good at breaking your heart, which I was already familiar with from Chainsaw Man. The story really resonated with me as someone who's struggled a lot with finding confidence and direction in my personal relationship with art. I think anyone who's cared about creating will really relate to the story. I really liked the twist in the story and how he plays fast and loose with the bounds of time and brings some surreality and mystery to the story even when the setting is highly realistic. I noticed that in his other oneshot Goodbye Eri as well. I loved all the quiet, dialogue-less scenes and the use of repetitive, similar panels to show the passage of time and the changes in the girls' relationships to each other and to their art.
Heat by Jean Wei
4.75
Beautiful art and colours. The simple art style is so carefully crafted - every line communicates something and has purpose. I loved the use of white space and how those pauses gave breathing room for quiet contemplation on profound emotional moments in the story. The story is really heartwarming and uplifting. I loved the themes of found family, the difficult push and pull journey of following your passions in art and creation (whether in glassblowing or farming, as depicted in the book), and what it means to carve out a space for yourself in the world fearlessly while grappling with anxiety over value, usefulness, and belonging.
The King's Warrior by Huahua Zhu
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
4.25
Gorgeous art and atmosphere, really cool and interesting use of shifting colour palettes to mark changes in tone, setting and time period. An interesting self-contained story - a dark medieval fantasy with light horror elements. I loved seeing the main character's changes in design as she dedicate herself over the years to a singleminded, bloody pursuit with the hopes of saving her brother, and how that growing darkness was reflected in the world and the colours of the comic. I think it could have done with just a few more pages to flesh out the story a teensy bit more, but I also enjoyed the mystery and that you leave the comic with some unanswered questions.
The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System: Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong (Novel) Vol. 1 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
4.0
From the same author who wrote MDZS - another Chinese danmei (boys' love) xianxia (martial arts fantasy) novel that I love. It's a satirical subversion of transmigration xianxia webnovels. The main character transmigrates (i.e. isekai) from the modern world into the trashy, smutty, male power fantasy webnovel that he's reading when he dies, and that he loves to hate on. He's thrown into the body of the book's villain, who relentlessly abuses the fictional MC, and later gets butchered by him for revenge. He tries to change his fate while walking the tightrope of having to stay somewhat within the bounds of his established character (can't be too OOC!), but the changes he makes to the story leads to the fictional MC developing an obsessive puppy crush on him.
This is MXTX's first book , and I think that lack of experience does show here. Even accounting for this book being satirical and light-hearted in tone, the prose and writing style does feel more immature than in MDZS, and I find that she leaves behind some underdeveloped areas. It's still a fun and entertaining read with an interesting cast, but at first it's a bit obscure and hard to immerse yourself into.
This book satirizes a lot of tropes in xianxia, a very well-established genre in China with its own canon, and makes fun of webnovel cliches (e.g. transmigration, male power fantasy, convenient deus ex machinas, harem tropes, filler arcs), and references online fandom culture in China. So I think to fully appreciate the humour in the book, you probably need to be somewhat familiar with Chinese internet culture and the Chinese literary canon. The footnotes and glossary helps, but it means a lot of flipping back and forth at first until you get used to the tongue-in-cheek references - and even then, I think fully appreciating satire is difficult when you're not really a part of the cultural context it's rooted in.
Overall, I still had a good time with this book and I thought it was a fun and engaging read. You just need an open mind and willingness to sift through a few footnotes to overcome some of the translation barriers (or having watched some historical C-dramas probably helps).
Also, absolutely love love love the illustrations provided by Velinxi and I'm in love with their interpretations of the characters. VELINXIIIIII....IF YOU'RE OUT THERE...DO YOU KNOW MY LOVE FOR YOU?!?!
This is MXTX's first book , and I think that lack of experience does show here. Even accounting for this book being satirical and light-hearted in tone, the prose and writing style does feel more immature than in MDZS, and I find that she leaves behind some underdeveloped areas. It's still a fun and entertaining read with an interesting cast, but at first it's a bit obscure and hard to immerse yourself into.
This book satirizes a lot of tropes in xianxia, a very well-established genre in China with its own canon, and makes fun of webnovel cliches (e.g. transmigration, male power fantasy, convenient deus ex machinas, harem tropes, filler arcs), and references online fandom culture in China. So I think to fully appreciate the humour in the book, you probably need to be somewhat familiar with Chinese internet culture and the Chinese literary canon. The footnotes and glossary helps, but it means a lot of flipping back and forth at first until you get used to the tongue-in-cheek references - and even then, I think fully appreciating satire is difficult when you're not really a part of the cultural context it's rooted in.
Overall, I still had a good time with this book and I thought it was a fun and engaging read. You just need an open mind and willingness to sift through a few footnotes to overcome some of the translation barriers (or having watched some historical C-dramas probably helps).
Also, absolutely love love love the illustrations provided by Velinxi and I'm in love with their interpretations of the characters. VELINXIIIIII....IF YOU'RE OUT THERE...DO YOU KNOW MY LOVE FOR YOU?!?!
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
4.0
Written in the 1990s, the novel is set in the year 2024 in a USA on the brink of total apocalypse due to climate change, political collapse, and wealth inequality (familiar?). The government is an ineffectual farce, and a newly elected fascist, hyper-conservative president vows to "Make America Great Again" by driving out the undesirables of society and repealing labour protections to open the door for corporations to enslave workers in modern company towns. The social safety net is nonexistent; police and firefighters are corrupt and bloodthirsty; nightmarishly violent crimes are the norm, particularly against women and racialized people as gender and race relations deteriorate; and companies with monopolies on food and water drive prices to untenable levels.
The teenaged protagonist, Lauren, lives in a small, majority Black gated community just outside LA, led by her pastor father. As the world deteriorates around them, Lauren loses faith in the Christian teachings her father preaches, and begins to secretly develop her own religious system that she calls "Earthseed" -- the belief that change is the only constant and akin to God, and that humanity is destined to leave the doomed earth and live in the stars. Her community is poor, but relative to the desperate poverty outside their guarded walls, downright privileged. They manage to eke out a living through mutual aid and redistribution of their scant resources and running armed watches. This tenuous peace is shattered when invaders knock down the walls to pillage the community. With few survivors left, Lauren decides to travel north to try to seek refuge across the border in Canada. Along the way, she picks up other survivors and spreads belief in Earthseed among their small group.
I thought the world that Butler built was fascinating and eerie, like a funhouse mirror reflection of our current world. She captured all the same sociopolitical and environmental problems we have and dialed them to a hypothetical max, envisioning the apocalypse not as a singular event, but as a slow, downward spiral wrought by environmental devastation and selfishly destructive human responses to such. The world as we know it ends with a long, drawn out whimpering death knell, not a bang. I can imagine how fresh this book's take on a post-apocalyptic world was when it was published in the 90s, with its deliberate focus on a Black woman's experiences, on imagining the shape of race and gender relations in a crumbling empire, and its parallels of slavery imagined in a future fascist state. It was horrifying, scary and a crazy page-turner that I stayed up to finish in one night.
But I felt like the climax of the book (the destruction of the community) came a little early. The second half of the book sort of fizzles out and drags on repetitively as she wanders down the highway picking up stray survivors. Like a monster-of-the-week format show, every chapter she finds a scrappy and vulnerable survivor, earns their begrudging trust, and inducts them into Earthseed - wash and repeat like 10 times in a row.
I also felt like it was hard to understand Lauren's Earthseed religion and her emotional stakes in it, although a lot of her core beliefs were super fascinating -- the idea of God as a Trickster, as an intangible and ever-changing concept. But at times, I felt that Earthseed existed less as a religion with actual impact on the world and characters, than as sprinkled blocks of exposition in the book. Maybe it was my own problem connecting to it as a generally not very spiritual person myself? But I also know she planned this series as a trilogy (sadly passing before she could complete the third book) so it's possible she handles the Earthseed plotline and religious themes more in depth in later books.
The teenaged protagonist, Lauren, lives in a small, majority Black gated community just outside LA, led by her pastor father. As the world deteriorates around them, Lauren loses faith in the Christian teachings her father preaches, and begins to secretly develop her own religious system that she calls "Earthseed" -- the belief that change is the only constant and akin to God, and that humanity is destined to leave the doomed earth and live in the stars. Her community is poor, but relative to the desperate poverty outside their guarded walls, downright privileged. They manage to eke out a living through mutual aid and redistribution of their scant resources and running armed watches. This tenuous peace is shattered when invaders knock down the walls to pillage the community. With few survivors left, Lauren decides to travel north to try to seek refuge across the border in Canada. Along the way, she picks up other survivors and spreads belief in Earthseed among their small group.
I thought the world that Butler built was fascinating and eerie, like a funhouse mirror reflection of our current world. She captured all the same sociopolitical and environmental problems we have and dialed them to a hypothetical max, envisioning the apocalypse not as a singular event, but as a slow, downward spiral wrought by environmental devastation and selfishly destructive human responses to such. The world as we know it ends with a long, drawn out whimpering death knell, not a bang. I can imagine how fresh this book's take on a post-apocalyptic world was when it was published in the 90s, with its deliberate focus on a Black woman's experiences, on imagining the shape of race and gender relations in a crumbling empire, and its parallels of slavery imagined in a future fascist state. It was horrifying, scary and a crazy page-turner that I stayed up to finish in one night.
But I felt like the climax of the book (the destruction of the community) came a little early. The second half of the book sort of fizzles out and drags on repetitively as she wanders down the highway picking up stray survivors. Like a monster-of-the-week format show, every chapter she finds a scrappy and vulnerable survivor, earns their begrudging trust, and inducts them into Earthseed - wash and repeat like 10 times in a row.
I also felt like it was hard to understand Lauren's Earthseed religion and her emotional stakes in it, although a lot of her core beliefs were super fascinating -- the idea of God as a Trickster, as an intangible and ever-changing concept. But at times, I felt that Earthseed existed less as a religion with actual impact on the world and characters, than as sprinkled blocks of exposition in the book. Maybe it was my own problem connecting to it as a generally not very spiritual person myself? But I also know she planned this series as a trilogy (sadly passing before she could complete the third book) so it's possible she handles the Earthseed plotline and religious themes more in depth in later books.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Incest, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Police brutality, Trafficking, Cannibalism, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail