Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

"Largely set in a futuristic World State, inhabited by genetically
modified citizens and an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by only a single individual: the story's protagonist."

I personally didn't enjoy this book. Some aspects and ideas where very clever and I genuinely enjoyed them. The first third of the book in which the basic outline of the "Brave New World" and its devalued, conveyer belt morality is set forth is brilliant. The narrative device employed by Huxley of having the Director of Hatchery and Conditioning provide a walking tour to students around the facility as a way of informing the reader on the societal basics was perfect. We learn of the cloning/birthing process, the caste system and the fundamental tenets upon which the society is organized. 

It invited some intriguing concepts. The concept of forced consumerism, social conditioning, the breaking down of all emotional bonds, genetic castes, the dumbing down of media to reduce audience engagement and the use of narcotics to escape anything vaguely disconcerting all have parallels in our own world abet not as extreme. You could definitely understand and identify many of the societal trends that Huxley was concerned about. 

However the rest of the book, and thus the main pathos, fell flat for me. The visit to the reservation, the introduction of John, his arch into ascetic monk/lunatic. None of these elements really make me feel anything. I couldn't connect to John or his struggles. The rest of the book was unemotional, dry and uninteresting. Huxley's final point was lost on me. John was no more sane/ relatable than the rest of the drugged up characters. 

Age Rating 16+. Allusions to sex and some vaguely disturbing imagery. 

Parable of the Sower - Octavia E. Butler

"In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one
woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future.

Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighbourhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.

When fire destroys their compound, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind."

I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand it's a good dystopian novel. It speaks to the reality of religion as a socially unifying force, as a tool to necessitate movement and cohesion. It has a interesting group of characters and a plot that is interesting and moves at a good pace. It has the usual brutality of dystopian, rape, killing and arson being present on almost every page, but that is par for the course in the genre. I enjoyed my experience reading it. 

But unfortunately Butler's insights into religions aren't revolutionary. The rag tag group of survivors that meet on the road to form a found family it tried, tested and a little tired. The effects of the hyper empathy on Lauren are disappointingly little. Lauren, the narrator of the story, is painfully unemotional both in her actions and her narration style. I think this was possibly to show how quickly we become desensitised to violence in a survival situation. But that doesn't explain why Lauren was so unemotional in the beginning, surrounded by a community and loving family. I also didn't understand her attraction to the older man. I mean he was like 50 and she was a teenager. That just felt creepy and gross, sorry. 

I am confused about the choice of cover design. This cover doesn't make it obvious it is a dystopian set in the future. It also really over plays the race aspect which isn't a huge themes of the book, except some offhand mentions. 

Overall it was a good dystopian, but it didn't stand out to me. I obviously cant speak to it's impact or originality during its first publishing. However, now, it didn't have much new to offer me. 

Age Rating 18+. Brutal. Rape, arson, murder, drugs, cannibalism. 

By Light Alone - Adam Roberts

"In a world where we have been genetically engineered so that we can
photosynthesise sunlight with our hair hunger is a thing of the past, food an indulgence. The poor grow their hair, the rich affect baldness and flaunt their wealth by still eating. But other hungers remain...

The young daughter of an affluent New York family is kidnapped. The ransom demands are refused. Years later a young women arrives at the family home claiming to be their long lost daughter. She has changed so much, she has lived on light, can anyone be sure that she has come home?"

I was drawn to this book initially by the very interesting premise. I am also willing to admit, here and now, that the cover totally sucked me in. An art deco sensibility is definitely the way to make me interested in starting your book.

The main idea is that science has produced a mechanism where people are able to gain all their energy from sunlight, thanks to a bug that makes their hair capable of photosynthesis. All they need to live is water and a few essential nutrients. A clever idea, certainly, but where Roberts triumphs is in exploring the many unexpected implications of this change. The absolute heart of what makes science fiction. 

One implication considered is that for the first time ever it's possible to have a group of people who have literary no money at all.(Besides slaves obviously.) A group of people that the wealthy can argue don't need to be paid in money. Making them not just poor, but literally penniless. Roberts also examines the possibilities for male/female distinctions (though I will be honest this sounded extremely far fetched), and how a small group of wealthy people might consider those who have the special hair to be a subspecies, and begin to conspicuously wear their hair short to emphasise their extreme wealth. 

Something I thought was clever on Roberts part is that he creates a world in which the wealthy and the poor both realistically portray their stereotypical attributes. The poor sit around all day doing nothing, lazy, sex obsessed, violent, contributing nothing. But for reasons that make sense in the world. The poor, because they are surviving on light alone, have no extra energy to do anything. They survive but are skeletal and easily drained, fighting for the one resource they still need. Water. 

The wealthy, on the other hand, are cut off from reality, selfish and wasteful. They literally make the labouring forces into skeletons and rob them of the ability, literally and metaphorically, to eat. 

The book is divided into four parts, each seen from a different (but linked) individual's point of view. At the heart of the book is the story of a privileged family whose daughter is taken from them on a skiing holiday. They assume initially she has been taken as a hostage, but the authorities gradually explain that something much darker is behind it.

The one fault I would say that the book has is that the forth segment, which is the longest, seen from the viewpoint of the captured daughter, is the least effective. It's partly because the environment she is in forces a slow, plodding development, with occasional dramatic outbreaks of violence and rape, but also because it just doesn't work quite as well as the other sections. I am not quite sure why this is. It's undeniably good, but the others are brilliant. Strangely I absolutely adored the Mother's Chapter. Roberts excels at creating a unique inner voice with each POV, something that many authors struggle with. The mother's internal monologue is so inherently selfish and manipulative. Full of privilege, victim complexes and entitlement. But she is blind to it. We as the readers, not only see her for what she is, but are also made to see the world through her warped eyes and are brough to understand how horrific people can genuinely believe themselves to be good people. Roberts makes use of much of today therapy/self help speech, parroting wealthy celebs self love talk making this character instantly recognisable and all the more horrifying. 

I would also like to point out how wonderful Roberts prose is. There aren't many sci-fi authors that employ such poetic and startlingly beautiful writing. Though it was rambling at points, it actually felt coherent in the world. A boredom in the parent's chapters as they ramble on with no real reason for existence due to their wealth, nothing to strive for. And a surrealist introspection caused by deep trauma in the daughter. 

Age Rating 18+. Violence, death, murder, rape, paedophilia, kidnapping, assault. 

Morning Star - Peirce Brown

"Darrow would have lived in peace, but his enemies brought him war.
The Gold overlords demanded his obedience, hanged his wife, and enslaved his people. But Darrow is determined to fight back. Risking everything to transform himself and breach Gold society, Darrow has battled to survive the cutthroat rivalries that breed Society’s mightiest warriors, climbed the ranks, and waited patiently to unleash the revolution that will tear the hierarchy apart from within.

Finally, the time has come.

But devotion to honour and hunger for vengeance run deep on both sides. Darrow and his comrades-in-arms face powerful enemies without scruple or mercy. Among them are some Darrow once considered friends. To win, Darrow will need to inspire those shackled in darkness to break their chains, unmake the world their cruel masters have built, and claim a destiny too long denied—and too glorious to surrender."

A truly brilliant ending to a wonderful series. 

Not only is the series very well-written, but it has a lot more complexity than I'd originally expected. Both in the characters, the plot, and in its morality and, personally, I'm a huge fan of complexity.

The other thing that really stands out is the fact that the books are wildly unpredictable without being irritating or disappointing. I'm pretty good at anticipating where a story is going to go, and these books constantly zigged when I expected them to zag. But (and this is a really important note) while the ziggs the book took were surprising, they were always sensible and fit smoothly into the overall narrative and world.

The plot remains true to the direction from Golden Son, which means it’s still done within the large scale genre of Sci-Fi and Space Opera, compared to Red Rising which was Sci-Fi & Dystopia. The pacing of Morning Star is a bit slower this time and I honestly prefer the pacing of Golden Son. However, it’s understandable, after the rollercoaster that happened in Golden Son plus with everything built up from the first book, it’s obvious that there are a lot to settle in the last book to close the story and that results in slower pacing compared to its predecessor.

Darrow and Sevro remain my favourite characters for the whole series, I find their friendship an absolute pleasure to read and it’s really clear how much Brown dives into the theme of friendship and its importance in this book. The wide variety of characters, their development, and their stories are delightful to read. Darrow was 16 years old in Red Rising and he's 23 in Morning Star, the whole story took 7 years and you bet there's a lot of developments happening to all the characters.

However, Brown is not afraid to kill off his characters if necessary and I personally find that a really great trait every story writer should have, not only in books but in all form of medium. But, once again, despite all the fear and pain and heartbreak, Brown proves himself a dab hand at balancing pain with humor creating some truly laugh out loud moments. 

The writing remained impeccable since the beginning until the end. Poignant, poetic, dark, full of love, humor, beauty, rage, violence, hatred, etc. These made every scene vivid and relatable plus the epic climax sequences were vivid and dramatic. One of my favourite parts of this trilogy is Brown's focus on morality, consequences and values. What it important to you, how much are you willing to sacrifice for those values, are you willing to save people if it costs you your moral high ground? All of these ideas are navigated with skill and subtly by Brown. 

Age Rating 17+ It’s completely geared toward adults and everything in it is written like one, it contained a lot of harsh language, gory scenes, torture, murder and it only gets darker as the series progressed. The story is dark, there are also hints of rape and cannibalism throughout the series. 

Golden Son - Peirce Brown

"As a Red, Darrow grew up working the mines deep beneath the surface
of Mars, enduring backbreaking labour while dreaming of the better future he was building for his descendants. But the Society he faithfully served was built on lies. Darrow’s kind have been betrayed and denied by their elitist masters, the Golds—and their only path to liberation is revolution. And so Darrow sacrifices himself in the name of the greater good for which Eo, his true love and inspiration, laid down her own life. He becomes a Gold, infiltrating their privileged realm so that he can destroy it from within.

A lamb among wolves in a cruel world, Darrow finds friendship, respect, and even love—but also the wrath of powerful rivals. To wage and win the war that will change humankind’s destiny, Darrow must confront the treachery arrayed against him, overcome his all-too-human desire for retribution—and strive not for violent revolt but a hopeful rebirth. Though the road ahead is fraught with danger and deceit, Darrow must choose to follow Eo’s principles of love and justice to free his people. He must live for more."

I find that this book is a huge improvement on Red Rising. The first book was very firmly in the realm of basic YA Sci-fi tropes with a more brutal twist. In Golden Son however, the stakes are raised, the world is further fleshed out and Darrow has to really flex his subterfuge skills. 

Darrow was a Gary Stu in every possible way in Red Rising. He's The One. The Only One who can bring down the Golds and help the Reds rise. He can overcome any situation, no matter how horrible or impossible. I can completely see why this bothers some readers even if the novel contains intense fight scenes and dramatic rescues. It certainly bothers me. It just gets to a point where you start to say, "COME ON ALREADY."

Golden Son completely crushes that. Right from the first scene in the book, we see Darrow failing at something important and no one wants anything to do with him besides Roque. I enjoyed that Darrow was humanised in this way. It also made the stakes so much higher as you knew bad things could actually happen now. 

Golden Son is focused on war and politics, plots and treason that put you on constant alert. Pierce Brown imagined and brought to life vivid, heart pounding space battles and massacres, he crafted high-tech spaceships and luscious palaces brimming with poisonous snakes. He introduced radiant new characters -let's take a moment to appreciate Victra, the glorious House Telemanus and wonderfully Stoic Ragnar - and explored old ones, giving them voices and backgrounds and motives and actions that increased your understanding of their humanity. The death toll was extremely high. The nameless lives lost unimaginable. But this battle song of deviousness and blood was injected with moments of jolly laughter and camaraderie that made the book fun and enjoyable. There were also a couple of scenes that where powerful and raw, in their simple gestures and scarce dialogues. 

All around a wonderful book. I mean, will it win any awards, no, does Darrow still speak like an inspiring Knight occasionally, yes, however it worked. The book gripped me and I desperately want to read the next book. The ending, oh goodness, that was a cliff hanger and a half. 

Age Rating 14+. If you have read the Hunger Games, you can read this. 

Heroes and Villains - Angela Carter

"After the apocalypse the world is neatly divided. Rational
civilization rests with the Professors in their steel and concrete villages; marauding tribes of Barbarians roam the surrounding jungles; mutilated Out People inhabit the burnt scars of cities.

But Marianne, a Professor's daughter, is carried away into the jungle--a grotesque vegetable paradise--where she will become the captive bride of Jewel, the proud and beautiful Barbarian."

I haven't read anything close to this book. Possibly the closest is Kundera's "Unbearable Lightness of Being." They share the same brutal isolated tone and sex is a main theme in both. But other then that they share nothing. Heroes and Villain's is stunningly unique, in content and writing style. It sucks you in and leaves you reeling. Truly an excellent novel. 

However, it certainly isn't an easy read. As said above it is brutal, but it is also twisted and dark. The themes that it covers ranges from abusive relationships, rape, abuse, toxic co-dependency, the break down of society, religion and the viciousness of the human spirit. 

If you come into the book expecting it to be structured like a normal novel with a likeable protagonist and clear goal you will be disappointed. Marianne is a terrible women. As vicious and brutal as Jewel. Heroes and Villains is dreamlike, brutal and beautifully twisted. Gothic fantasy storytelling at its finest. Marianne and Jewel are two incredibly compelling characters, who I loved, despite disliking them very much. They are less characters and more symbols. They are tools with which Carter uses to construct certain arguments and contrasts. The writing is so so beautiful. Full of full bodied prose. Even when describing awful things, it envelopes you in the cloying atmosphere of the story. There is such a strong sense of place even with minimal world building. 

As a reader I enjoyed the progression of Jewel and Marianne's relationship, this unlikely romance, if you can call it that,  that would go sour in some places and then pick up again when you least expected it. It was so human yet so primal. Their story is symbolically underpinned by the Adam and Eve mythos, and this also handsomely features in the form of a grotesque tattoo on Jewels torso of the scene where Eve offers Adam the forbidden fruit. In fact, Jewel is somewhat of a synthetic messiah; a puppet controlled by the ominous 'Doctor'; a madman who is trying to fabricate his own religion using members of the savage tribe. Jewel with his imposing physique and handsome looks doubles as Adam, Jesus and other religious characters. This aggressive reliance on each other, the love and hate sitting side by side was an interesting dynamic. It is definitely the best representation of an unhealthy relationship I have read. 

I really enjoy dark novels that deal with mature content, contemplate the human condition and what we can do to each other. However there were moments in this book that genuinely disturbed me and I am unsure if where entirely necessary or handled in the best way possible.  Marianne gets raped by Jewel, but it is so offhanded and quickly dealt with. Marianne isn't even very angry at him for it and she doesn't seem to suffer any emotional consequences. If fact she goes on to marry him and have a lot more sex. I just... 

Another scene that really got to me is the scene in which Marianne rapes a mentally unwell 13 year old boy. I am sorry but why was this scene necessary. I understand that Carter was exploring the human condition but what did this scene bring to the overall story. If the point was to shock me it sure did that well. 

Age Rating 16+. A brutal novel. 

Native Tongue (#1) - Suzette Haden Elgin

"Set in the twenty-second century, the novel tells of a world where

women are once again property, denied civil rights and banned from public life. Earth's wealth depends on interplanetary commerce with alien races, and linguists--a small, clannish group of families--have become the ruling elite by controlling all interplanetary communication. Their women are used to breed perfect translators for all the galaxies' languages.

Nazareth Chornyak, the most talented linguist of the family, is exhausted by her constant work translating for trade organizations, supervising the children's language education, running the compound, and caring for the elderly men. She longs to retire to the Barren House, where women past childbearing age knit, chat, and wait to die. What Nazareth comes to discover is that a slow revolution is going on in the Barren Houses: there, word by word, women are creating a language of their own to free them from men's control."

An amazing, amazing concept that I was so excited to see explored in this speculative fiction. As someone that loves learning, and learning about languages, this book sounded right up my alley. It was full of amazing ideas (the creation of a secret language for women who have been oppressed).The standpoint on language reminds me a lot of 1984 and the Newspeak dictionary, the idea that taking away words for certain concepts or creating/encoding words for others can change the way people think and behave and affect whether they have the capacity to rebel against an authoritarian regime. But, it lacked several things, in my opinion, that prevented it from living up to the proclamation: "feminist science fiction classic."

One of those things was characterization. The first one hundred or so pages in the book had no distinct character for the reader to engage with. There are several plot points expounded in male points of view that readers are supposed to be disgusted by (and are disgusted by!. There is one storyline involving a woman, lacking any real depth, killing out of revenge; and then, there is the mention of some other characters who may be important later. That's it.

In my opinion, having no characters with any emotional depth for the reader to latch onto was a serious flaw. It made the pace slow, and frustrated my sense of who or what to believe in in this story.

Another problem I had with this book was the "good guys/bad guys" dichotomy applied by the author. It's simple: All women are good (even the one lady who systematically kills people), all men are bad (even the one guy who appeared to treat a female character like she was equal in intellect and status). I, personally, don't like my contemporary fiction to be so black/white. It is boring, and it is not believable. It narrows the reader's frame of mind and ability to objectively engage with the work. 

Another serious issue I had with this book is the underutilisation of the Aliens. For a book prominently featuring the idea of communication with aliens, it's quite disappointing that there is not one single alien character developed. We don't know how a single alien thinks; what their cultures want, or how or why they are sending representatives to Earth to teach babies their languages. None do any interacting with any of the characters. I thought that the women could learn for the aliens, realise how strange and awful their society was through contact with others. Big missed opportunity....

The final problem that I had with the book was this - the notion that women should have their own language in the first place. Don't get me wrong! I love imagining the subversive power that a secret language has for the oppressed secondary citizen! It was wonderfully done, and very inspiring! But...Elgin, and by extension, her characters, believe that one's native language creates one's reality - how one perceives the world (Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis), and allowing the women in this story to create and use their OWN language will change their reality. I am all for the exploration of that notion. 

The problem with all this is that Elgin really believes - IN REAL LIFE - that women should have a language separate from men. And - in doing so - that we would be essentially better off as separate from them altogether? She believes there are things one can experience as a woman that men could not possibly conceive of. We-ellllllll....I have to disagree. I thought that the language would allow the women to communicate freely, feel autonomy and potentially start a rebellion. Kind of like a women strike. But for the concept that men and women should be permanently separated feels like a terribly cynical view. Misogyny is taught, not inherent. Men can be taught differently. 

Age Rating 16+ Lot of sex references, murder, and infant mortality. 

Ariadnis - Josh Martin

"Back then I thought that if it weren't for that cliff, our cities
would be one and there would be no need for all this fierceness toward each other. But then I learned about pride and tradition and prophecy, and those things are harder than rock.

Joomia and Aula are Chosen. They will never be normal. They can never be free.

On the last island on Erthe, Chosen Ones are destined to enter Ariadnis on the day they turn eighteen. There, they must undertake a mysterious and deadly challenge. For Joomia and Aula, this means competing against each other, to end the war that has seethed between their cities for nine generations.

As the day draws nearer, all thoughts are on the trial ahead. There's no space for friendship. No time for love. However much the girls might crave them.

But how you prepare for a task you know nothing certain about? Nothing, except that you must win, at whatever cost, or lose everything."

This book turned out to be nothing like what I was expecting it to be. 

There is a lack of information at the start of the novel, unfortunately that was frustrating and I nearly stopped reading. I was confused about what exactly was happening, what the Wise One was, why there are Chosen Ones, where the past Chosen Ones are, why they were competing, for longer than I should have been. But soon enough the explanations start to roll in and the bizarre yet beautiful ideas behind Ariadnis come to the fore.

The writing itself is lovely; there is a touch of slang to give it character, the girls both have distinct voices and personalities, and Martin manages to utilise time skips really well. I personally really didn't like the slang at the beginning, I found it distracting. However Martin doesn't over use it and it actually helps demonstrate the difference between the two characters personalities. 

The world building was interesting and incredibly unique. A vine treetop city, sentient owls, metal wrapped trees, prophets with shining tears, singing tree spells. I can truly say I haven't read anything that feels similar. The conflict is centred between a patriarchal, technology based city and a equalist, nature based city. I am interested to see how Martin will further explore this dynamic in his second book, as it is only lightly touched on here. 

I also really enjoyed the diverse cast. There are many POC characters, actually being the norm now in the amalgamated cities where past cultures have ceased to be separate. There are also plenty of bisexual characters, and it is just treated as completely normal, which was so surprising and absolutely wonderful. 

I thought the characters themselves were really nicely realised. The bold, impetuous Aula and the sensitive, unsure Joomia both stood out, and I loved their magical powers. Taurus was a great best friend and a moving character in his own right. Ade, the mad prophet was also one of my favourite characters and I loved her. 

However there are a few minor criticism I'd level at this book. It did get confusing from time to time, especially when other characters' prophesies were revealed. There were a few times I had to dip back a few pages to check I was following what was going on! There are also quite a bit that is left unexplained like where are the past Chosen Ones. Where people really going mad when they left or was that a conspiracy? why was Ade the only Chosen one in her generation for both cities?

Also, I wasn't quite sure all the swearing was necessary as it didn't serve much purpose. The same goes for the amount of talk about sex. These girls are supposed to be 17 and it just felt incongruous. Everyone, even in the middle of an awful and emotional situation is thinking about sex. It just didn't feel realistic and actually brought me out the story a few times. There is one scene where Aula, one of the Chosen One's mother figure has just died, and all Aula can think about is how much she ones to sleep with this dude. I mean, your emotional loss obviously isn't that bad then and I no longer really empathize with you. 

Age Rating 16+ Because of aforesaid sex and swearing. 

This Savage Song (#1) - V E Schwab

"Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city—a city
where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent—but he’s one of the monsters."

It seems like V E Schwab is taking over the YA world. I have read quite a few of her books now, with out especially going out of my way to find them. I would say that out of all of her books, this is probably my favourite so far. 

This book was a solid read that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to someone as a holiday read. The writing was good, I’ve never had a problem with her writing. It has always felt punchy, shading to lyrical. The worldbuilding was handled well too. The concept that an act of violence could actually spawn real monsters was just fascinating to me, and I thought it could open up some really interesting moral discussions and parallels. It was intricate and woven into the text, neither info dumping nor overly confusing. Which is rare in worlds this elaborate and extensive. Overall, this was creative and pretty well done.

While I loved Schwab's "A Darker Shade of Magic's" world building, I found the characters flat and emotionally disconnected. In this book, I felt more connected to the characters. However while this is true the actual characters occasionally irritated me despite the more connected feeling that I had for them. 

Kate Flynn, while obviously meant to be strong willed and bad ass, occasionally just came across as a bitch. There is a difference between a strong, fierce female character, and one who is a rebellious jerk just for the sake of being one. I disliked her from the first page, as she ruthlessly set fire to part of a school run by nuns for the grand, noble reason of "I don't want to be here." However that being said, she did grow on me, as you start to see her more vulnerable and broken side. 

August was the one that frustrated me the most. He's one of those emo, martyred, tortured souls that seems so lost in his own self hatred and guilt complex that he actually endangers those he cares about. It got really irritating. The current tope of the love interest being a guilt ridden monster only for it to come out they don't really do anything monstrous but are actually a sort of avenging angel with an punk make-over...yeah not overly emotionally moving. 

It sounds great to have a female lead yearning to be a proper villain to appease parental pressures. It sounds excellent to have a male lead who is vulnerable and searching for his humanity. But somewhere in the process of breathing life into these characters, Schwab missed the mark.

Even with Schwab's amazing talent for weaving words together I cannot in all good conscience tell you that this book will blow you away.

Schwab's writing style is undeniably interesting and fluid in a way that only a master of writing can achieve.

However, the story, the characterization, and unfortunately even the world building will leave you feeling like something crucial is missing. Which is disappointing with such a promising and potentially deeply philosophical premise which is never fully actualized. 

Age Rating 15+. A few quite brutal murder scenes. 

Feed - M.T Anderson

"Identity crises, consumerism, and star-crossed teenage love in a futuristic society where people connect to the Internet via feeds implanted in their brains.

For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires."

I think this book's main function is to make you uncomfortable. To present you with your own reality, the one you are trying to avoid, with an unswerving amount of brutality. 

And, boy, did it make me uncomfortable. It's everything obnoxious about our media-frenzied, frantic-paced, impulse-driven, uneducated-praising society exemplified to the max. In Anderson's worryingly plausible world people are hardwired into corporate feeds that advertise to them according to what they're thinking, feeling, saying, looking at, etc. They chat with each other, watch shows, check the internet, invade each other's privacy, all within their bodies. Schools have quit teaching them facts because all that's accessible at the push of a button-no simpler than that, with nothing more than a thought. All their interactions are interrupted by this internal conversation/shopping/distraction. Through a combination of advertising and ignorance these shallow people don't care that the feeds are destroying them, causing lesions and their skin to litrally fall off, after they've already destroyed the world where they continue to live in vertically stacked suburbs with fake air and fake sun and fake food. They all (adults included) speak in that valley-girl like/dude hollowness, only their words are mega and unit and still plenty of like and f words. 

The writing did take awhile to get used to. The excessive use of slang and the word like, already my worst enemy, was an interesting stylistic choice. I was worried that it would frustrate me, and bring me out of the story but it surprisingly didn't. It really added to the sense of the world and the character. 

I really disliked the main character, Titus. While reading it, I was often disappointed with his choices, but I think he was the perfect embodiment of this shallow world. He doesn't want to deal with the reality of his girlfriend's slow death. It disturbs his perfect life, it distracts him for his shopping. He is so unbelievably self involved that he doesn't think that maybe she needs him there. I loved that Anderson offers no judgment or solution, just shows us this world with all its many flaws and lets it creep under your skin and make you uncomfortable with where the world is headed. 

I do have one gripe. I do wish that Anderson went a little deeper into the world and the horrors of it. But again maybe that was a choice, to show the horror that is so blatently on the surface on the society. 


Age rating 15 +. Some explicit content. A few minor foreplay scenes, mal which is the dystopian version of drugs and some f bombs. 

The End We Start From - Meagan Hunter

"In the midst of a mysterious environmental crisis, as London is submerged below flood waters, a woman gives birth to her first child, Z. Days later, the family are forced to leave their home in search of safety. As they move from place to place, shelter to shelter, their journey traces both fear and wonder as Z's small fists grasp at the things he sees, as he grows and stretches, thriving and content against all the odds."
Set in the not so distant future when the oceans have risen dramatically and drowned much of England, the main character has just given birth to her son when she has to leave London to go North. We follow her from place to place, meeting people, losing people, finding people. The plot is near irrelevant though: it is more a meditation on motherhood, on beginnings and endings, on love and loss. All the characters are only referred to by their initials, leaving the reader at a distance and rendering this very personal tale relatively universal.

The story is told in short, sparse paragraphs, with quotes from the book of Genesis, creation and the flood, interspersed between certain segments. The writing is stunningly sparse, otherworldly and really unique. It gets under your skin. This was done so well, but there was one hurdle I could not overcome. The constant use of initials, bugged me to no end, and also made this short book confusing, trying to sort out and remember who was who. Possibly this was done to show that in a society collapse, an environmental disaster, names no longer matter, only survival does, but for me it lessened the impact of the story bring told. Having said that, I loved the structure. There are beautiful passages of a new mother's awareness of the baby she holds in her arms. Eerie and haunting, a little hopeful. 

I found the entire story to be terribly anticlimactic. After the following these characters through the events of the book, it just fizzles out. Nothing dramatic or life changing happens, we just end up where we started. 

Definitely worth a read from a prose point of view, but not from a plot or character one. 
Age Rating 13+. Nothing untoward happens. 

The Bees - Laline Paull

"The Handmaid's Tale meets The Hunger Games in this brilliantly imagined debut.

Born into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee, only fit to clean her orchard hive. Living to accept, obey and serve, she is prepared to sacrifice everything for her beloved holy mother, the Queen. Yet Flora has talents that are not typical of her kin. And while mutant bees are usually instantly destroyed, Flora is reassigned to feed the newborns, before becoming a forager, collecting pollen on the wing. Then she finds her way into the Queen's inner sanctum, where she discovers secrets both sublime and ominous. Enemies roam everywhere, from the fearsome fertility police to the high priestesses who jealously guard the Hive Mind. But Flora cannot help but break the most sacred law of all, and her instinct to serve is overshadowed by a desire, as overwhelming as it is forbidden..."

While The Bees is a beautifully written book, with scenes that are quite lovely in their composition, I felt the author lacked conviction and an overall commitment to just what kind of story she was telling. At times, the bees are very humanized. At other times, they feel alien and unknowable. This back and forth and hesitation ultimately prevented me from ever truly bonding with any of the characters. I was emotionally shut out of the story even when my reader brain was fascinated by some of the details contained therein. For that reason, the story dragged in many places.

If you have a personal curiosity of bees, the detailed portrait the author offers here of hive life may indeed appeal to you. She has done her research, and there is definitely poetry contained in some of the pages of this book and in scenes that deal with the harsh realities of the natural world and the strict laws of bee existence. 

One thing that confused me however is what Flora was? OK, so is Flora a deformed bee... which can perform many tasks? She can produce Flow, which feeds baby bees. Which- if the idea is true, is an interesting fact, but I don't think it's true, she can speak which she shouldn't be able to do as a sanitation worker, and somehow produces a fertilized egg by herself?? 

Another thing that didn't sit right with me was the way that Flora moved through what is supposed to be a rigidly controlled caste system with ease. One moment she is a sanitation worker, then works in the nursery, then she is a forager. For a book that is supposed to reinforce the idea of the brutal caste system of a hive which is controlled by a cultish religion,  Flora has an awful amount of manouverablilty. 

Age Rating 14+. The drones make numerous sex jokes and many scents have sexual undertones.

Eve of Man - Giovanna and Tom Fletcher

"AGAINST ALL ODDS, SHE SURVIVED.
THE FIRST GIRL BORN IN FIFTY YEARS.
THEY CALLED HER EVE . . .

All her life Eve has been kept away from the opposite sex. Kept from the truth of her past.

But at sixteen it's time for Eve to face her destiny. Three potential males have been selected for her. The future of humanity is in her hands. She's always accepted her fate.

Until she meets Bram.

Eve wants control over her life. She wants freedom.

But how do you choose between love and the future of the human race?"

I tried to like this, I really did. On paper it should be right up my street. Dystopian YA, female lead, ideas of gender suppression - but I just found it incredibly simplistic and uninspiring. It all just feels a little bit ‘been there, done that’ with a rather unsophisticated take on The Handmaid’s Tale, and this idea that women have been oppressed and controlled, which seems to be a recurrent theme in dystopian fiction at the moment. The writing style is very overly descriptive in terms of feelings, which I don’t think really works here, as nothing is left for the reader to interpret and develop their own opinions. It’s all telling, with no subtleties, which I think would have helped elevate the text.

The world building is also rather limited. Other than an overview at the beginning, which gives an outline into the current state of the planet and humanities apparent lack of respect for the environment due to no future generations to pass it to, there’s little explanation as to why the world is how it is. Why are no female being born? What exactly happened?  Would same sex relationships come to be excepted? Would women become revered or hunted? Would large age gaps in couples be okay? Would matriarchal cults start up? Would a world full of mainly men really result in global catastrophes?I find this slightly condescending to believe. Perhaps this will be expanded on in future literature, but I really think more time should have been spent trying to flesh out the world that I was suppose to care about. The glimpses we see of life outside the dome were some of my favourite segments, and I found the hints of environmental destruction and how the ‘Freevers’ live far more interesting than any character in the dome.

Eve and Bram, as the two narrators, have very distinct voices and it was easy to differentiate when each of them is in control of the narrative which helped with the flow of the story. However, they do unfortunately suffer from what comes across as instalove, and I found quite a lot of their scenes together quite cringy - especially the gushy declarations of love. We’re given a background to suggest that Eve and Bram have ‘grown up’ together and know each other well, but they’ve never so much as touched. It’s a very ‘clean’ romance, which is rather childish and simple but to me it also feels more like infatuation, and the love of the unknown rather than romantic love - which makes the second half of the book and the motives behind it even harder to understand.

A major issue that I found in the book is this very clear divide in the story into two distinctive parts. The first half is very Eve focused, and centres around her life in the dome and her relationships with Bram and the ‘Mothers’ - the ageing women who care for her. The second half is very much more of a revolutionary fast paced action story. I found it quite jarring, although I did enjoy the second half more. However, again I found Bram’s story a little too ‘easy’ for him. Everything falls into place with very little struggle and strife, and his character goes from beaten down son of high powered genius to revolutionary leader without any real believable development of character. In comparison, Eve comes across increasingly more like a damsel in distress as the story progresses, with little ability to really fight for herself without the help of others.

This could have been a good story about gender dynamics and the distribution of power in a world devoid of females and the continuing struggle to preserve the female race. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t enjoy it was much as I wanted as I felt it wasted its premise. 

Will try the next book in the series to see if they explore any of the concepts more deeply. 

Fates Divide - Veronica Roth

"Fate brought them together. Now it will divide them.

The lives of Cyra Noavek and Akos Kereseth are ruled by their fates, spoken by the oracles at their births. The fates, once determined, are inescapable.

Akos is in love with Cyra, in spite of his fate: He will die in service to Cyra’s family. And when Cyra’s father, Lazmet Noavek—a soulless tyrant, thought to be dead—reclaims the Shotet throne, Akos believes his end is closer than ever.

As Lazmet ignites a barbaric war, Cyra and Akos are desperate to stop him at any cost. For Cyra, that could mean taking the life of the man who may—or may not—be her father. For Akos, it could mean giving his own. In a stunning twist, the two will discover how fate defines their lives in ways most unexpected.

With the addition of two powerful new voices, Veronica Roth's sequel to Carve the Mark is a chorus of hope, humor, faith, and resilience."

The first chapters of the Fates Divide pick up where Carve the Mark ended. Typically, this is great. Unfortunately not this time. Roth decided to kill off the villain in the opening chapters leaving me wondering what all the development was for. Why spend all this time building a great villain just to have him killed uneventfully in the opening pages? This left the rest of the book's story wide open. 

After Ryzek's death we get quite a slow intro into the rest of the book. Politics and Alliances take over. Cyra is now the leader of Shotet. I really loved this idea and couldn't wait for her to be her full bad ass self, but she never really stepped up into that role. There was too much internal angst and not enough Cyra decisiveness. 

The themes of the book of fighting a predetermined fate was great in this, and the pacing was also good. I found others were complaining about too much politics but I actually enjoyed this element. It made the world feel more grounded and real while not bogging down the story. I also thought the dividing of the planets by "fate faithful" and the cynics was an interesting side plot. 

The inclusion of Eijeh and Cisi's perspectives really added a lot to the story and the world. We got to see so much more through them than just through Akos and Cyra, and it was greatly appreciated.

I still don't understand why everyone's POV was told from 1st person except Akos - his was told from third, because of this he seemed very one dimensional. I got my more planets wish and got some awesome visuals along the way, I found Ogra truly exquisite!

I was very hesitant about the Lazmet death retcon, but it was done fairly well and didn't detract form the book too much. However we hardly knew him so I wasn't overly scared or angry with him and I wanted more explanation to why/where he was locked up. Because of this there was little threat permeating the book. 

However what really threw me was the main bombshell which I won't reveal as it gives way too much away. Roth definitely pulled the carpet out from under my feet with this one. I personally really didn't enjoy it and didn't think it was at all necessary. It undermined the characters and came from left field. 
Because of the unnamed bomb Akos leaves without a word to Cyra. They’re both filled with self-loathing and each have their own secret missions. Where they could have just spoken with one another like responsible adults, they act like immature assholes and go their separate ways. 

I liked how they stood together in the last book and seemed inseparable. In this book they felt too wishy washy and the emotional bond felt weaker. The relationship which was strong and pretty much cemented felt fragile and this relationship angst frustrated me. 

I really wished that I liked this more. It had an interesting plot but as the story went on, it became predictable and anti-climactic. 

Let me just say that I hate Isae Benesit and will never like her.

Age Restriction 13+. A perosn is starved but it really isn't horrific. Lazmet has a thing for collecting eyeballs but this just comes off cartoonish with no real meance.