The Y Logs

Yzabel / August 21, 2019

Review: The Grace Year

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett
My rating: 2/5

Blurb:

“No one speaks of the grace year.
It’s forbidden.
We’re told we have the power to lure grown men from their beds, make boys lose their minds, and drive the wives mad with jealousy. That’s why we’re banished for our sixteenth year, to release our magic into the wild before we’re allowed to return to civilisation.
But I don’t feel powerful.
I don’t feel magical.”

Tierney James lives in an isolated village where girls are banished at sixteen to the northern forest to brave the wilderness – and each other – for a year. They must rid themselves of their dangerous magic before returning purified and ready to marry – if they’re lucky.

It is forbidden to speak of the grace year, but even so every girl knows that the coming year will change them – if they survive it…

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

A strong premise that definitely caught my interest (what’s not to like about a female-driven version of “Lord of the Flies”, so to speak?), but whose execution unfortunately didn’t work for me.

The story starts with a typical “dystopian place where women are expected to behave in certain ways, and are under men’s yoke without any recourse”. Bleak (and sort of over the top), but that’s why it provides for a good starting point: heroines aren’t born from cozy lives where nothing unpleasant ever happens, after all.

Tierney is that person: a girl on the cusp of her sixteenth birthday, after which she’ll be exiled for one year with all the other girls born the same year as her, to live in some remote camp in the woods where they’ll all have to expel the “magic” out of them. (A magic that is clearly threatening only because it is meant to have an impact on men, of course, such as the girls being rumoured to be able to seduce anyone if left unchecked, and so on.) So that’s where we start: on the eve of that fateful day, with Tierney disagreeing with it but not having much of a choice, and determined to make the most she can out of it—she knows that no boy in the county will give her a veail (= propose to her before she leaves), due to her being the local tomboy, so she wants to work in the fields instead when she’s back, to at least have some kind of freedom by working outdoors. To no reader’s surprise, things don’t go exactly as planned, and Tierney finds herself leaving with the promise of enmity in that camp, rather than of working together to survive the upcoming year.

The “grace year” is clearly not a good year for these girls, and I did like that part of the world described in the book. Again, not a rosy part at all, rather an infuriating one at that, for the girls having to live in that camp on an island was an obvious attempt at breaking them and better subdue the future wives and female workers of the county. Is the magic real? Most people in Tierney’s town probably wouldn’t be able to recognise it if it stared them in the face, but they are nevertheless quick to seize this as an opportunity to get rid of a wife judged as too old now, or to smear someone’s reputation. You want to root for Tierney here, hope that she, at least, will find a way out of this, or a way to turn the table and bring change to her society…

…But that’s where the book lost me, for several reasons:

– The camp setting could’ve been a perfect opportunity to show us young women having to cooperate in spite of their differences, and perhaps finding and retaking their own power in a place where no one else would see and judge them. Unfortunately, it went down another road, one I don’t care for much, in a “one vs. all the others” way, complete with mean girl extraordinaire and appalling behaviours. Although the latter was somewhat part of the very patriarchal society depicted here, the problem was how it only contributed to pitch girls against girls, even more than in their hometown, instead of giving them a common ground on which to build something else.

– Tierney was introduced as resourceful, but there were several moments when she was helpless in situations where she should’ve made more use of her skills, and let herself be bullied to an extent that could’ve been lethal. Maybe I was expecting too much here? I expected her to catch on much more quickly on how the others would behave towards her, and have, I don’t know, some backup plan?

– Following this: the huge problem, for me, of having the female lead placed in dire situations… and get out of them only because men helped. This completely underminded the feminist aspects, from the man who helps Tierney in the woods, to the one who lies to save her skin. Not only did it make her look helpless, but it also enforced the message that, all in all, men were deciding everything about her life. Again.

– The romance. Unnecessary in such a plot, and without any real chemistry anyway.

– The world itself. I’m still not sure whether it’s a fantasy world, or whether the county is located in England or the future USA or something (mention is made of people from varied origins with different languages, then of English having become the common language; Vikings are also briefly mentioned). It was pretty much a bubble world, with only the county and the one town in it, and nothing else beyond this. Still unsure whether societies in other counties was the same or not, if they had grace years as well or not, etc.

Conclusion: I filed this one as “it was OK” because I did finish it and it had a few points I liked, but it could’ve been so much more, and ultimately wasn’t.

Yzabel / August 8, 2019

Review: Tangle’s Game

Tangle’s Game by Stewart Hotston
My rating: [usr 2.5]

Blurb:

Tense tech-thriller based on the growing role of blockchains, encryption and social media in society.

Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

Yesterday, Amanda Back’s life was flawless: the perfect social credit score, the perfect job, the perfect home.

Today, Amanda is a target, an enemy of the system holding information dangerous enough to disrupt the world’s all-consuming tech – a fugitive on the run.

But in a world where an un-hackable blockchain links everyone and everything, there is nowhere to run…

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

A techno-thriller with interesting AI-related themes, although in the end, I wasn’t awed by the story.

Set in a somewhat near future where transactions are handled through blockchain-based contracts and people’s quality of life is dependent on their social credit score as well as on their financial credit score, “Tangle’s Game” tells the story of Amanda Back, a successful investment banker who finally got a complete grip back on her life after an ex-boyfriend stole her money and left her betrayed. Flying back to London, and after an invasive search episode at the airport, she comes home only to realise that said boyfriend has involved her in a dangerous game where a mysterious USB stick and the information it contains is key. The only problem? Amanda isn’t a hacker, or a conspiracy theorist, or a whistleblower, and is probably the last person with the proper connections to do something with said information.

The premise really hooked me in, and I quickly wanted to know more about how this would all unfurl: who were the enemies, how would they try to get the info, what was Tangle’s exact part in that, who could be Amanda’s allies… Most of all, I was interested in Tatsu, the little AI contracted to help her decrypt the contents of the USB stick. I always have a soft spot for AIs, and Tatsu was definitely endearing.

By contrast, though, I never really warmed up to the human characters. Mostly they were “unlikeable” as people (Amanda is pretty much self-centered, Tangle is no better and probably somewhere on the sociopathic ladder…), but that in itself is not a deal-breaker for me—they can be the most rotten pieces of crap in the world, I can still find them likeable as characters, provided the execution goes this way. It wasn’t much the case here, in part because these characters as a whole made problematic decision after problematic decision, in a way that made me keep wondering how on Earth they were still alive. (I’ve been a tabletop RPG player for over 20 years. Trust my experience when I say that “’eceiving mysterious information and just hanging about in one’s own flat—where everybody know they can find you—while trying to come up with ideas about what to do” is a sure way of being assaulted at night by men in black or other unsavoury characters.) I was actually glad when one of the bad guys finally called them on their ability to come up with plans that may work in movies, but never in real life. And that was worth for pretty much the whole cast, not only Amanda, who at least I would’ve expected to be the most clueless.

The last 20% picked up, and with Tatsu still involved by that point, that made me want to read until the end at any rate. The ending itself is fairly open, and leaves much unresolved, but in a way, it also makes much sense: things got mired, then exploded, and now the world’s in turmoil… and the fragile situation at the end, teetering between hope and potential catastrophe, fits that pattern.

Conclusion: 2.5 stars. Mostly I didn’t care much about the human characters, and there were a few plot holes that annoyed me, but I did enjoy the part played by the AI, and the way Amanda (and Tangle, too, after all) considered it.

Yzabel / July 22, 2019

Review: The July Girls

The July Girls by Phoebe Locke
My rating: [user 4]

Blurb:

Every year, on the same night in July, a woman is taken from the streets of London; snatched by a killer who moves through the city like a ghost.

Addie has a secret. On the morning of her tenth birthday, four bombs were detonated across the capital. That night her dad came home covered in blood. She thought he was hurt in the attacks – but then her sister Jessie found a missing woman’s purse hidden in his room.

Jessie says they mustn’t tell. She says there’s nothing to worry about. But when she takes a job looking after the woman’s baby daughter, Addie starts to realise that her big sister doesn’t always tell her the whole story. And that the secrets they’re keeping may start costing lives…

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

Here’s a mystery about a killer, nicknamed “Magpie”, who every year, on July 7th, abducts and kills a woman. In this case, though, it’s not the police’s investigation we follow, but this story seen through the eyes of Abigail, a young girl born on July 7th as well: because on her 10th birthday, her father comes home covered in blood, and that’s when she starts questioning more and more what other secrets her family is hiding.

Just as much as a crime story—there is an investigation as well, after all—“The July Girls” is the story of a small family, specifically Addie and her big sister Jessie, who’s more a mother to her, since their mum has vanished abroad and never comes home. Their father is seldom around either, trying to make ends meet as an unlicensed cab driver, and it is clear from the beginning that Jessie loves Addie so much that she tries to shield her from basically everything, including their relatively bleak prospects in South London. And when things take a turn for the worst, we also get to see how the sisters’ life goes on, how Addie gets bullied at school because of her father, and how she tries to make sense of the events that unfolded until that point.

The novel spans about ten years in Addie’s life, which is good: it allows the readers to ‘see’ her voice mature, and her thoughts processes go from a girl’s to an adult’s. It’s also good in that it makes the killer’s arc into a slow-going investigation, as is definitely needed here, with the murders happening only once a year: if it had been solved in two years, it wouldn’t have been as suspenseful, for sure.

I kept guessing and guessing regarding who the killer might be, as there were a few valid options here. There were several twists and turns, and while a couple of them were slightly erring on the far-fetched side, I still found the novel as a whole a pretty good one, that kept me reading and interested until the end.

Yzabel / July 15, 2019

Review: The Escape Room

The Escape Room by Megan Goldin
My rating: [usr 1.5]

Blurb:

Welcome to the escape room. Your goal is simple. Get out alive.

In the lucrative world of Wall Street finance, Vincent, Jules, Sylvie and Sam are the ultimate high-flyers. Ruthlessly ambitious, they make billion-dollar deals and live lives of outrageous luxury. Getting rich is all that matters, and they’ll do anything to get ahead.

When the four of them become trapped in an elevator escape room, things start to go horribly wrong. They have to put aside their fierce office rivalries and work together to solve the clues that will release them. But in the confines of the elevator the dark secrets of their team are laid bare. They are made to answer for profiting from a workplace where deception, intimidation and sexual harassment thrive.

Tempers fray and the escape room’s clues turn more and more ominous, leaving the four of them dangling on the precipice of disaster. If they want to survive, they’ll have to solve one more final puzzle: which one of them is a killer?

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

A quick read, in that it’s not complicated and you don’t need a lot of focus. I didn’t find the story compelling, and the writing style was quite dry, with much more telling than showing.

The initial idea, that of four people trapped in a lift masquerading as an escape room, and forced to be together when in fact they’d probably much prefer to kill each other, was a good one. However, it was also difficult to execute—there isn’t much room in a lift, which limits action possibilities—and after the first couple of “lift chapters”, the thrill here dwindled down to our four bankers not doing much with the few clues they were given. I think there was an element of “things didn’t turn out exactly as the mastermind behind it had envisioned they would”, but it fell flat for me. It was also pretty obvious from the beginning who said mastermind was, and with this removed, the remaining “how” and “why” weren’t able to fully carry the story afterwards.

This said, I could’ve worked with the above under certain conditions: the twin narrative of Sara Hall and what happened within Stanhope a few years prior to the escape room scenes had interesting ideas, exploring the ruthless world of investment banking, colleagues smiling to each other but trying to undermine each other from behind, backstabbing, the women vs. the “old boys’ network”, and so on. I could’ve worked with this… if the characters had been compelling, only they weren’t. Almost all of them (except the one that dies mid-story) weren’t likeable people—and when I say likeable, I don’t mean that they necessarily have to be kind, positive, etc., but that they have to make me feel for them, and keep interested, in spite of their flaws. Here, though, they were just unlikeable, without many redeeming qualities; their more human aspects (struggling with their relationships, divorce, and so on) mostly make them look like what mattered to them wasn’t so much the relationship, but the standing that came with it; not so much saving one’s marriage, but avoiding losing alimony money; and so on. In other words, whether they got out of the lift or not, I didn’t care.

As for the plot behind the whole escape room, it felt more contrived, and a little ridiculous, than thrilling, and the few twists and turns didn’t awe me either.

(On the plus side, I did like the characters who died. Unfortunately. I mean, for them, because, well, they’re dead.)

Yzabel / July 14, 2019

Review: Nonbinary — Memoirs of Gender and Identity

Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity by Micah Rajunov
My rating: [usr 4]

Blurb:

What happens when your gender doesn’t fit neatly into the categories of male or female? Even mundane interactions like filling out a form or using a public bathroom can be a struggle when these designations prove inadequate. In this groundbreaking book, thirty authors highlight how our experiences are shaped by a deeply entrenched gender binary.

The powerful first-person narratives of this collection show us a world where gender exists along a spectrum, a web, a multidimensional space. Nuanced storytellers break away from mainstream portrayals of gender diversity, cutting across lines of age, race, ethnicity, ability, class, religion, family, and relationships. From Suzi, who wonders whether she’ll ever “feel” like a woman after living fifty years as a man, to Aubri, who grew up in a cash-strapped fundamentalist household, to Sand, who must reconcile the dual roles of trans advocate and therapist, the writers’ conceptions of gender are inextricably intertwined with broader systemic issues. Labeled gender outlaws, gender rebels, genderqueer, or simply human, the voices in Nonbinary illustrate what life could be if we allowed the rigid categories of “man” and “woman” to loosen and bend. They speak to everyone who has questioned gender or has paused to wonder, What does it mean to be a man or a woman—and why do we care so much?

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

A collection of essays by and about nonbinary authors. (Incidentally, July 14 is International Nonbinary People’s day, so I guess this review comes at just about the right time.) There’s more than just “either man or woman”, and I wish this was more understood, all the more because I have a hard time with the current of hostility exhibited by some people whenever they can’t put others in neat little boxes (doesn’t only apply to gender, but the latter is a definitely a sore spot).

The essays range across a variety of people and assigned genders, and show well that “nonbinary” is not something that only “happens” in specific places, or to specific people. There’s too often a tendency to see all things enby or trans as a “phase”, as something that people should “grow out of”. Here, not all authors are younger people who may be called “too young to know” and who will “stop being confused and change their minds”, the way the usual narrative goes whenever the two little boxes I mentioned above cannot be ticked. Half the authors are at least in their 30s, or even born in the 1950s-60, which goes to show that it’s not a generation thing. The same way, “non-binary” is too often seen as “assigned female as birth who now presents as androgyne”, when the truth is that this concerns many other kinds of people, across all ages, origins, colour and sexuality.

It was really interesting for me to see how all these authors came to understand they were nonbinary. For some, it was obvious very early, others had more trouble putting a name on it, or thought they were looking for transition, and so on. We are formatted from a very young age to see ourselves as either boy or girl, and this formatting can have a strong impact, in that it’s not so easy to sort out what we feel, and the spectre of “having to be normal” weighs heavily. Because you don’t feel like a boy doesn’t mean you’re a cis girl, and conversely. And more visibility (and less dismissal) in general for nonbinary people would be a welcome thing.

In terms of diversity, the one thing I regret here is that it felt like a very US-centric collection, so it doesn’t shed light about what being non-binary may entail in other parts of the world. Maybe it wasn’t possible to get authors from other countries, or maybe it was overlooked? I was also not too thrilled with the chapter told by the parent of a nonbinary teen; I would’ve been more interested in having the direct point of view of Bailey themselves as well, also as someone with the perspective of a teenager.

Yzabel / July 13, 2019

Review: The Science of Storytelling

The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr
My rating: [usr 3.5]

Blurb:

Who would we be without stories?

Stories mould who we are, from our character to our cultural identity. They drive us to act out our dreams and ambitions, and shape our politics and beliefs. We use them to construct our relationships, to keep order in our law courts, to interpret events in our newspapers and social media. Storytelling is an essential part of what makes us human.

There have been many attempts to understand what makes a good story – from Joseph Campbell’s well-worn theories about myth and archetype to recent attempts to crack the ‘Bestseller Code’. But few have used a scientific approach. This is curious, for if we are to truly understand storytelling in its grandest sense, we must first come to understand the ultimate storyteller – the human brain.

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

Pretty interesting both regarding the science part (how our brains work) and the writing part (how this translated into fiction, and more specifically creating compelling characters with a ‘fatal flaw’). The author illustrates those points with examples from a few well-known books, like ‘Lolita’ and ‘The Remains of the Day’, an approach that could easily be problematic. On the one hand, illustrating the theory with examples is always better. On the other hand, if one hasn’t read those books…spoilers! (I had read those in the past, so I was good here.) At any rates, these examples were good ones in my opinion, especially where ‘Lolita’ is concerned: Humbert Humbert is clearly not the kind of character one is supposed to root for, so for Nabokov to make him and the story compelling, specific techniques had to be used. And once analysed the way they are in “The Science of Storytelling”, they do make a lot of sense. (Please note that this has likely been explored in studies about ‘Lolita’ as well, but I haven’t read them, so I can’t tell whether there’s anything original in here, or not at all.)

Having plenty of examples, though, was perhaps a little overkill in places, in that it left less room to explore more in terms of neuroscience / how the human brain works. I chose to take this book as one I can go back to for ‘writing advice’, but I admit that I felt a little down regarding the science part (I expected more, in a more scientific way). So best is to approach this book as one about writing rather than as a bona fide ‘science’ book’.

(I also didn’t care much for the few moments when the author went more into political opinions. This I found jarring, and it pulled me out of my funk.)

Probably my favourite section was actually the last one (as in, the appendix), which gives good pointers into creating and fleshing out characters based on what the author developed throughout the book. In hindsight, it’s probably ‘logical’ advice, and I suppose that there are quite a few authors out there who’re doing that (consciously or not) as something that is completely obvious and/or logical to them; for me, it was definitely interesting, and I need to keep it in mind when developing my own characters. Which isn’t necessarily easy when you have more than one main character to focus on, but that’s a whole other conundrum.

Conclusion: 3.5 stars

Yzabel / July 1, 2019

Review: Whisper Network

Whisper Network by Chandler Baker
My rating: [usr 3]

Blurb:

Sloane, Ardie, Grace, and Rosalita are four women who have worked at Truviv, Inc., for years. The sudden death of Truviv’s CEO means their boss, Ames, will likely take over the entire company. Ames is a complicated man, a man they’ve all known for a long time, a man who’s always been surrounded by…whispers. Whispers that have always been ignored by those in charge. But the world has changed, and the women are watching Ames’s latest promotion differently. This time, they’ve decided enough is enough.

Sloane and her colleagues set in motion a catastrophic shift within every floor and department of the Truviv offices. All four women’s lives—as women, colleagues, mothers, wives, friends, even adversaries—will change dramatically as a result.

“If only you had listened to us,” they tell us on page one, “none of this would have happened.”

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

I enjoyed this novel for its theme and its message, along with the format: interspersed with interviews gradually unveiling more of the “present time” plot, while the chapters themselves started some 2 months before and showed what led to this point. I guessed some things, I didn’t guess some others, and all in all, piecing things together was fun.

The topic at hand, of course, wasn’t fun. It balanced between office politics and double-standards—how female employees are (often) viewed vs. the “old boys club” feeling—, between deciding whether to complain about potential harassment or shut up for fear of retaliation, between wondering what does constitute harassment and whether or not one is “overreacting”, and let’s not forget also the usual “these women are lying and destroying lives” (funny enough, the people complaining about this don’t seem to react as often about how rapists are ruining lives as well). All well-made points, including the latter, because it -is- true they come forward right as the guy is poised to become the new CEO, in reaction to feeling suddenly even more threatened, but also one of opportunism… but not everyone would think about it this way, since there’d be lots of money involved as well. All uncomfortable topics, too, yet that need to be pointed at and discussed.

This said, I really had trouble empathising with the characters. I don’t have much in common with them for starters—apart, that is, from encounters with sexist douchebags and other run-ins involving the usual patriarchy-fed bull, although I’m aware I haven’t had it the worst either (fingers crossed). But I’m not a new mother, nor a single one, nor someone who cheated on a partner, etc., so I usually need a bit of extra connection with such characters, a little dose of something else, something more, to relate to their problems, especially their rich people problems, and… that didn’t really happen here. The impression I got out of the main female characters was more that they weren’t very pleasant people, who yet kept trying to justify their behaviours to themselves, a little like “but at least I do this better” and “but -I- am not like that, right?” Kind of weak in my opinion.

The story also dragged in parts, and even though I read it in 3 days, at times I wished it would get to the point faster. And I’m still unsure of who the narrator exactly was. The author? Not one of the characters, or at least, it doesn’t sound like it. (Their voices were quite similar, so I needed to see them named in each chapter anyway in order to quickly get who it was about.)

Conclusion: 3 stars. I did like the story, but never really connected with the characters.

Yzabel / June 28, 2019

Review: Quantum Convention

Quantum Convention by Eric Schlich
My rating: [usr 2.5]

Blurb:

“Quantum Convention”’s eight genre-bending stories balance precariously between reality and fantasy, the suburban and the magical, the quotidian and the strange. Caught at a crossroads in his marriage, a high school teacher attends a parallel universe convention, where he meets his multiple selves and explores the alternate paths of life’s what-ifs. The story of Margaret Hamilton, the actress who played the Wicked Witch of the West, parallels the coming of age of a cross-dressing boy whose crisis of identity is tied to The Wizard of Oz. Other stories feature characters labeled as “outcasts” by society—whether physically, morally, or fantastically: an alcoholic lucid dreamer, a closeted bisexual, a bachelor time-epileptic, orphans-turned-keeners, a vengeful banshee, a nerdy cyclops, and more. Many struggle to find what Dorothy and her entourage searched for: the wisdom to trust or discount their faith; the ability of the emotionally detached to love; the courage to speak up for oneself; a place to belong.

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

As with every collection of short stories in general, some in this book were spot on, and some didn’t touch me much.

I enjoyed how relatable the stories were: the characters, their actions, their past, their motivations were altogether very human and understandable. It was easy to empathize with Lyssa’s fear of ending up left all alone, or with Owen’s desperate desire to go out and meet other people. Their themes were food for thought, the kind that will lead to introspection and wondering, and there would be a lot to say about those afterwards as well.

On the other hand, most of the stories left me with a feeling of lack, as if something undefinable was missing from them. I think I was expecting more of a punchline, something to let me know that the narrative was over and that now I could think about it on my own, but instead of that, it seemed that the thread was cut short, almost as if someone had stopped talking in the middle of a sentence. Why I wouldn’t mind filling in the blanks, and while I do enjoy open endings, whatever the length of the story, here, it was more jarring than thought-provoking. Almost every time, I got thrown out of my reading, wondering “and…?” As if the author didn’t know how to wrap it up, and so just left it there. Or maybe there was something to get, and I just didn’t get it. Hard to tell.

Conclusion: A quick and enjoyable read, but one that felt unachieved to me (eight times).

Yzabel / June 23, 2019

Review: Recursion

Recursion by Blake Crouch
My rating: [usr 3]

Blurb:

What if someone could rewrite your entire life?

‘My son has been erased.’

Those are the last words the woman tells Barry Sutton before she leaps from the Manhattan rooftop.

Deeply unnerved, Barry begins to investigate her death only to learn that this wasn’t an isolated case. All across the country, people are waking up to lives different from the ones they fell asleep to. Are they suffering from False Memory Syndrome, a mysterious, new disease that afflicts people with vivid memories of a life they never lived? Or is something far more sinister behind the fracturing of reality all around him?

Miles away, neuroscientist Helena Smith is developing a technology that allows us to preserve our most intense memories and relive them. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss or the birth of a child.

Barry’s search for the truth leads him on an impossible, astonishing journey as he discovers that Helena’s work has yielded a terrifying gift . . .

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley and Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.]

This novel definitely dealt with an interesting idea, one that raised a lot of ethical conundrums—and not only when it comes to mapping and injecting memories. It’s hard to fully develop this without spoiling, and whoever has read the book will know anyway what I’m talking about. Suffice to say that considering the successive outcomes after the turning point “experiment”, it was only logical that things would go to the dogs a little more each time. [spoiler title='(view spoiler)’ style=’blue’ collapse_link=’true’]The events immediately after the leak were particularly shocking due to how.. logical and expected they were: one group trying to prevent terrorist events, and the terrorist group causing them switching to a new attack every time the previous one is unmade. I can totally see that happening.[/spoiler]

The concept explored here is one that lends itself to discussion and to a lot of diverging opinions, and illustrates perfectly how the road to Hell is so often paved with good intentions. And I’d definitely side with Helena here: as much as her technology would be great if used at a very small scale, I wouldn’t trust humanity with it either. [spoiler title='(view spoiler)’ style=’blue’ collapse_link=’true’]The DARPA episode illustrated this so very well. Here we had this group of government-type people, who were committed to use the chair, but at least had enough wisdom to keep Helena on board as their safeguard, precisely so that they could make sure to use her technology to do good and never go too far. Then a leak occurred, and all their good work was thrown under the bus, and the worst-case scenarii started to happen.[/spoiler]

In terms of the plot, I was totally on board. The story demands one to stay focused on the details, since several events happening throughout the novel become essential again later on—I read mostly while commuting/walking, so I tend to unconsciously ‘skim’ at times, and here, I had to go back to realise that what felt like a plot hole was just my not having paid enough attention. I didn’t agree with everything in terms of science (doesn’t matter what happens at the quantum level, you can’t exactly use that and apply it to the macro level), but it didn’t have much of an impact on my enjoyment while reading, and I’m OK with that.

Where I didn’t like the book so much was when it came to the characters. Due to the nature of the plot, a lot rested on repetitive scenes, with the same characters. However, while I didn’t dislike them, I didn’t feel particularly connected to them either. Which is really too bad—you’ve got to admire Helena’s courage and resiliency, and the sacrifices she made, to try and repair the damage; that would turn more than one person completely mad after the first couple of attempts. But I wasn’t convinced by the shortcuts taken with the characters’ relationship (how they get to know each other, how said relationship developed). To be honest, for me, this was Helena’s story. Barry mostly seemed like he was needed so that there would be someone (anyone) with Helena to give a hand, with more importance towards the end, which in itself also tasted a little too much like “in spite of all the girl’s efforts, the guy’s the one who saves the day”, so…

Conclusion: 3 stars. It was a plot-driven story, a plot that I liked, but in this specific case, it also needed to be character-driven, and that didn’t happen.

Yzabel / June 22, 2019

Review: Underdogs

Underdogs by Chris Bonnello
My rating: [usr 2.5]

Blurb:

One million cloned soldiers. A nation imprisoned. A group of neurodiverse rebels fighting back.

Britain as we know it lies destroyed. In the aftermath of the most daring military coup in history, the surviving population is crammed inside giant Citadels, watched over by an army of cloned soldiers. The hope of a nation lies in a tiny number of freedom fighters hidden in the abandoned countryside – most of whom are teenagers who escaped the attack on their special school.

Seen by many as no more than misfits and ‘problem children’, this band of fighters could never have imagined the responsibility that now rests on their shoulders. But perhaps this war needs a different kind of hero. After a lifetime of being defined by their weaknesses, the teenagers must learn how to play to their strengths, and become the best they can be in a world that has never been on their side.

Review:

Overall, it was both a fun and an emotional story, with good pacing and an appropriate mix of calm moments and tense ones. Also, since I read it through Pigeonhole, the staves were cut in such a way that they stop just at the right moment: if they hadn’t, I sure wouldn’t have stopped reading until the next day.

I really liked the cast, and the choice of relying on different people for a change: not your typical teenagers, but clearly the “underdogs”, those seen as “problem children”, considered from the start as “inferior”, “useless”, and all other manners of stupid clichés by “normal” people (whatever “normal” means anyway, eh?). Our heroes were clearly much more than their differences: they were human beings, something that should never be forgotten. They were good people, with their positive and negative traits like everyone, with a hefty dose of bravery and a genuine desire to do the right thing. And without being bogged down by “regular” society’s demands, they were given the space to grow into themselves as people.

Which is why it pains me not to give more stars to this book, because as much as I liked the characters, I also couldn’t overlook the rest. Mainly:
– The plot holes. Because much time is spent with the characters (which is a good thing), too little is spent on the backstory, and the latter in turn looks very simplistic and cliché. Bad guy uses his money to acquire private companies and get the government to trust him, then surprises everybody with an army of clones, seizes power, and stuffs all the population of Great Britain into prison-cities. OK, I get a villain having a desire for power, but it still felt “empty”. Also, clones wouldn’t prevent another country from simply nuking his factories from above, so… What was the rest of the world doing?
– The bad guys in general were pretty cliché, too, especially Nat and Oliver. They made me laugh and roll my eyes more than thrilled me.
– The last point is one I hate making (although, to be fair, I’ve noticed this in other stories as well): when the main characters’ neuroatypical aspects were mentioned, I most often found it too… didactic, so to speak. I have the same feeling when non-binary characters, for instance, are portrayed the same way: it screams “must show the readers how this character is trans/asexual/non-binary/etc., but surely most readers have no clue and are too lazy to do their own research, so let’s spell it for them.” Same thing here, only in this case, of course, it was about Asperger’s, or Down’s syndrome. And I get it, I really do: it’s definitely hard to find the right balance, the one where enough is explained for most readers to receive the right information (and not lose them if, indeed, they don’t care about doing some research), yet without slamming it in their faces either. Still, the fact remains that it tended to throw me out of my reading here.

Conclusion: 2.5 stars because of the clichés/holes and the explanatory tone. But without that, for the sheer entertaining factor and the very likeable characters, I’d have rated this book higher.