The Wall is a powerfully atmospheric dystopia. For almost the entire book, the unnamed narrator is the only human character, outside of memories, that we encounter. It begins when she is vacationing with friends in the Austrian mountains; her two friends go out for a walk and never return, and when she goes out to look for them, she walks into an invisible wall. An inexplicable boundary cutting her off from the rest of the world, and life as she once knew it.
What follows is part survival story, part philosophical meditation on reasons to go on living, and part love story for the wonderful cast of animal characters surrounding the protagonist.
The challenge of keeping going-- learning new skills, learning to fend for herself in complete isolation, grow food --is strangely compelling. The narrator is painfully aware that her life up until this point never prepared her for survival. Alongside this, she questions why she doesn't just give up. One of the eeriest aspects of the story is her fear of herself and what she might become left alone too long. She says of her journal:
Once I’ve reached the end I shall hide it well and forget about it. I don’t want the strange thing that I might turn into to find it one day.
Though, above all, what seems to keep her going is her devotion to her animals-- Lynx the dog, the cat and her kittens, Bella the cow, and Bella's calf, Bull. In this novel, they are as well-drawn as any human characters, each with their own personality. (view spoiler)[I won't fully spoil it, but some readers may wish to know that not all the animals survive the book. (hide spoiler)]
The narrator is journalling in the past tense, and so she frequently foreshadows things we don't yet know about. I actually love this style of storytelling; I find it extremely suspenseful to be waiting for the promised tragedy to happen.
The Compound is quite deceptive, I think. The promise of Love Island meets Lord of the Flies is not exactly wrong, but it does sell the book short. I The Compound is quite deceptive, I think. The promise of Love Island meets Lord of the Flies is not exactly wrong, but it does sell the book short. I went in expecting a trashy (but fun) beach thriller and was surprised to be taken somewhere deeper.
It's set in a near-future, vaguely-dystopian world. I say "vaguely-dystopian" because we are given hints about catastrophes and misery in the outside world, but we spend the whole book on the set of a reality TV dating show. Ten women, ten men, all competing for increasingly extravagant prizes, with the ultimate goal of being the last one standing and granted almost anything they desire.
Lily, the narrator, is stunningly beautiful with, by her own admission, not much else going for her. She's not quite a blank-slate protagonist, but she's close enough to make her a fitting lens through which we observe the others.
It's a character study, and a compelling one, driven by rivalry, jealousy and vanity. The tone is ominous from the beginning-- we're dropped right into the compound without explanation, leaving Lily to gradually fill in the blanks of how this thing works. As in all reality TV, there's a sense that every smile is a little bit fake, every kind gesture has an ulterior motive.
Fundamentally, this is a story about two things: performance culture and consumerism.
On performance: everything is orchestrated to entertain the audience, to give them what they want. The participants are humiliated, near tortured, and left brokenhearted—all for the sake of spectacle. In many ways, the book seems less about the contestants and more about those watching them.
As for consumerism, it captures that feeling of endless wanting—of always needing something more, even when you’re not sure what. Even when by most metrics you are happy as you are, there's still a sense of missing out on something greater. In the compound, as in life, it’s easy to lose sight of what truly matters when almost anything is on offer....more
The Unworthy is a strange read, yet one that feels like it's been done many timTender Is the Flesh was fantastic, but I did not like this book at all.
The Unworthy is a strange read, yet one that feels like it's been done many times before. Bazterrica drops us into the middle of a bizarre dystopian world, offering no immediate context and only slight tidbits throughout, and tries to propel the story with little more than increasingly horrific depictions of whippings and torture.
We find out that this is set in a convent, the House of the Sacred Sisterhood, after the climate crisis has brought about some vague devastation and infections in the outside world. Though short, the book is slow and repetitive, moving from prayer to punishment and back again. World-building, character development and an actual story are notably missing from the book.
I have said this before, but I really dislike being kept in the dark this much. I find it extremely boring when I don't understand what is happening or why I should care.
It felt like The Unworthy was an attempt to be mysterious and edgy. Almost nothing happens until the end of the book and even that was unsatisfying. If it was intended to provoke thought about women and religion, it missed the mark for me.
I Who Have Never Known Men is another short, mysterious dystopia about women and I would recommend it over this one in a heartbeat....more
I'm not sure if it's that I'm coming to this book six years after it was published-- and have lived through several developments that make this premisI'm not sure if it's that I'm coming to this book six years after it was published-- and have lived through several developments that make this premise seem not remotely far-fetched --but I have to say I'm surprised the average rating is so low.
If The Handmaid’s Tale was a propulsive thriller and not the literary book it is, it would probably be something like Vox. Short chapters and absolutely enraging situations made this near impossible to put down.
Coming to this in 2024 made the book feel eerily prescient. We've seen the attack on abortion rights in the U.S., followed by the ongoing attack on access to birth control and the attempts to imprison pregnant women within their home states with abortion "trafficking" laws. We've witnessed the horrific Fall of Kabul under the Taliban and the silencing of women. Even the women in this book who pander to the male ego and sell a fantasy of domestic womanhood bring to mind social media's so-called "tradwives."
For all those reasons, I think now was exactly the right time for Vox and I to find one another. I was primed to suspend disbelief for this nightmare scenario. And I enjoyed it in that special way that blinding fury can make me enjoy a book. I read it seething, eyes glued to the page.
It's set in America, but the religious right have taken over and sent women home from their jobs to fulfill their "natural role" as mothers and homemakers. Not only that, but they've been fitted with bracelets that give them a painful shock if they go over their daily quota of one hundred words. It is especially disturbing how quickly the young adapt to this new reality-- Jean's son, Steven, is quickly sold on the new ideology that it's a woman's job to do everything for him, just as her young daughter is delighted when she wins awards for speaking the fewest words in her class.
Dalcher is herself a theoretical linguist and her expertise has obviously influenced many parts of this book, from the rumination on what inhibiting language does to a person to Jean's job working on a cure for aphasia.
I read some negative reviews to get a feel for why the rating was so low on this book and one common recurring point is that it demonizes Christians. But, unless post-publication edits were made, I am really surprised by those comments. The book is not critical of all Christians, but of the religious far-right that would see women forced into their homes, into silence. We should be critical of these minority Christians who believe the Bible provides instruction on how we should actually live, including this:
1 Timothy 2:12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.
I didn't find this book to be a critique of Christians or men. What I think this book is really about is the complicity of the bystander, the quiet enabler. The men who may not be misogynists but laugh along at the jokes. The women who roll their eyes and say they wouldn't actually take away our rights. The silent majority who let the extremists get away with it.
My biggest criticism is that the end of the book gets a little rushed and finishes (view spoiler)[perhaps too neatly (hide spoiler)]. I also found it difficult to believe that, despite there supposedly being cameras everywhere, the cameras were conveniently missing in a number of locations that it didn’t make sense for there to be no cameras. ...more
I was looking forward to this latest Hunger Games book (even though I didn't care for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), mostly because I like HaymiI was looking forward to this latest Hunger Games book (even though I didn't care for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), mostly because I like Haymitch as a character, but I am now fully convinced that this series has no juice left in it. This is a fan book for fans. And, if you're a fan, it has entertaining moments, but nothing about Sunrise on the Reaping is new or necessary.
Look, I didn't hate it. The formula and themes of The Hunger Games books are all here-- dramatic reaping, infuriating parading of these kids in front of wealthy sponsors, the bloody action and danger of the games themselves --and it's a formula that has worked before. Obviously, there's less tension this time because you know how it ends. You know Haymitch's attempts to bring down the games cannot have been successful. And even the details we don't know are easy to guess.
If you want to read something very similar to The Hunger Games, this is your book. It goes reaping > dress-up > training > rating > games. The characters are different, but the plot is virtually the same.
And while I do enjoy Haymitch as a character (definitely partly thanks to Woody Harrelson), I thought there were very few new characters who were memorable. In fact, Maysilee was the only standout of the other candidates. I also could have done with a bit less of Haymitch's mooning over Lenore. She was off page for more than 90% of the book, we didn't know her very well, so it was boring hearing about her. And sorry, but I'm not enough of an Edgar Allan Poe fan for this book.
There were details about this arena that were different and cool, which I won't spoil. But overall this delivered more of the same thing we had *checks notes and dies of old age* seventeen years ago....more
All is fair in love and war, as the old saying goes, and our work is surely situated somewhere between the two.
Yeah, this is the book I wanted Hey, Zoey to be-- a thoughtful meditation on the ethics of sex robots as AI becomes increasingly intelligent. What does this mean for the robots? What does this mean for "real" women?
With the exception of, I think, a weak and odd ending, The Hierarchies gives a pretty good examination of the above questions. Sylv.ie is a robot created for her husband's pleasure. Impossibly beautiful, programmed to serve, unfailingly obedient... until she isn't. Until she starts to question the life she has and those who have control over her. Until she realises she is not ready to accept what she has been forced into without her consent.
Sylv.ie is seen as a sex toy by many men of the novel, but many "born" women also hate these new "created" women, for a variety of reasons. Some clear-- such as them leading their husbands astray and making a mockery of what they think it means to be a woman --and some more vague and tied into the politics of this strange dystopian world where the story is set.
"How hard it must be, to be a Born woman," Mais.ie says philosophically. "Imagine playing a game where the main rule was that you had to lose every time."
There is a very discomfiting part of this book when the naked robots are being tossed around and having new vaginas fitted by male workers who obviously see them as just pieces of plastic. Something about this particular scene called to mind Bazterrica's Tender is the Flesh and the way the characters there disassociated themselves from the humans they were farming.
While plenty of stuff does happen in this book, some of it dramatic and horrible (warning for sexual assault/rape), I would primarily describe it as a philosophical book that explores the nature of personhood, fear of technology, and exploitation.
“I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering, and that I was human after all.”
4 1/2
“I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering, and that I was human after all.”
4 1/2 stars. Wow. This tiny, disquieting book carries a sadness that the most popular tearjerkers could never hope to capture.
It sits outside of genre, outside of time, outside of the reality we know, introducing the reader to a world unfamiliar to both them and the unnamed protagonist. The result is a palpable feeling of wonder and loneliness.
I have decided to round up because this book made me feel so deeply, and because I have decided that my personal frustrations are perhaps misguided. There were things that I was hoping for from this book that I didn't get, but then I was never promised them, and, in fact, the past tense narration forewarned I would not get them. So that's my problem.
The story starts in an underground bunker where thirty-nine women and one young girl-- our narrator --are imprisoned in a cage. They don't remember how they got there and they have no idea why they are there. The women remember a life before the cage with families, friends and jobs, but the child remembers only their current existence. They are watched over and fed by male guards who tell them nothing. It seems they are doomed to live and die in this cage... until one day a combination of chance and ingenuity provide an opportunity for freedom.
It is part eerie pastoral dystopia, part a deeply introspective novel about hope, loneliness and the things that give life meaning. The novel swings between the invigorating feeling of hope and the numbing despair of hopelessness.
I found myself wondering at one point if it was supposed to be a metaphor. (view spoiler)[The relentless pursuit of answers, of meaning, in a world that ultimately makes no sense. (hide spoiler)] But perhaps I am overthinking things.
Either way, this short novel sat like a ball of anxiety in my throat from beginning to end. What a sad, evocative little story....more
I know things that don’t fit with their narrative of what the Community ‘stands for’. I know things that they have worked extremely hard to suppres
I know things that don’t fit with their narrative of what the Community ‘stands for’. I know things that they have worked extremely hard to suppress. I know where the skeletons are.
I think the story behind this book is incredibly powerful. While I've read a lot of books about cults, this one was quite unique in its approach and extremely convincing. Where it fell down, I felt, was in the decision to write the book as Emilia's biography of her mother. This format made the book dry at times, and dragged out parts of the story, especially in the middle.
The Silence Project tells the story of Rachel and how one day she set up a tent at the bottom of her garden and never spoke again. Over time, more women are drawn to the silent Rachel and inspired by her message to give up speaking in favour of listening. What starts as the musings of one woman becomes a multinational movement of good intentions warring with power abuses.
I think Hailey really captures the many different facets of how cults are formed: a combination of genuine do-gooders searching for a better world, vulnerable people in need of a community and, of course, opportunists taking advantage. Most books about cults leave me shaking my head in wonder at how this ideology was allowed to take hold and attract so many fervent believers, but Hailey explains it perfectly. I saw exactly how and why this happened. It felt true.
To come back to the biography aspect, though, this is what really prevented the book from receiving a higher rating from me. As Emilia is publishing a book explaining what happened, the tone is formal and sometimes academic leading to passages like this:
In their ground-breaking and controversial study Community, Cult, Culture (Global Press, 2018), Dr Sara Lenz and Professor Melanie Overbury explore how pre-Event symbolism came to assume a ritual significance to the post-Event Community.
Not all of the book is like this. The parts earlier on where Emilia shares her pain over her mother pulling away from her when she needed her most are gripping.
But far too much of the middle stretch is dry and boring. After the first third or so, Emilia rarely pulls us inside her head, instead narrating the sequence of events at an emotional distance....more
3 1/2 stars. For a while I thought this was going to be a solid five stars because the opening was so strong-- bloody, nasty and compelling. In fact, 3 1/2 stars. For a while I thought this was going to be a solid five stars because the opening was so strong-- bloody, nasty and compelling. In fact, parts of this book were awesome. The social commentary and criticism of the prison system were excellent and hard-hitting (though arguably the real world criticism got a little lost in this dystopian narrative). The fight scenes were horrific but impossible to look away from.
I think the book's main weakness was the choice to flit around between so many characters. Thurwar and Staxxx were interesting to me; not all the others were. It is not surprising to hear that Adjei-Brenyah is primarily a short story writer, as some of the chapters seemed like short stories themselves and often took me out of the flow of the main storyline.
I also wanted something more from the ending, though I agree a book like this is a tough one to wrap up. To be honest, I was confused as to what happened right there at the end. (view spoiler)[Did they both die? Was Thurwar still alive? (hide spoiler)] I found it difficult to follow....more
I can see why people compared the rise of Donald Trump to the rise of Buzz Windrip in It Can't Happen Here. The similarities, especially in the earlieI can see why people compared the rise of Donald Trump to the rise of Buzz Windrip in It Can't Happen Here. The similarities, especially in the earlier chapters, are almost comical. What isn't funny, is the very convincing way Lewis shows how fascism could easily grow in a country like America, with a demagogue slipping in and fanning the flames of bigotry amongst a poor people looking for answers to their problems.
Despite being anything but, Buzz Windrip positions himself as an everyman and gains favour by constantly preaching what he does not practice. For example, he earns votes from the Anti-Saloon League because:
“it was known that, though he drank a lot, Senator Windrip also praised teetotalism a lot, while his rival, Walt Trowbridge, though he drank but little, said nothing at all in support of the Messiahs of Prohibition.”
I only gave it three stars because, while I watched his rise intently and incredulously, I thought the endless exposition of Buzz's policies quickly grew tiresome. It explores an idea, but doesn't tell all that much of a tale, and Buzz himself is the single memorable character in the book (quite literally I have already forgotten the names of everyone else)....more
I can't do this one right now. I'm a big fan of the author's Kim Jiyoung but this wacky dystopia is not doing it for me. It reads like a seriDNF - 25%
I can't do this one right now. I'm a big fan of the author's Kim Jiyoung but this wacky dystopia is not doing it for me. It reads like a series of vignettes, snapshots of different characters and themes. And I think that last word there is key-- this is a story that focuses more on themes and ideas than on creating memorable characters and an engaging story.
I can see the capitalist critique emerging, which is not uninteresting, but I need something a bit more engaging and immersive at this moment....more
Rarely has a book given me so many mixed feelings as this one did. I'm still not 100% sure on my rating because I truly cannot decide how much I likedRarely has a book given me so many mixed feelings as this one did. I'm still not 100% sure on my rating because I truly cannot decide how much I liked this book.
My first impressions weren't great. You Could Be So Pretty felt dated and juvenile, calling to mind the kind of YA dystopias we saw everywhere in the early 2010s. The dystopian aspect featured the use of jarringly generic words like 'vanilla' to mean virgin, 'Invisibles' to mean older women supposedly past their prime and 'varnish' for Photoshop. Definitely not what I would have expected from Bourne.
It also gets very repetitive around the middle. A big chunk of the book is about Joni trying to convert Belle, and Belle questioning whether the Doctrine is really right, and this goes back and forth for a while, dragging the story out without going anywhere.
But, more than this, I had a massive question in my head for this entire book, one preventing me from fully accepting the premise and becoming immersed in it, and that question was finally answered by the last chapter... in a way I did not find wholly satisfying. I'll keep this vague to avoid spoilers, but my question was basically: pretty much everything that happens in this book happens in our world, so why stick in these new terms and pretend it's a dystopia?
Perhaps if you are a very young person or someone who has never really considered how unfair and stupid society is for women, that question won't be in your head this whole book and the last chapter will have the impact it's supposed to.
Looking back over the book I appreciate it a lot more than I did while reading it, which was a mostly confusing and frustrating experience. I think this book is very important for those who aren't well-versed in feminism and feminist-lit, and I'm sure there's a huge audience among young girls and-- one can dream --young boys. Still, I can't rate it any higher as that wouldn't reflect my experience with it....more
I blasted through this, just as I did with all the other Levin books I've read, but it is by far my least favourite (I am not reading Son of RosemaryI blasted through this, just as I did with all the other Levin books I've read, but it is by far my least favourite (I am not reading Son of Rosemary or Sliver so can't comment on those).
Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives, The Boys from Brazil and A Kiss Before Dying were all great stories. Levin has this easy, informal way of spinning a yarn-- chapters that flow quickly into one another, good dialogue, and characters that capture your interest (both the protagonists and villains as horrendous as Josef Mengele.) I'd say this is the only one of the five that doesn't go down quite as easy.
It's partially the lack of a really great hero or villain to fear for or despise. This Perfect Day is set in a dystopian future where everyone is virtually the same-- looks similar, behaves in line with the society's rules, and doesn't do anything ludicrous like dream or imagine or make their own decisions. However, as with pretty much every dystopian ever, there is a secret resistance of those who have learned to avoid being dosed up with "treatments" and started to question the way things are.
It is the nature of this society for it to be cold, detached and uniform. No one stands out, including the protagonist, Chip. He spends a good portion of the book being a well-behaved zombie and the rest of the time being a touch of an arsehole. I'm not exaggerating. The guy's an actual (view spoiler)[rapist whose actions are excused by his victim because his behaviour is "natural". (hide spoiler)]
Then there's the fact that this kind of dystopia was a bit "been there, done that" back in the 70s when it published. Today? Seen it all before. ...more
I have always believed that in our capitalist, consumerist society, we devour each other. - Agustina Bazterrica
This story is really disturbing, and it
I have always believed that in our capitalist, consumerist society, we devour each other. - Agustina Bazterrica
This story is really disturbing, and it isn't until the very last page that it becomes clear just how deeply disturbing it is.
Tender Is the Flesh is an Argentinian import from an author who is apparently very popular in her own country. After reading this, dare I ask what other horrors she has created? This dystopian horror story is set in a world that feels so close to our own, except a zoonotic virus has made it so that all animals have had to be destroyed. To fill the gap in the meat market, people start to breed and farm humans for their meat.
It is as horrifying and gory as it sounds. Extra warning for those sensitive to scenes of sexual assault and animal cruelty. But while it is hard to stomach at times, I was morbidly fascinated by what Bazterrica had to say about the way humans take advantage of other humans because they can get away with it. The book is horribly convincing and believable. We only have to look to our own real world to recall the excuses humans have made to enslave other humans and to shuttle them off to extermination camps. It does not take a huge suspension of disbelief to imagine the events of this book could happen.
The book also focuses on the way language is used to make humans feel better about committing atrocities. No one is allowed to say "cannibalism" and the meat in the book is packaged as "special meat". There's some dark humour, too, with a few prods at the hypocrisy of humans being outraged by slavery at the same time as imprisoning and eating other humans.
It is told in third person limited and follows Marcos Tejo who works at a meat plant. He takes us through all the horrors involved with breeding, killing, flaying and packaging humans, whilst also dealing with the loss of his own infant son.
For such a bleak tale, it is surprisingly compelling. All the time while reading I was wondering what on earth the conclusion of this nightmare could leave us with, but I think it was even more effective than I could have imagined....more
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