Reviews with content warning for Police brutality - The Free People's Village

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The Free People's Village by Sim Kern

45 reviews

gar42's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

An alternate timeline when Al Gore won the election against Bush and pursued a war on climate rather than a war on terror. The premise explores the ways in which white supremacy and greed are baked into America, regardless of the prevailing political ideal of a given time.

I found the conceit of the book interesting, and many parts of the book exciting and fun to read. But this book is filled with white tears, white guilt, over-explanation of political ideology, and in-your-face critiques of America that are founded, but written without the nuance or craft that I would hope for in a work of satire or literary fiction.

I look to books like Chain Gang All Stars or Our Missing Hearts as models of how a dystopian, alternate timeline book can point back to the flaws of present-day America without hitting the reader over the head. When a dystopian plot is too similar to the plot of reality, it can feel more like an uncanny valley reflection than an effective piece of probing political commentary.

For what it is, though, a fun and exciting read!

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bugle's review against another edition

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inspiring tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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alsoapples's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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savvylit's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

The concept of the Free People's Village? Amazing. I love the idea of autonomous zones, especially ones that crop up in protest. Some of the aspects of the Village - including group meals, art builds, and horizontal organization - warmed my leftist heart to see illustrated on the page. I also really appreciated many of the anti-authoritarian & abolitionist sentiments shared by the character of Gestas. He reminded me of people I know & love in real life.

Beyond the aspects mentioned above, though, I did not enjoy this book. I tried to write a thorough review explaining all of the reasons why but I ran into the Instagram character limit. Thus, I present to you a list of qualms:

1. Maddie is irritatingly spineless and naive. She has nearly zero personality beyond being in love & being afraid.

2. Maddie constantly demands the emotional labor of people of color to assuage her fears and extreme naivete.

3. The love interest, Red, is sexy but super toxic. It seemed we were supposed to be rooting for xim & Maddie. I couldn't.

4. The structure of this book is uneven and jumbled. It's a journal but the jumps in time are often abrupt.

5. Everything in this novel is heavy-handed and over-explained. All of part 1, in which the characters are introduced in unnecessarily repetitive detail, could have been eliminated & the story would have been better for it.

6. Relatedly to the above, this is a New Adult story that relies on constantly telling versus showing. I know that Kern has a background in teaching, but I didn't enjoy feeling like one of their students.

7. Parallels & meta nods to our real-world timeline were made. They were cheesy and awkward.

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parkerela's review

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3.75

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kleinekita's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

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blue_txt's review against another edition

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slow-paced

2.0

There's a review on here, by Kendra, in which they suggest that Sim Kern's characters were ideas. I think that's spot on. This book is a hard read - the first 1/3 alternates between expositions of Maddie Ryan's backstory (with toxic relationships reminiscent of Colleen Hoover characters) and didactic dialogue. Every conversation is pedantic lecture from a different character representing some concept to teach Maddie, who I guess is supposed to represent the "reader", a white Christian cis woman.
I've never wanted to experience fictional leftist in-fighting.

I don't enjoy books with thought-experiment based plots, so I knew it wasn't going to be a great read for me. I guess I expected more from the characters since the plot was so paper-thin.

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