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4.2 AVERAGE
4.2 AVERAGE
Finished this almost a week after meeting for book club on it. It's a relatively quick read--and when I picked it up, I made quick work of it; but I also found myself not drawn back to it regularly. The format and premise are interesting--transcribed oral interviews of people in the book's future present (~50 years in the future), describing their personal history and reflecting on the past few decades. But, in practice, it reads as sort of boring--a lot of telling, not a lot of showing. At its best, it's a book of ideas of what the future might, and perhaps should, hold, and the chaos and conflict to get there. If you disagree with those ideas and that vision of the future, or find it naively impractical, you probably won't like this book. I was receptive to it, though, and enjoyed thinking about it, even if some of the details didn't seem to make a lot of sense.
badly written. snooze-inducingly technocratic, too, but i bailed after an invented-slang-heavy chapter gave way to someone, in the fictional 2060s, used the word "nibling". absolutely not. also, i hated the take on gender, thank you.
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This book is very okay. It's all ideation about the future, how they got there, etc. First of all, it's short... I feel like it should've been longer, or perhaps the stories less repetitive. Second, there was just not a lot of info on the transition period. I would've like to learn more about the downfall of the previous civ and how the current one came to be. It's vague and somewhat confusing. It was decent just lacking.
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
A must read.
Let me just reference my previous updates:
Let me just reference my previous updates:
"Hopecore, mother fuckers"
"My reading experience thus far has just been me mumbling "fuck yeah" to myself while getting teary-eyed. The people around me are confused."
"I'm going to be totally cool and normal about this book. - I lied, lyingly."
"Still reading. Still crying. A+ experience."
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
A required reading to imagine abolitionist possibilities for an alternate world
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
Not my usual thing (I don't generally love interview-based books) but an interesting thought experiment of near-future speculative fiction that goes straight through dystopia to a possible utopia.
Imaginative and deeply touching, probably the most impactful fiction book I've read in a long while. Made me think about how small this moment in history (industrialization, the market economy) is relative to how long we've been on this planet and how small that period is relative to the planet itself and so on. There was a before, and there will be an after.
challenging
dark
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced