Reviews

Total spoilers ahead.
First of all I probably agree politically with the author on just about everything. So my negative reaction to the book is not fueled by that.
The premise is really fun. At first the blatant Handmaids Tale rip offs were annoying but I was able to look past it. The whole word counter thing though is a fun idea and that’s what makes this 2 stars instead of 1.
Ok, things I didn’t like:
There was no true character arc for our main character. She was boring, bored, unlikeable (I don’t think the author wanted her to be unlikeable though), weak and lacked any sort of believable motivation. I did not believe the love affair. It felt like a bored 40-something woman having an affair with a masculine Italian man because she is bored of her husband. I also found it incredibly unself aware to put this sort of phony romance into what I think was supposed to be a feminist book. Why does a woman need a romance to be motivated to do anything? I rolled my eyes every time Lorenzo came on the scene. Also, I think the book would have possibly been better if it had been focused on Jackie, or perhaps flipping between the 2 parallels. Jackie is was more interesting of a character.
I had a huge pet peeve about the relationship between Jean (main character mother) and Steven (her oldest son.) First of all, the author seems obsessed with the teenage boy’s eating habits. Yes, everyone in the world knows teenage boys eat like they have hollow legs. Perhaps it was the way the narrator said it (I listened to an audiobook version) but it felt like we were supposed to wrap this up in our idea of how Steven was kind of the bad guy. As if the happenings of the last year and being a misogynist were making him drink all the milk in the fridge. There was also a lot of hate from the mom to the son because he had drank the propaganda kool aid. I literally only finished the book because I wanted to hear the character come to the realization that SHE had dropped the ball raising her son for 16 years to allow 1 year of propaganda to turn him into the individual he had become. Raised right with the right values and a year of propaganda won’t turn a kid into the bad guy. This character arc or relationship development never happens. There is never any resolution in their relationship, never any heart to heart conversation or anything. Steven disappears from the story for a time and comes back damaged and convinced of the good guys side.
Also, this was supposed to be a feminist piece, right? But the female characters lack depth. Well, all the character do. The main character isn’t even the hero in the end, her lover handles the science end and her husband is the suicide mission guy. She’s doesn’t really handle much of the plan or action at all. For a good chunk of this book she is supposedly faced with the decision: flee to Italy with her lover, or stay behind with her husband, son she hates, daughter she loves exclusively, and 2 other kids who serve no true purpose to the plot or character motivation. What kind of mother sees leaving her 4 children in a shit country as an option? And why is it never addressed that she’s a rotten mother for thinking it is? Also, she never even chooses because her husband dies and she follows her lover where he wants to go.
Ugh, I know this is a huge rant. I don’t usually hate on books like this but I’m bitter that I finished the book hoping to have some character arcs and development only to be left disappointed. I think this book was probably written and published because of the current political climate, but it’s not a good read.
TL;DR: there are no satisfying character development or arcs. It’s heavy handed with its own propaganda while being a book about bad propaganda and is completely un self aware. from a literary stand point, frankly, it’s lazy. Don’t waste a precious read on this one. Read Handmaids Tale and 1984, watch Handmaids Tale and In Time instead.

guillemette_gagliano's review against another edition

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3.0

The story and the idea were great, the writing not so much. I still really enjoyed it, but the stereotypes... The gorgeous muscular italian guy and the weasel like villain who is small, as it is said every single time he appears in so many different ways, particularly annoyed me. The ending felt rushed too, and most of the time I knew exactly what was going to happen. That's for the negatives.
On the positive side, the story IS compelling, I really wanted to know the end, and I feel like it is (and was even more when it first came out) an important story to tell in the world we live in.