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maryarme's review against another edition
Coming of age within a unique society
An intereresting look at gender and societal norms within a coming of age romance. In a society where you choose your sex but gender is assigned by midwives, our protagonists have to learn how to be themselves while everything is unraveling and everyone is watching. The pronouns took a little getting used to, but otherwise it was an easy, entertaining, and thought-provoking read.
An intereresting look at gender and societal norms within a coming of age romance. In a society where you choose your sex but gender is assigned by midwives, our protagonists have to learn how to be themselves while everything is unraveling and everyone is watching. The pronouns took a little getting used to, but otherwise it was an easy, entertaining, and thought-provoking read.
catmech's review
adventurous
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
5.0
Ever since I read this last summer I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. My brain keeps leading me back to thinking about all the gender shenanigans and coming-of-ageness that happens and how much I love it. Also, every so often I am reminded of these lines:
But we have existed so long, you and I, accumulating so many layers of memory and interpretation... what do I know, really, of who we once were? All I have left is myth. And surely you've now drifted even farther. What might you have become, Siob, in all these centuries since we last met? Even if I found you again, would you know me? Could we still decipher each other?
GAHHH!!!!
My experience reading this book was actually much smoother than I thought it would be. The pronouns weren't too much of an issue, and I was a big fan of how the book drip-fed world building piece by piece, in a way that wasn't overwhelming but left just enough mystery to compel me to read on. The way Rosenbaum wrote Fift's emotions, and especially how ze felt towards Shria, was just. Gah. I can't describe it. Tender?????
This book is great for those who love character-driven books. The plot is a bit all over the place. Also, if I had to criticize something, Fift had so many parents and I could not keep track of them. But it was okay. This book is so good. Thank you to Ann Leckie for recommending it on her Tumblr. Everyone go read Translation State too. (It matches thematically with this book!)
masha123's review against another edition
5.0
I really enjoyed this book!! The worldbuilding does so much, and the characters are compelling, and the writing is clear, and the plotting is engaging! I actually wish there was more!
kirilaw's review
challenging
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
gemmamilne's review against another edition
3.0
A fun story, with interesting world building - but I felt a little heavy-handed in its themes around gender, surveillance, authoritarianism, family and coming-of-age. Still, it was a fun book to get lost in for a bit!
knit_the_resistance's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
tense
fast-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? It's complicated
5.0
There's a reading guide at the back of the book to help you understand what in heck is going on. The book is a wild, complex, world-building extravaganza. I'm not a fan of fantasy, sci-fi, or queer YA fiction in general and this is a marvelous mashup of all three. There's a bit of dystopian fiction in there too, my least favorite genre. And yet I loved this absolutely wack novel by the unhinged genius Benjamin Rosenbaum.
peelspls's review against another edition
5.0
A literary masterclass in world building
I cannot overstate how much I loved what this book does. It's so strange to me that the story itself doesn't pan out to a fulfilling end (will probably become a series?). But the fact that I reached that sort of narrative dissatisfaction alone through the complexity of a multi-bodied neo-pronoun gender defined society is a miracle itself. It's one thing to say a story is about gender, and switch up a few pronouns, and call it a day. It's another to really make a story about gender enforcement, perceptions, how that frames a society's other channels such as economic means of subsistence, language, culture and the notion of attachment.
I love the style of the storytelling as well. The interludes do a lot to really ground the reality of the world and the work. Rosenbaum taps into the common fragility of a teen romance and gender confusion so gently and appropriately, that the wonders of the world aside, you can really relate to these characters.
Strongly recommend to anyone who loves non-traditional science fiction, and deep down inside has experienced the pain of a teen crush that they never really got over.
I cannot overstate how much I loved what this book does. It's so strange to me that the story itself doesn't pan out to a fulfilling end (will probably become a series?). But the fact that I reached that sort of narrative dissatisfaction alone through the complexity of a multi-bodied neo-pronoun gender defined society is a miracle itself. It's one thing to say a story is about gender, and switch up a few pronouns, and call it a day. It's another to really make a story about gender enforcement, perceptions, how that frames a society's other channels such as economic means of subsistence, language, culture and the notion of attachment.
I love the style of the storytelling as well. The interludes do a lot to really ground the reality of the world and the work. Rosenbaum taps into the common fragility of a teen romance and gender confusion so gently and appropriately, that the wonders of the world aside, you can really relate to these characters.
Strongly recommend to anyone who loves non-traditional science fiction, and deep down inside has experienced the pain of a teen crush that they never really got over.
peelspls's review against another edition
5.0
A literary masterclass in world building
I cannot overstate how much I loved what this book does. It's so strange to me that the story itself doesn't pan out to a fulfilling end (will probably become a series?). But the fact that I reached that sort of narrative dissatisfaction alone through the complexity of a multi-bodied neo-pronoun gender defined society is a miracle itself. It's one thing to say a story is about gender, and switch up a few pronouns, and call it a day. It's another to really make a story about gender enforcement, perceptions, how that frames a society's other channels such as economic means of subsistence, language, culture and the notion of attachment.
I love the style of the storytelling as well. The interludes do a lot to really ground the reality of the world and the work. Rosenbaum taps into the common fragility of a teen romance and gender confusion so gently and appropriately, that the wonders of the world aside, you can really relate to these characters.
Strongly recommend to anyone who loves non-traditional science fiction, and deep down inside has experienced the pain of a teen crush that they never really got over.
I cannot overstate how much I loved what this book does. It's so strange to me that the story itself doesn't pan out to a fulfilling end (will probably become a series?). But the fact that I reached that sort of narrative dissatisfaction alone through the complexity of a multi-bodied neo-pronoun gender defined society is a miracle itself. It's one thing to say a story is about gender, and switch up a few pronouns, and call it a day. It's another to really make a story about gender enforcement, perceptions, how that frames a society's other channels such as economic means of subsistence, language, culture and the notion of attachment.
I love the style of the storytelling as well. The interludes do a lot to really ground the reality of the world and the work. Rosenbaum taps into the common fragility of a teen romance and gender confusion so gently and appropriately, that the wonders of the world aside, you can really relate to these characters.
Strongly recommend to anyone who loves non-traditional science fiction, and deep down inside has experienced the pain of a teen crush that they never really got over.
siavahda's review against another edition
5.0
HIGHLIGHTS
~leave all your notions about gender at the door
~ever wanted to be in two places at once? HOW ABOUT SIX???
~would you like a tail??? you can have a tail
~‘I don’t want to lead a revolution I just want to maybe kiss my friend’
~the Clowns are Up To Something
~spoons
Oh, how I adore this strange, wonderful phantasmagora of a book.
…And I’ve been sitting here staring at the screen for minutes upon minutes, wondering how on earth to describe it.
Well, let’s start with that, I guess: Fift’s world is not ours. The story takes place far, far in humanity’s future, and on another, apparently long-since-terraformed, planet. Here, everyone has multiple bodies, which they inhabit and direct simultaneously; everything everyone does is visible to anyone who looks them up in the Feed; and the concept of ‘men’ and ‘women’ is nowhere to be found. Instead Fift’s society is divided up into Staids and Vails, which have nothing whatsoever to do with a person’s (extremely customisable) biology; instead, gender is assigned to newborns by the nearly-all-powerful Midwives. Violence and crime are so rare as to be the stuff of legend, food and clothing are created and available at the push of a button, and humanity has conquered disease: Fift and the others of zir generation are expected to live to be 900 years old.
It’s a utopia. A very odd-looking, but apparently genuine, utopia.
Except, obviously, it’s a lot more complicated than that.
Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!
~leave all your notions about gender at the door
~ever wanted to be in two places at once? HOW ABOUT SIX???
~would you like a tail??? you can have a tail
~‘I don’t want to lead a revolution I just want to maybe kiss my friend’
~the Clowns are Up To Something
~spoons
Oh, how I adore this strange, wonderful phantasmagora of a book.
…And I’ve been sitting here staring at the screen for minutes upon minutes, wondering how on earth to describe it.
Well, let’s start with that, I guess: Fift’s world is not ours. The story takes place far, far in humanity’s future, and on another, apparently long-since-terraformed, planet. Here, everyone has multiple bodies, which they inhabit and direct simultaneously; everything everyone does is visible to anyone who looks them up in the Feed; and the concept of ‘men’ and ‘women’ is nowhere to be found. Instead Fift’s society is divided up into Staids and Vails, which have nothing whatsoever to do with a person’s (extremely customisable) biology; instead, gender is assigned to newborns by the nearly-all-powerful Midwives. Violence and crime are so rare as to be the stuff of legend, food and clothing are created and available at the push of a button, and humanity has conquered disease: Fift and the others of zir generation are expected to live to be 900 years old.
It’s a utopia. A very odd-looking, but apparently genuine, utopia.
Except, obviously, it’s a lot more complicated than that.
Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!
hiimkayte's review against another edition
2.0
This book was really a slog. I've been in a lot of zoom meetings for work where there are one or more side conversations about the meeting that are happening in various slack channels in real time, and it's exhausting and hard to focus even when the side convos are useful or interesting. That's pretty much what I felt about this book. Having characters in multiple bodies in multiple places is a cool concept, but it felt like we were getting side commentary on events as they happened, and rather than add suspense, it just added confusion and made me tired. Read this as an audiobook, it's possible that also added to the confusion, as it wasn't always clear when we'd jump from one body/scene to another.
I was really interested in the begging of the book. I liked the intro to all of Fift's parents, and how catty and fussy they all seemed. It started the book off on a fun light tone, which was a good counterpoint trying to quickly absorb all of the complex (but cool!) world building elements! Also, I've been having a lot of discussions with my daughter on privacy/safety online, and this extreme view of parental monitoring actually made me re-examine some of my views.
There were a lot of good things throughout the book, the world building especially. I get that there was the one big event which was the catalyst for the unraveling, but there was just so much commentary happening during and after that it didn't feel impactful. Also, there were occasional descriptions of what different bodies looked like, but I wasn't able to keep in my head any sort of image of what any of the characters or even settings really looked like, so I didn't feel anchored in place.
I also can't say I was particularly rooting for Fift, or Shria, or their relationship, or their families, or society... so I didn't feel invested watching it unravel.
I was really interested in the begging of the book. I liked the intro to all of Fift's parents, and how catty and fussy they all seemed. It started the book off on a fun light tone, which was a good counterpoint trying to quickly absorb all of the complex (but cool!) world building elements! Also, I've been having a lot of discussions with my daughter on privacy/safety online, and this extreme view of parental monitoring actually made me re-examine some of my views.
There were a lot of good things throughout the book, the world building especially. I get that there was the one big event which was the catalyst for the unraveling, but there was just so much commentary happening during and after that it didn't feel impactful. Also, there were occasional descriptions of what different bodies looked like, but I wasn't able to keep in my head any sort of image of what any of the characters or even settings really looked like, so I didn't feel anchored in place.
I also can't say I was particularly rooting for Fift, or Shria, or their relationship, or their families, or society... so I didn't feel invested watching it unravel.