Reviews with content warning for Racism - Womb City

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Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase

6 reviews

_kathill's review

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adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

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kelsokake's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

I had little to no idea what to expect when starting this book, but I was pleasantly surprised! This wasn't a light read at all. It's sci-fi set in an insanely patriarchal society that has like, built-in generational trauma.

In our city, it is unwise to trust reality.

I have been betrayed by reality, betrayed by my subconscious, shipwrecked from reality.

Now every thought must be deceased from my mind before its birth.

While it took me a while to get invested, once I was in it, I was in it. The last quarter of the book had me constantly gasping in surprise and while the metaphor/allegory got a little heavy-handed towards the end, I still found myself wanting to know what was going to happen. I would definitely check out other books by Tlotlo Tsamaase

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littlecabbage's review

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adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.25

"Womb City" by Tlotlo Tsamaase delves into a haunting yet compelling narrative where bodies serve as government-issued resources and surveillance reigns supreme.

As Nelha, the main character, puts it aptly, "We are born in dead bodies that make it easier to bury them, revoke them, and claim ones that will give us a better future."Nelah, the protagonist, navigates a dystopian world where she undergoes body-hopping to conceive a child, facing the relentless scrutiny of a surveillance state and grappling with the ramifications of her actions. Tsamaase weaves a chilling tale that deeply probes into motherhood, autonomy, and societal control.

Initially, I was captivated by the book's exploration of reproductive rights, interpersonal power dynamics, and a futuristic society with heightened restrictions on women's freedoms. Nelah's plight resonated as she fought against the invasive surveillance imposed upon her body. The narrative unfolds like a gripping spectacle, drawing readers into a web of intrigue and moral dilemmas. However, as the story progressed, it became increasingly convoluted, with several subplots vying for attention. Despite its ambitious scope, the proliferation of narrative threads detracted from the book's overall impact, leaving me longing for a more streamlined focus.

"Womb City" prompts readers to ponder profound questions about state surveillance, familial bonds, and the intersection of race and identity in a technologically advanced yet morally bankrupt society. While the novel's premise is undeniably compelling, its execution falters under the weight of excessive plotlines. Nonetheless, Tsamaase's debut offers a thought-provoking journey into a world where humanity's boundaries are tested, urging us to confront the consequences of unchecked power and the sacrifices made in the pursuit of freedom.

Rating: 3.25 Stars. It Won't be the last Tsamaase book I read.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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mals_reads's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

i think this was a fantastic debut, and i don’t agree with the reviews saying the story was all over the place! it is very complex — a body-hopping re-incarnation-focused society, a murder plot, a cruel high society and authoritarian government, discussions on Black and trans and women’s bodies, and other similar commentary — and these multitudes of components make this story great in my opinion. but to each their own!

if you like a more complicated plot, this is definitely for you. the book takes a turn about a quarter of the way in, turning from pure Afrofuturist sci-fi into a dystopian psychological thriller and a race against time.

i think Tlotlo Tsamaase accomplished quite a feat and i really adored her main character Nelah; she was a fighter, and i think the author did an amazing job making her both complex and so, so understandable.

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lattelibrarian's review

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Wow, what a book. This one took me a while--the content was at times difficult and the world, complex. It's a true feat of a novel, one that involves dystopia, Afrofuturism, a conspiracy, and more.

Nelah lives in a world where you can live for nearly forever: your consciousness--though you may not remember previous lives--can be uploaded into bodies of people who have revoked their rights, or, as we discover, into bodies of people who have been trafficked for this very purpose. She's growing her baby in a lab, her husband grows increasingly suspicious, her award-winning work's money dries up, and her lover continues trying to convince her he loves her--despite his father being one of the most felonious men out there. When she accidentally hits a young woman one night in a drug-fueled bender with her lover, she decides to bury the body. After all, her microchip didn't paralyze her. But while she reckons with the guilt, she realizes that the young woman is haunting her in a very real way. In trying to stop this haunting, she uncovers a conspiracy that only an elite few are privy to and she wonders how to dismantle it all.

So, based on the above, this is clearly a complex novel. Don't forget, of course, all the world-building required and mentions of racism and sexism. But it's a genre- and gender-defying book that begs the questions: What is family? Who are we, really? How is justice meted out?

A riveting and impressive debut.

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thecriticalreader's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

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

Context:

I saw Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase on an anticipated releases list and thought it looked/sounded amazing, so I borrowed it from my library through the Libby App.

Review:

Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase is the worst book I’ve ever read. There is a reason it has such a low aggregate rating on StoryGraph. It combines the worst elements of science fiction, fantasy, horror, thriller, and feminist rage literature with shitty writing. It’s a shame, too, because the cover art is amazing, and the description sounds sooo interesting. Before I start ranting about what I hated about it, I’m going to start with two positives:

· First off, there are some kernels of good ideas in here, somewhere amidst the trash.

· Secondly, on a sentence-by-sentence basis, this book isn’t bad. There are occasionally some sentences that are powerful and poetic. Unfortunately, you have to slog through pages of crap to get to them and when you do, they’re rendered meaningless by their context.

Now, for the bad. I don’t normally do reviews in bullet points, but I need some sort of organizational method to contain the rage I feel toward this book.

· The worldbuilding is overexplained, yet somehow makes NO sense. First of all, nothing that happens is remotely within the realm of scientific possibility. I would be fine with this if it weren’t executed so poorly. I venture to say that 1/4 of this book is exposition explaining the byzantine body-swapping process; it reads like a worldbuilding Google Doc rather than a novel. Tsamaase throws rule after rule at the reader and does so in the most inorganic way possible. For example, characters will stop and explain how their world works to each other with no good reason to do so. Despite the mountains of explanation heaped upon the reader, there are plot holes so big that you could drive a truck through them.

· Furthermore, the underlying foundation of the world makes no sense from a sociological perspective. The sort of technology described in this book would radically alter the human experience and society, yet Tsamaase demonstrates zero creativity in imagining these changes. Do you really expect me to believe that people are semi-immortal and can swap bodies, and this doesn’t meaningfully alter society in any way? This alone pretty much ruined the book for me.

· The characters are flimsy props for the plot, and they contradict themselves constantly. One character will say or believe one thing for the sake of one scene, but as soon as the author wants them to do something for the plot, they will do a 180 at the drop of a hat.

· The main character is a despicable, pathetic person whose motivations and actions make no sense. Like the other characters, she constantly contradicts herself.

She spends the first 20% of the book or so explaining how her every move and thought is monitored by her husband, and that if she wants to stay alive and have a child, she needs to be on her best behavior. As soon as she’s done explaining this, she promptly cheats on her husband and does a boatload of drugs. At another point in the book. she tells another character that her husband is a manipulative, abusive psychopath. She then acts shocked (imagine the shocked Pikachu face) when her husband later acts like a manipulative, abusive psychopath! These examples are just the tip of the iceberg with this character.

· None of the dialogue resembles how real people talk; characters speak in paragraphs. The dialogue is basically a tool for the author to infodump more worldbuilding lore, plot nonsense, and bland feminist outrage at the reader.

· This book tries so hard to be transgressive, edgy, and violent that it unintentionally has the opposite effect. The plot is fucked up, but that’s not a compliment.

· The book has no narrative momentum in the first half, and then it suddenly enters turbo mode. The plot is off-the-rails bonkers, and yet it somehow manages to be predictable. Tsamaase piles on clunky plot twist after clunky plot twist, and Womb City quickly starts to feel like ten seasons of a bad supernatural soap opera crammed into one book.

· The author has no understanding of how human bodies work and adds gore for the sake of gore. Let’s just leave it at that.

· In xer acknowledgments, Tsmaase says that that xer manuscript was rejected over 400 times. Xe claims it’s because of “gatekeeping,” implies that racial bias was involved, and complains that nobody appreciated the book’s “nuances” until it found the right people. Yeah, I’m gonna call BS on that. I know full well that racial bias and sexism are rampant in the publishing industry, but sometimes people rightfully reject manuscripts because they’re garbage. Womb City is a steaming pile of garbage wrapped in an alluring, shiny bow.

IN SHORT, DON’T BE FOOLED BY THE COOL PREMISE AND THE AMAZING COVER!!! DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS BOOK!!!!

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