Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - Womb City

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Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase

4 reviews

pm_me_book_recs's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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? Yes

3.5

I almost didn't finish this one, the beginning is a bit of a grind. I also had a tough time with the extensive and weirdly timed internal monologues that really info-dumped the reader.

I did like the setting, concept, and progression of story and conspiracy- but the characters were a little flat or relied too much on the plot for development? Some decisions felt forcibly poor, like I feel no one with a concept of cause and effect would make the choices that happened in this story. Once the plot picked up, it was a wild ride and action packed, and as I said, full of conspiracy and also incorporated Botswanan mythology/pantheon. There are very lengthy interruptions of internal monologue, however, that at times had me struggling to remember what was even happening before it started.

Like a combination of Altered Carbon, Handmaid's Tale, and The Truman Show. Major commentary on bodily autonomy and misogyny, class privilege, but much of it got lost in the action.

I listened to this ALC via Libro.fm and thought Cristel Mutombo did a great job, her voice is dynamic and it was easy to differentiate between characters, she is super emotive!

Content Warnings

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!!!!

Content Warnings

libristella's review

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challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

3.0

There were things I loved about this book, and other things that didn’t work for me. First of all, I think readers of thrillers will really like this book. As someone who prefers sci-fi and horror, I don’t think I was exactly the right audience. But, I did like many of the characters, I loved the feminism and ableism discussions, and I loved how things started all tying together in the last 20% of the book.

Among things that didn’t work for me was, firstly, the exposition that made the book seem like it would be a dystopian sci-fi novel. The sci-fi setting, themes, and tropes were all described in a telling rather than showing way, and were also unnecessarily complicated and confusing. I think this story could have been even more effective with the lifespan, consciousness-jumping, and wombcubator elements totally taken out, so a reader could focus on the microchipping, surveillance issues, murder trials, and supernatural elements without getting muddled and confused or slowing down the pace to try to explain. Ultimately for me, there was too much going on in the book to keep track of, especially in the first half, and it took me a while to discern which elements of the plot were most important. I think other great ideas, like the lifespan and consciousness jumping, could have been used in another very interesting story with different plot and issues.

Secondly, there were parts where the pace was clunky because characters would pause in the middle of a very tense scene to reflect on their feelings or on the past. I don’t think this was needed - some of the exposition, again, only complicated things rather than clarified, and the characters’ values and feelings were clear through their actions without the need for these reflective moments.

Ultimately I would recommend this book to thriller lovers, as the style reminded me of popular thriller books like Woman in the Window, Girl on the Train, and the Silent Patient - all books that also didn’t work for me but I know are well loved. I also am eager to read other work by this author even though this particular book didn’t quite work for me, especially since through the author bio, I learned that they have published several short stories. I’m looking forward to checking those out!

Content Warnings

shirecrow's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Women should not always have to die. Girls should not be born into death.

Womb City is a horror, ghost story exploring motherhood, memory, grief and what it means to be human. But what is most prominent me is that it's full of soul.

We follow our main character Nelah. She is complicated and angry and hurt but mostly she's yearning for love and connection. I adored her. She was twisted in a way that comes from immense pain. She was so human. Seeing her struggle with her body, her feelings and her need to be a mother was not only a strong plot point but also a beautiful and haunting reflection of women in real life.

The supporting characters were all fleshed out. Really, every single one of them felt like a complete character with flaws, background and personality.

I won't say too much, as this is still coming out in 2024, but what I can say is that you will learn to love and hate these characters. They're the backbone of this whole thing and they're strengthening the story and point that Tsamaase is wanting to portray.

Speaking of point; Womb City is a brilliant analysis of motherhood, the oppression of women and their bodily autonomy. It speaks on the usage of AI in something that should only be decided by nature: life and death. This aspect was very interesting to me considering AI is (currently and sadly) on the rise in so many different parts of society. Art and literature being it's most terrifying victims, what if humanity went beyond it and started using it in governmental issues. This book will give you a glimpse of that.

Gender, gender roles, sexuality and self expression is also explored. The later two not in such a big way as gender and the main plot mentioned above but still an undeniably important part of the story.

I enjoyed the Botswana backdrop and all the different African inclusions like slang and other locations.

Oh, btw this has some cyberpunk elements, body-hopping and it's more action and adrenaline packed than you'd expect. Totally not cool and awsome and an absolute brilliant bland of politics, love and action, noooope not at all (LIE DETECTED, IT'S ALL OF THESE THINGS AND IT'S SO DAMN GOOD).

I have to admit that at the beginning I was struggling to get into it. At around 90 pages I was wondering how the author was going to fill another 300. But my god, did it pick up. At around 110 pages I was so captivated I could not stop reading for the rest of the day. Tsamaase's writing style pulls you in by the neck and won't let go. The style definitely defines the story and keeps you going even when your body would rather go to sleep. Xe just has way of writing that makes you so absorbed in the story that you can't wait to figure out what's next.

And what's next? So many things get revealed that I was absolutely blindsided by. I gasped and looked around like I was in a movie theater. IT WAS THIS GOOD.

I adored this book. I adore Tsamaase and will definitely read everything else xe has written or decides to write in the future.

I am truly, utterly honored to have read this as an ARC and i'd be beyond delighted to have this in my bookshelf someday.

Do yourself a favor and pre-order this. Put it at the top of your 2024 tbr.

Thank you to Erewhon Books, Tlotlo Tsamaase and Netgalley for giving me a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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