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the_vegan_bookworm's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
I LOVED the premise. I loved that it was a queer, Black, polyamorous and disabled love story. The anti-capitalist critiques in the story's themes were great.
This being said, the leads had no chemistry and every character besides Alana fell flat for me. I would have loved to see more complex character development to support the romance.
I look forward to reading other books by this author, as it was a great debut.
This being said, the leads had no chemistry and every character besides Alana fell flat for me. I would have loved to see more complex character development to support the romance.
I look forward to reading other books by this author, as it was a great debut.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Eating disorder, Death of parent, Ableism, Genocide, and Death
kivt's review
1.0
There are a lot of reasons to be excited about this book! I completely empathize with the author's stated intent: "[Jacqueline Koyanagi's] stories feature queer women of color, folks with disabilities, neuroatypical characters, and diverse relationship styles, because she grew tired of not seeing enough of herself and the people she loves reflected in genre fiction." I get that, and I want to read books by people who feel the same way I do! Unfortunately, Koyanagi's biggest goal is also where Ascension fails the hardest: having a diverse cast of well-realized characters. No good social justice intentions can or should mask the fact that the book is completely awful.
In addition, every single one of these characters is repulsive. The whole book feels like an excuse to check off a square on a tumblr diversity bingo card. Every member of the Tangled Axon crew is poorly developed, one-dimensional, tokenized, and fake--and they can't even stay consistently characterized within their narrow stereotypes. Alana, the stowaway engineer protagonist, alternates between obsessive and repetitive creepily sexualized descriptions of how she'd like to work on the ship, petulant fits that put everyone in danger and that she refuses to learn from, and cowed acceptance of abuse heaped on her by every other character. Being stuck inside Alana's head for 250 pages is massively frustrating.
Alana's love interest, the ship's captain, is Mal from Firefly in the body of a blonde woman. I can't remember the woman's name for the life of me, in spite of being hit over the head with it for 250 pages, because she is so completely lacking unique qualities or characterization beyond "queer," "poly," and "abusive." The representation of her poly relationship is extremely troubling--the crew of the Tangled Axon feels more like a cult than a healthy and mutually supportive family. I hate books that try to sell me on the romance and purity of relationships that begin in violence--in this case, the captain tazes Alana and soon after orders the medic, Slip, to administer what she tells Alana and her sister is a poison that will exacerbate Alana's chronic illness. Alana's betrayed and terrified reaction is one of the few moments in which she briefly becomes a real and relatable person. She shatters this by proceeding to almost instantly fall in love with the captain, even before it is revealed that the drug was saline and the goal was emotional coercion, not physical.
Alana knows that Slip and the captain are dating, but the captain refuses to clarify the nature of their relationship, or indeed that of any crew member with another, in spite of repeatedly making advances on Alana and witnessing Alana's increasing hurt and confusion. Slip is in turn planning a family with the ship's engineer, Ovie the wolf otherkin. No one explains any of this to Alana, who is constantly threatened by her loving crew. This is shockingly poor, disrespectful, and controlling behavior. At the end of the book, Alana gamely gives poly dating a whirl but finds it upsetting and confusing. Slip—not the captain, the captain’s other partner—confronts Alana privately and bullies her into staying in a relationship she clearly does not want by guilt tripping her for feeling upset and confused, and for being in love with the ship. This last is weird to the reader, who by this point in the novel has put up with over 200 pages of hints that the pilot's soul has melded with the ship, the purportedly shocking reveal that the pilot is the ship, and further that the pilot's soul is old but her body is that of a young teenager.
If this sounds impossible to follow and impossibly stupid, that's because it is.
Other characters and relationships that are awful include: every other person briefly mentioned in this train wreck, but especially Nova and Ovie. Nova is Alana's sister, a "spirit guide"--some kind of psychic empath yoga life coach whose powers and role in society are never adequately explained. Her characterization varies wildly from an ableist privilege punching bag to a wise and worldly puppet master who has secretly known what was happening in the convoluted plot the whole time and already orchestrated a solution. Her spirit guide training included mandatory anorexia, which is not handled particularly delicately. Ovie, the ship's engineer, is a man who thinks he's a wolf, or spiritually is a wolf—through the other characters’ rebuffs to Alana’s curiosity the author smugly refuses to clarify. Alana is incapable of figuring out that Ovie is a wolf, despite noting Ovie’s shadow tail and ears every time she looks at him, wondering why he growls and barks a lot, and generally thinking to herself "wow, that guy is a wolf." Ovie is massively one-dimensional and basically acts like a poorly socialized Labrador, which seems consistent with otherkin understandings of wolf behavior.
The plot is terrible, the characters are terrible, nothing that happens makes any sense or means anything, and I only finished the book because it made me so mad I couldn't sleep. I’ve written almost 1000 words about how bad this book is and only barely scratched the surface. Possibly the worst thing, though, is that I believe very strongly in what Koyanagi is trying to do, and watching the book fail this badly feels like a personal betrayal.
Spoiler
I liked the first 50 or so pages, but like many GoodReads reviewers I was unpleasantly surprised by the other 4/5ths of the novel. Ascension mastered the art of at once having too much going on, moving too slow, constantly lingering on repetitive introspection, and yet refusing to let any of the events of the story have an impact on the characters. I don't know how this is even possible. At the same time, the prose is so labored and so purple that the book should have been 100-150 pages rather than its full 250+. Every single plot point is nonsensical and insulting. A tracking beacon on a 1 hour delay that somehow doesn't lead the authorities to the ship? The same beacon not only shot a missile capable of destroying a planet, it also is itself a bomb that will detonate if the crew ejects it into space? So they detonate it inside the ship?In addition, every single one of these characters is repulsive. The whole book feels like an excuse to check off a square on a tumblr diversity bingo card. Every member of the Tangled Axon crew is poorly developed, one-dimensional, tokenized, and fake--and they can't even stay consistently characterized within their narrow stereotypes. Alana, the stowaway engineer protagonist, alternates between obsessive and repetitive creepily sexualized descriptions of how she'd like to work on the ship, petulant fits that put everyone in danger and that she refuses to learn from, and cowed acceptance of abuse heaped on her by every other character. Being stuck inside Alana's head for 250 pages is massively frustrating.
Alana's love interest, the ship's captain, is Mal from Firefly in the body of a blonde woman. I can't remember the woman's name for the life of me, in spite of being hit over the head with it for 250 pages, because she is so completely lacking unique qualities or characterization beyond "queer," "poly," and "abusive." The representation of her poly relationship is extremely troubling--the crew of the Tangled Axon feels more like a cult than a healthy and mutually supportive family. I hate books that try to sell me on the romance and purity of relationships that begin in violence--in this case, the captain tazes Alana and soon after orders the medic, Slip, to administer what she tells Alana and her sister is a poison that will exacerbate Alana's chronic illness. Alana's betrayed and terrified reaction is one of the few moments in which she briefly becomes a real and relatable person. She shatters this by proceeding to almost instantly fall in love with the captain, even before it is revealed that the drug was saline and the goal was emotional coercion, not physical.
Alana knows that Slip and the captain are dating, but the captain refuses to clarify the nature of their relationship, or indeed that of any crew member with another, in spite of repeatedly making advances on Alana and witnessing Alana's increasing hurt and confusion. Slip is in turn planning a family with the ship's engineer, Ovie the wolf otherkin. No one explains any of this to Alana, who is constantly threatened by her loving crew. This is shockingly poor, disrespectful, and controlling behavior. At the end of the book, Alana gamely gives poly dating a whirl but finds it upsetting and confusing. Slip—not the captain, the captain’s other partner—confronts Alana privately and bullies her into staying in a relationship she clearly does not want by guilt tripping her for feeling upset and confused, and for being in love with the ship. This last is weird to the reader, who by this point in the novel has put up with over 200 pages of hints that the pilot's soul has melded with the ship, the purportedly shocking reveal that the pilot is the ship, and further that the pilot's soul is old but her body is that of a young teenager.
If this sounds impossible to follow and impossibly stupid, that's because it is.
Other characters and relationships that are awful include: every other person briefly mentioned in this train wreck, but especially Nova and Ovie. Nova is Alana's sister, a "spirit guide"--some kind of psychic empath yoga life coach whose powers and role in society are never adequately explained. Her characterization varies wildly from an ableist privilege punching bag to a wise and worldly puppet master who has secretly known what was happening in the convoluted plot the whole time and already orchestrated a solution. Her spirit guide training included mandatory anorexia, which is not handled particularly delicately. Ovie, the ship's engineer, is a man who thinks he's a wolf, or spiritually is a wolf—through the other characters’ rebuffs to Alana’s curiosity the author smugly refuses to clarify. Alana is incapable of figuring out that Ovie is a wolf, despite noting Ovie’s shadow tail and ears every time she looks at him, wondering why he growls and barks a lot, and generally thinking to herself "wow, that guy is a wolf." Ovie is massively one-dimensional and basically acts like a poorly socialized Labrador, which seems consistent with otherkin understandings of wolf behavior.
The plot is terrible, the characters are terrible, nothing that happens makes any sense or means anything, and I only finished the book because it made me so mad I couldn't sleep. I’ve written almost 1000 words about how bad this book is and only barely scratched the surface. Possibly the worst thing, though, is that I believe very strongly in what Koyanagi is trying to do, and watching the book fail this badly feels like a personal betrayal.
corvingreene's review
5.0
I loved this book so much! Queer women of color in space! Disabled and neuroatypical characters! Polyamory! The protagonist's chronic illness was depicted so well, and I can't stop thinking about this book. I hope Koyanagi publishes a sequel soon!
adesinabrown's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
lezreadalot's review against another edition
4.0
“Love is like sunlight. You can give all of yourself to someone and still have all of yourself left to give to others, and to yourself. To your work. To anything or anyone you choose. Love isn’t like food; you won’t starve anyone by giving it freely. It’s not a finite resource.”
3.5 stars. Relationships, characters and writing are doing a lot of heavy lifting for this one. There are several shaky things about the plot and worldbuilding, things that I'd count as flaws, but also I don't... really... care about plot when you give me characters I grow to freaking adore!! Like these!!
It's a queer, found-family, family-centric space opera with a good heaping of romance. Alana, a ship mechanic who adores her craft, has always dreamed of travelling into the vastness of space, the Big Quiet. When a ship passes through, looking for her sister, she takes the opportunity to stow away, and in so doing begins a wild ride of an adventure. I picked this up primarily because it was f/f sci-fi with a black lead, but I also got a few other things that I ADORE: nuanced and realistic polyamory, a main character dealing with chronic illness and the disability that attends it, sisterhood, and just a lot of really wonderful, thoughtful writing. I love space operas like this, ones that really make you feel the enormity of space, what a wonder space travel is. I loved having a main character like Alana, who is constantly in awe of it, and the ships that allow for space travel. Also, there's a scene that takes place on a view-deck-esque place that made me lose it a little, lol. I loved the entire crew, but especially Tev because, I mean... Tev. The romance here was so so good; intense and swoony and entirely relatable. All of the relationships were great; I love the loyalty between captain and crew, the slow-growing trust between shipmates. There are so many remarkable gems in the writing; a lot of things that made me pause and think, or just pause to appreciate how pretty it was.
The world-building is really interesting, but again, shaky. A lot of things go unexplained; a lot of concepts and points just weren't mentioned until the moment they were relevant, whereupon the book is just like, "oh yeah, this is a thing in this world." The plot was sometimes similarly flimsy. Some Big Events happen, and while the characters reacted to it, it never felt like it was given the weight it deserved, somehow? I love sister relationships, but I feel like a lot more groundwork needed to go into this one for me to be as invested as the book wanted me to be. I loved them, not a doubt about it! But Nova needs to grow on me a bit more, especially given the things we learn early in the book.
I have other little nit-picks (the biggest of which is a decision/mistake Alana makes that I can't really reconcile with her character, and how the fallout was dealt with) but again... I don't care that much. "Found family but make it queer and in space" is just one of my favourite things, and I loved all these characters so much. I'm going to be thinking about them for a long time. <3
Content warnings:
Spoiler
genocide, anorexiathe_discworldian's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
medium-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? Yes
4.0
tessisreading2's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
fast-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
An interesting, gripping science fiction read with an emphasis on found family and a through-line of WLW romance... and then it all got weird. The science fiction plot ended with a deus ex machina (after getting bizarre with some weirdness that was not foreshadowed at all), and the romance was hard to root for given that one MC was in a polyamorous relationship but initiated a romantic relationship with the other MC without telling her as much; while the other MC knew that the first might be in some sort of relationship with someone else but didn't ask questions because she was so infatuated . That doesn't describe the start of a healthy relationship to me.
That said, the book is so unusual in the genre/subgenre; I wish there were more like this, that paired challenging science fiction with a romantic through-line and really worked at their characterizations.
That said, the book is so unusual in the genre/subgenre; I wish there were more like this, that paired challenging science fiction with a romantic through-line and really worked at their characterizations.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Sexual content, Chronic illness, and Eating disorder
Moderate: Death of parent and Death
Minor: Violence
lesbrary's review
4.0
I loved this! More of a 4.5 stars. Black lesbian main character with a chronic illness on an awesome space adventure?? More, please. I feel like tumblr has been begging for this particular book to exist. Highly recommended.
greeniezona's review
adventurous
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0