A review by emmaliborski
Mobility by Lydia Kiesling

challenging informative reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.5

This book perfectly captures what it's like to be a white woman living and working in a capitalistic America and how the white feminist girlboss morality develops over time. Bunny isn't unintelligent, but she's insecure and constantly bargaining with her own conscience. She spends her life feeling uninformed, unprincipled, and un-extraordinary compared to the men she knows, but as she grows older, she's only downplaying how she uses her own economic and political power. Her "ignorance" is her crutch, and as her values develop, you see how the political bleeds into the personal (and vice versa).

Bunny's character study was my favorite part of the book, but I could see other readers finding her irritating. I also enjoyed reading more about energy industry and the geopolitics of a region I know very little about. The book felt educational without being bogged down by background information, but I'm not sure someone uninterested in those topics would enjoy this book. 
 
"She began now to think about how she could explain what she had done to herself or anyone else, as if it were only a problem of storytelling."