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crosberg's review
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
I waffled on this rating for a while. It's a decent book with a wonderful core idea and the prose is good! But there are two massive, glaring issues that could've pretty easily been resolved, and both are so foundational to the story that it kept drawing me out of the narrative. Listening to the acknowledgments and looking up the author, I was unsurprised to learn that she has a background in academia, I definitely got the vibe that she had a personal investment in the kind of work that Charlie does in the book.
The problem is that in this book she failed to do something absolutely critical to both close reading and literature analysis (which she says this book is a "love letter" to): include and take into account the context of a text. The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heap very heavily features characters from Victorian literature, which makes sense in the context of Charlie Sutherland's research area. But in the context of our (the real audience) world, it...doesn't. Setting the book in present day New Zealand and featuring almost exclusively white, male protagonists from Victorian books is weird at best and a gross misunderstanding of both her own world building and reality at worst. If the core conceit of the book is that there are "summoners" who can read fictional characters into reality, there needs to be an explanation as to why there are not romance novel protagonists, or Percy Jackson characters, or video game or movie characters! It makes sense narratively that Charlie's existence would draw an overabundance of Victorian characters to his proximity, but there's no attempt to explain why no characters created after the late 1980s is in the world, and all but one are white and not native to Oceania*. The vast majority of the characters are from the period intense colonization by the British Empire, and most of the core cast is from a time when Britain was actively colonizing Aotearoa itself, but Parry only sort of glances at this fact without actually grappling with the issues she's created. I understand that she was writing what she knows as a resident of New Zealand, but the whole vibe was off in a really profound way.
What's worse is that the only non-white "real" character (e.g. not a Charles Dickens or Arthur Conan Doyle character, but one that Parry wrote herself) is a Maori woman who is outrageously sidelined and leveraged only for the narrative needs of several white men. Every single woman in this book feels very much like a narrative tool instead of a fully fleshed out person, including Charlie's own mother (without whom the whole book would not exist) and the villainousBeth , who had her identity (face, name, everything!) stolen by a man who wanted to destroy the world. The whole story hinges on these two women, and Charlie's actual survival depends heavily on O.G. Not Like Other Girls Milly, but none of them appear to have any thoughts or needs of their own other than serving the plot for Charlie and Rob. It's a distressing echo of actual Victorian texts that often villainized or outright ignored the humanity of women and BIPOC, unnecessary and truly boring in 2023.
There are ways to address both of these problems, and it wouldn't have fundamentally changed the story, which Parry seems to think is about "truth". She's unfortunately just parroted the "truth" of white, British, male Victorian writers, without interrogating what that means both for her and for her readers.
*I am reasonably confident that Maui was added after the majority of the narrative was already written. He appears only twice, and plays very little role in any of the conflicts, leaving the white characters both to threaten and save Aotearoa. Even if his inclusion wasn't an afterthought, it is sloppy and thoughtless. Contrasting this book with American Gods, which is far from perfect but at least feels intentional and acknowledges the larger context of indigenous stories interacting with colonizing ones, makes it clear that Parry and the editors didn't give it a lot of thought.
The problem is that in this book she failed to do something absolutely critical to both close reading and literature analysis (which she says this book is a "love letter" to): include and take into account the context of a text. The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heap very heavily features characters from Victorian literature, which makes sense in the context of Charlie Sutherland's research area. But in the context of our (the real audience) world, it...doesn't. Setting the book in present day New Zealand and featuring almost exclusively white, male protagonists from Victorian books is weird at best and a gross misunderstanding of both her own world building and reality at worst. If the core conceit of the book is that there are "summoners" who can read fictional characters into reality, there needs to be an explanation as to why there are not romance novel protagonists, or Percy Jackson characters, or video game or movie characters! It makes sense narratively that Charlie's existence would draw an overabundance of Victorian characters to his proximity, but there's no attempt to explain why no characters created after the late 1980s is in the world, and all but one are white and not native to Oceania*. The vast majority of the characters are from the period intense colonization by the British Empire, and most of the core cast is from a time when Britain was actively colonizing Aotearoa itself, but Parry only sort of glances at this fact without actually grappling with the issues she's created. I understand that she was writing what she knows as a resident of New Zealand, but the whole vibe was off in a really profound way.
What's worse is that the only non-white "real" character (e.g. not a Charles Dickens or Arthur Conan Doyle character, but one that Parry wrote herself) is a Maori woman who is outrageously sidelined and leveraged only for the narrative needs of several white men. Every single woman in this book feels very much like a narrative tool instead of a fully fleshed out person, including Charlie's own mother (without whom the whole book would not exist) and the villainous
There are ways to address both of these problems, and it wouldn't have fundamentally changed the story, which Parry seems to think is about "truth". She's unfortunately just parroted the "truth" of white, British, male Victorian writers, without interrogating what that means both for her and for her readers.
*I am reasonably confident that Maui was added after the majority of the narrative was already written. He appears only twice, and plays very little role in any of the conflicts, leaving the white characters both to threaten and save Aotearoa. Even if his inclusion wasn't an afterthought, it is sloppy and thoughtless. Contrasting this book with American Gods, which is far from perfect but at least feels intentional and acknowledges the larger context of indigenous stories interacting with colonizing ones, makes it clear that Parry and the editors didn't give it a lot of thought.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Bullying, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail
ijustreallyliketrees's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
The idea and the world was cool but it didn't quite live up to my expectations. I did enjoy it but I thought I would love it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death and Death
Moderate: Bullying and Confinement
Minor: Child abuse and Emotional abuse
cerilouisereads's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death and Death
Moderate: Bullying and Emotional abuse