Reviews

The First Sister by Linden A. Lewis

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jonwesleyhuff's review against another edition

2.0

As a queer person myself I was excited about a queer sci-fi space opera. The book jacket is gorgeously eye catching. I tried to read it, but it felt like a slightly hamfisted Handmaid’s Tale in space so I put it down. With the release of the sequel and generally positive reviews here I decided to give it another go.

The initial comparison I made fell away after a bit. Don’t get me wrong, this still feels like a shallower retread of Handmaid’s Tale in certain aspects. But it’s not poorly done. And there are certainly more ideas here than just that.

There’s a lot of potential and I enjoyed it until about halfway through. There’s a frustrating circuitousness to the book. I felt like I was reading the same thought over and over. The same fears again and again. In many cases, the exact same lines are repeated over and over as if the author thinks we’ll forget over the course of a relatively short book. But this only slightly bothered me. I enjoyed the NB perspective here, and they carried me through even though it started to feel like the book was treading water.

But the book lost me in the last part. The “twists” come hot and heavy, and it knocked this book down from a solid three book read whose sequel I planned to pick up to two stars and very little desire on my part to read the follow up. I firmly believe queer characters should be able to do everything else that non-queer characters do. That includes suffering, dying, being villainous, along with the joyful stuff. That they should suffer for the sake of a twist versus something that felt organic and like it had impact is a big differentiation here. For many, it seems to have worked. For me, it did not.

The other twist I just found silly more than distasteful. So, it didn’t work for me. And I was left disappointed, but I’d check out more of the author’s future work. They are good at crafting characters and I liked the world building here, despite the fact the plot didn’t end up satisfying me.