momwrex's review against another edition
4.0
A good read. An important read. Not an easy read. Not linear.
Onyebuchi makes you work to understand a dystopian future of those excluded from privilege, housing, clean air and water. Those who, as they work towards improving their world, are removed through gentrification.
Onyebuchi makes you work to understand a dystopian future of those excluded from privilege, housing, clean air and water. Those who, as they work towards improving their world, are removed through gentrification.
_otter_'s review against another edition
4.0
My reading experience was 3 stars, but 4 stars for highlighting the future whiteness of space, and space colonization as the ultimate white flight.
nikolas_fox's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
pferdina's review against another edition
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
2.0
I did not like this book although it was interesting. A lot about the systematic racism and other systems of inequality that exist now in the US. It is set in New Haven, Connecticut, in the future about fifty years. Climate change and the global pandemic and some kind of nuclear disaster has caused most of the white citizens to leave for space stations, leaving the poor and people of color behind on the damaged and poisonous planet. Sectioned into four parts, named for the four seasons, there isn’t much of a plot or story. Just what happens to the characters day by day. Buying a new house, death of close relatives, finding love, discovering a band of horses, tracking a murderer through the desert, a prison revolt.
tea_and_naps's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
nanthesloth's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-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
4.0
mschlat's review against another edition
3.0
My short take: a literary sf novel that foregrounds the inequities facing people of color (especially African Americans) in a somewhat post-apocalyptic setting with more emphasis on following characters than advancing plot.
My longer take: I grappled with this during and after the read. Onyebuchi is using a setting in the near future where many people (most of them white) have departed Earth for the Colonies (i.e., space stations), and the Earth (or at least the United States) has faced a deeply damaging environmental catastrophe, leaving the remaining inhabitants (most of them people of color) in constant danger of radiation sickness and death.
But, in many ways, this is a novel about current inequities and not future ones. Part of that emphasis is seen in Onyebuchi's use of language, which is almost totally contemporary. (I was thrown off early by a character talking about 'gramming their experience.) But much of that focus on current inequities is highlighted by what the characters are concerned about: police brutality, the lack of jobs and resources, and the possibility of gentrification as whites return to Earth. I've read lots of sf where future concerns stand in as metaphors for current ones, but this feels like current concerns propelled to the future.
And it's not a straightforward novel. (I've seen lots of reviews that say that the author doesn't hold your hand, and I agree with that.) It reads to me more as a collection of short stories woven together than a typical novel, with the third quarter of the book focused away from the other parts as it tells two lightly connected stories: one about a prison riot that turns into a prison takeover, and another about a federal marshall searching for the body of a dead boy in order to prove a murder charge against a white supremacist. Those stories were fascinating, but I didn't always see the connective tissue.
In the end, I liked pieces of the work more than the work as a whole.
My longer take: I grappled with this during and after the read. Onyebuchi is using a setting in the near future where many people (most of them white) have departed Earth for the Colonies (i.e., space stations), and the Earth (or at least the United States) has faced a deeply damaging environmental catastrophe, leaving the remaining inhabitants (most of them people of color) in constant danger of radiation sickness and death.
But, in many ways, this is a novel about current inequities and not future ones. Part of that emphasis is seen in Onyebuchi's use of language, which is almost totally contemporary. (I was thrown off early by a character talking about 'gramming their experience.) But much of that focus on current inequities is highlighted by what the characters are concerned about: police brutality, the lack of jobs and resources, and the possibility of gentrification as whites return to Earth. I've read lots of sf where future concerns stand in as metaphors for current ones, but this feels like current concerns propelled to the future.
And it's not a straightforward novel. (I've seen lots of reviews that say that the author doesn't hold your hand, and I agree with that.) It reads to me more as a collection of short stories woven together than a typical novel, with the third quarter of the book focused away from the other parts as it tells two lightly connected stories: one about a prison riot that turns into a prison takeover, and another about a federal marshall searching for the body of a dead boy in order to prove a murder charge against a white supremacist. Those stories were fascinating, but I didn't always see the connective tissue.
In the end, I liked pieces of the work more than the work as a whole.