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talonsontypewriters's review
adventurous
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
super conceptually fun, but ends up overthrowing a coherent, well-paced plot, consistent three-dimensional characters, and clear worldbuilding for themes and vibes most of the time. probably a good time for someone, but unfortunately not me
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Genocide, Blood, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Ableism, Body horror, Confinement, Eating disorder, Gore, Violence, Medical content, Death of parent, and Classism
Minor: Sexual content, Terminal illness, and Xenophobia
averyjpub's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.5
I enjoyed seeing the characters grapple with disability and the contrast of Alana being disabled and wanting to live while her sister was able bodied and essentially wanted to die (no matter how it was dressed up) was a good contrast that drew me in. I found some reactions in the book… strange, like expecting more of one from Alana when she was forced to enlist her sisters help and how untroubled she was by her parents death at first and also when the doppleganger Alana admitted to committing genocide and we just… move on? I thought the entire doppelgänger Alana part felt weirdly out of place, like a way to just wrap up the story but was really unsatisfying. I just didn’t find the characters reactions or lack of them to be very believable. It was really nice to see different relationship dynamics that weren’t stereotypical of polyamory.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism
monkeyreader's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
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
5.0
socorrobaptista's review against another edition
medium-paced
4.0
Mundos paralelos, muita tecnologia, problemas bem humanos, como doenças crônicas, tudo isso em uma narrativa de amizade, amor, e respeito às diferenças. Muito bom.
quillonon's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
inspiring
mysterious
tense
slow-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? No
4.5
tregina's review against another edition
5.0
This book is in my heart. A queer protagonist with chronic illness--I may not have identified with her experience on every level, but it was a lot closer than most. Even if the rest of the book hadn't been brilliant too, that would have had me. It might not have been perfect, but some books just have that little something that make my love them.
saemiligr's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
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? It's complicated
4.75
kivt's review against another edition
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.
noctadea's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0