Scan barcode
A review by marsius
Goldilocks by L.R. Lam
4.0
Goldilocks, much like it’s namesake, is a book of balance. A slow burn that’s somehow a page-turner difficult to put down. Scientifically literate but not science heavy. Unabashedly and stridently feminist but neither preachy nor zealous. Completely novel and yet feeling familiar.
I don’t think the tagline “Handmaid’s Tale meets The Martian” is accurate. Lam doesn’t give us enough of what happened on Earth to bring about the Handmaid-esque regime or of the struggles of women surviving under it to really warrant comparisons to Atwood. Likewise, though note this is arguably a bit of a spoiler, it’s not really a tale of survival against odds such that it warrants a comparison to The Martian. I don’t think those are necessarily flaws as much as they are problems with the marketing. I do wish Lam would have more fully fleshed out the Atwood-esque elements, but she provides more than enough to understand the situation on the ground and why these five women choose to escape. I also wish the final chapter/epilogue were a bit clearer and more fleshed out. I get what Lam was going for, but after a novel of clear prose, we finish with muddle and murk so as to get an “aha” moment that we haven’t really earned and which feels out of place with the rest of the novel.
I don’t think the tagline “Handmaid’s Tale meets The Martian” is accurate. Lam doesn’t give us enough of what happened on Earth to bring about the Handmaid-esque regime or of the struggles of women surviving under it to really warrant comparisons to Atwood. Likewise, though note this is arguably a bit of a spoiler, it’s not really a tale of survival against odds such that it warrants a comparison to The Martian. I don’t think those are necessarily flaws as much as they are problems with the marketing. I do wish Lam would have more fully fleshed out the Atwood-esque elements, but she provides more than enough to understand the situation on the ground and why these five women choose to escape. I also wish the final chapter/epilogue were a bit clearer and more fleshed out. I get what Lam was going for, but after a novel of clear prose, we finish with muddle and murk so as to get an “aha” moment that we haven’t really earned and which feels out of place with the rest of the novel.