A review by wowimreadingagain
Tentacle by Rita Indiana

adventurous reflective medium-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

3.5

I liked this book for some of the themes about time travel, ocean conservation, and transgenderism. I dunno, maybe it’s just because I’m trans, but I found the concept and description of Rainbow-Brite very interesting. The whole mythology of the book surrounding deities of the ocean, etc was new for me but was done well.  Don’t let the long negatives section in the next paragraph fool you, I still have a positive opinion of this book overall.

I had a hard time with some of the explicit sexual mentions, even the non-SA stuff, but I have a low tolerance for that anyway. I was still able to make it through the book fine. My biggest problem with this book is the very quick jumping of perspectives. In each there are a few characters that I lost track of because the book is too short to establish them.   We spend time in
dystopian near-future (2027 I think?), the 16th century, and around 1990-2005.
That’s a lot to process for one book. Also I agree with someone else’s review that too much time is spent on the perspective of the more villainous main character. It feels like the first 30% is Acilde, 50%
Argenis
, then the last 20% is some of both. Finally, the ending was too quick and did leave me with some questions. I respect the book’s choice to
not give detail about the effects of Acilde/Giorgio’s actions,
but I struggle to understand the role of
Argenis
in the story beyond the one mention
from Acilde about him being involved with the government in some way in Acilde’s time.
It seems like all he was
was a shithead who also went back in time somehow? Why was he allowed to stay with the rest of them for so long? Why did they chose that moment to finally kick him out?
But the parts of the ending I do understand, I like very much. I appreciate that Acilde
just gets to chill as Giorgio with a wife he loves doing work that brings them together.
 
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