A review by wardenred
Aetherbound by E.K. Johnston

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

 
The part of her that wondered about the future and dreamed about flying a ship with her siblings was dying, and the part that was growing in its place was a silent, waiting thing.

This is a book I've been really looking forward to. Now that I've read it, my impressions, I have to admit, are mixed at best.

The first quarter of the story was exactly what the reviews and recs I've seen promised: the quiet horror of being a mostly useless gear in a family machine, told in a way that simultaneously never shied away from how terrible the abuse and dehumanization is and made it mundane, everyday, bearable to read. I loved it. I mean, it was bone-chilling, it made me grit my teeth, it made me hate nearly everyone on the Harland who wasn't Pendt, and I couldn't stop reading because I couldn't wait for Pendt to figure out a way out. To delve into a different world and start figuring out who she was as a person, building herself up from what she endured.

Then she did escape, and something about the story changed that made me feel almost cheated. Two more important characters were introduced: Ned and Fisher. I liked them both, on a surface level. On a deeper level, I feel like I never got to learn enough about them. I just saw snapshots and some condensed histories. Pendt's journey, now that her story was intertwined with Ned's and Fisher's, quickly took the same shapes: snapshots of important moments, sort-of-summaries of what went on in-between. The further into the book I got, the more rushed and jagged the pacing got. 

It was a jarring contrast to the slower paced, moderately detailed, consistent unfolding of Pendt's coming of age on board of the Harland generation ship in the first part. Yes, of course, that first part also contained its share of "summaries between snapshots," but it was different. More ordered somehow. Far better flowing.

There's also the fact that the story itself is sort of this small, intimate, slice-of-life-ish tale of several people's daily lives on the fringe of some really big events in a vast spacefaring world. There were enough hints and explanations at this big story, but they were kind of hard for me to pull together into a coherent picture. It's like I lost my grip on them whenever I focused on the small, intimate story like the book supposedly wanted me to. But then certain intricacies of that story relied on understanding the bigger picture. I tried to figure out the details of that bigger picture and keep them in mind. I lost my grip on the characters and their personal arcs. Reading became frustrating. To be honest, outside of the magic system (which, granted, is quite inventive and unique, I feel horribly lost on about every aspect of worldbuilding after finishing the book. 

All in all, in spite of the several things I really loved—the first 1/4 of the story, the main characters, the magic, the thoughtful discussion of body autonomy and outdated gender norms and duty vs freedom—I'm sad to say this book was a disappointing experience. As a matter of fact, all the things listed above made it even more disappointing: the beginning of the story held such promise, and then it dissolved into a mess of confusing pacing and such. It felt like there were several potential books crammed into quite a few pages here. 
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