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A review by readsforlove
Ocean's Godori by Elaine U. Cho
Did not finish book. Stopped at 10%.
Whew boy do I have some thoughts. Full disclosure: I did not read past the 10% mark. To be fair, I read up to that point twice. The first was back in February when I got approved for the ARC (thank you, NetGalley). But I was completely lost. I could not for the life of me figure out what was happening. I put the book down, thinking I just wasn't in the right headspace for it that day, and decided to try it again later. Well, the later is now, only now I have lots of thoughts on why this book was so freaking confusing.
For starters, the novel begins with a prologue, moves to chapter one, then moves to chapter two. Okay? In the course of those chapters, we spend 4-5 pages with a different narrator, not revisiting any of them until mid-chapter two, when we revisit Ocean. There are novels (like Priory of the Orange Tree and Masters of Death) that do this well. They set up the character of focus clearly, orienting the reader in their personality, goals, and place, usually hinting or at least lightly alluding to how they might connect with other characters. (In Priory this is done with geographical references, in Masters of Death it's done through the fact that we have a medium who doesn't like supernaturals for some reason, and then a whole lot of supernaturals, several of which are suddenly in need of a medium). But we don't get that with this book. We just get scene after scene after scene that changes place and characters. They're also so short, we barely have any time to get to know the character. We're also not given much reason at all to care, which is so so important in the set up of a novel. I liked the scene in the restaurant--it was the only one that I could follow easily on the first read, and I remembered it clearly on the second. But that was because the narrator of that was at least interesting. He had a goal for the scene which he achieved quite competently. We knew him well by the end, because we saw him working his way through the steps to attain that goal as the scene played out.
None of the other scenes are like this. On my second read (which I actually did the audio to see if that would help, which bless the audiobook narrator it did), I found myself wondering why we even saw Ocean's first scene in the bar. I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about that scene that I will save for a bit later when I talk about the actual writing, but looking at this scene emotionally, it pales in comparison to Ocean's second scene. In Ocean's second scene, we see her going out to do some badass piloting so she doesn't have to go to the big social event next year. Now THAT'S relatable and interesting! We could so easily have gotten literally everything we learned from her first scene in a few lines of internal monologue. Not having the full story would have added more intrigue to her character as well, keeping readers asking questions about why she is so cold and numb to the world. Her opening scene did nothing for us. Not to mention the writing.
So. When I went in for my second read/listen of this, I put in a lot of focus and attention into trying to figure out why the hell this was so confusing the first go round. I literally thought Ocean was genderfluid and that her pronouns were just being poorly introduced because the scene was so confusing. She begins the scene in a bar packed with far too many people to track. Since it's in third person, it took me a minute to even orient myself to Ocean as the MC (tho to be fair, I'm awful with names) so I was fumbling with who I was supposed to be rooting for the whole time. She's also completely emotionally cutoff in the scene, which again means that we don't get anything from reading it. The point of seeing a scene up close like this instead of through reflections later as a backstory piece is that we can feel the emotional journey with the narrator. Now, I'm not saying emotional numbness is bad writing. That's a very real thing, especially in bad relationships, and is important to be portrayed. But we were given nothing else about Ocean's character aside from the fact that she somehow knew she'd been cheated on. And then we get a time skip her next scene anyway (I think?? Though i could be wrong there. Again: so. damn. confusing.) so there's just ... no point in seeing this stale, uninteresting scene? Also, thanks to the chaos of the crowded bar, I had a very difficult time grounding myself in the setting. This was a huge issue with every scene, but it was the most detrimental to my tracking what was happening in this scene, due to the sheer number of people in there. There was another character who was going to buy food? I think? And then suddenly the guy he was talking to was in a flying vehicle that zoomed away? Also we're apparently on earth this whole time, I think? though again, that alone is super unclear.
For anyone wondering why I don't just finish the book: I kind of care about the one gay guy. (I don't remember his name.) I am a little interested in ocean after the ship race scene. But since there are so many confusing issues with the writing, I know that continuing is just going to make me feel stupid, and I don't feel like going through that. There are other books with characters I will care much more about that will not have me doing 180s every five pages trying to figure out where the hell we are, who the fuck we're with, and why I should give a damn.
Anyway. This review is already longer than like ... my last four reviews combined, probably. This novel desperately needs some more editing. I came for the space gays and left a confused queer. You have been warned.
For starters, the novel begins with a prologue, moves to chapter one, then moves to chapter two. Okay? In the course of those chapters, we spend 4-5 pages with a different narrator, not revisiting any of them until mid-chapter two, when we revisit Ocean. There are novels (like Priory of the Orange Tree and Masters of Death) that do this well. They set up the character of focus clearly, orienting the reader in their personality, goals, and place, usually hinting or at least lightly alluding to how they might connect with other characters. (In Priory this is done with geographical references, in Masters of Death it's done through the fact that we have a medium who doesn't like supernaturals for some reason, and then a whole lot of supernaturals, several of which are suddenly in need of a medium). But we don't get that with this book. We just get scene after scene after scene that changes place and characters. They're also so short, we barely have any time to get to know the character. We're also not given much reason at all to care, which is so so important in the set up of a novel. I liked the scene in the restaurant--it was the only one that I could follow easily on the first read, and I remembered it clearly on the second. But that was because the narrator of that was at least interesting. He had a goal for the scene which he achieved quite competently. We knew him well by the end, because we saw him working his way through the steps to attain that goal as the scene played out.
None of the other scenes are like this. On my second read (which I actually did the audio to see if that would help, which bless the audiobook narrator it did), I found myself wondering why we even saw Ocean's first scene in the bar. I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about that scene that I will save for a bit later when I talk about the actual writing, but looking at this scene emotionally, it pales in comparison to Ocean's second scene. In Ocean's second scene, we see her going out to do some badass piloting so she doesn't have to go to the big social event next year. Now THAT'S relatable and interesting! We could so easily have gotten literally everything we learned from her first scene in a few lines of internal monologue. Not having the full story would have added more intrigue to her character as well, keeping readers asking questions about why she is so cold and numb to the world. Her opening scene did nothing for us. Not to mention the writing.
So. When I went in for my second read/listen of this, I put in a lot of focus and attention into trying to figure out why the hell this was so confusing the first go round. I literally thought Ocean was genderfluid and that her pronouns were just being poorly introduced because the scene was so confusing. She begins the scene in a bar packed with far too many people to track. Since it's in third person, it took me a minute to even orient myself to Ocean as the MC (tho to be fair, I'm awful with names) so I was fumbling with who I was supposed to be rooting for the whole time. She's also completely emotionally cutoff in the scene, which again means that we don't get anything from reading it. The point of seeing a scene up close like this instead of through reflections later as a backstory piece is that we can feel the emotional journey with the narrator. Now, I'm not saying emotional numbness is bad writing. That's a very real thing, especially in bad relationships, and is important to be portrayed. But we were given nothing else about Ocean's character aside from the fact that she somehow knew she'd been cheated on. And then we get a time skip her next scene anyway (I think?? Though i could be wrong there. Again: so. damn. confusing.) so there's just ... no point in seeing this stale, uninteresting scene? Also, thanks to the chaos of the crowded bar, I had a very difficult time grounding myself in the setting. This was a huge issue with every scene, but it was the most detrimental to my tracking what was happening in this scene, due to the sheer number of people in there. There was another character who was going to buy food? I think? And then suddenly the guy he was talking to was in a flying vehicle that zoomed away? Also we're apparently on earth this whole time, I think? though again, that alone is super unclear.
For anyone wondering why I don't just finish the book: I kind of care about the one gay guy. (I don't remember his name.) I am a little interested in ocean after the ship race scene. But since there are so many confusing issues with the writing, I know that continuing is just going to make me feel stupid, and I don't feel like going through that. There are other books with characters I will care much more about that will not have me doing 180s every five pages trying to figure out where the hell we are, who the fuck we're with, and why I should give a damn.
Anyway. This review is already longer than like ... my last four reviews combined, probably. This novel desperately needs some more editing. I came for the space gays and left a confused queer. You have been warned.