dystopian fiction

What if Happiness Was Contagious? All Better Now Reviewed

by Stefani

All Better Now by Neal Shusterman

Published: February 5, 2025 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Synopsis:

An unprecedented condition is on the rise. It behaves like a virus, with the first symptom being a fever, but those who contract it experience long-term effects no one has ever seen; utter contentment. Soon after infection, people find the stress, depression, greed, and other negative feelings that used to weigh them down are gone.

Almost everyone revels in this mass unburdening. But people in power—who depend on malcontents tuning into their broadcasts, prey on the insecure to sell their products, and convince people they need more, new, faster, better everything—know this new state of being is bad for business. Soon, campaigns start up convincing people that being happy all the time is dangerous. There’s even a vaccine developed to rid people of their inner peace and get them back to normal because, surely, without anger or jealousy as motivators, productivity will grind to a halt and the world will be thrown into chaos.

It’s nearly impossible to determine the truth when everyone with a platform is pushing their own agendas, and two teens from very different backgrounds who’ve had their lives upended in different ways by the virus find themselves enmeshed in the center of a dangerous power play. Can they reveal the truth?

Rating:

Review:

When I read the synopsis for this book I was interested, but wary. Given the fact that it was published in 2025, it had the capacity to be very preachy about any and all things COVID19. But, Neal Shusterman is an author that has earned by trust in taking topics that could be preachy but are not while in his capable hands. So I dove in and I loved this book.

It was such a unique concept. What would society do with a virus that seems to make your life better? Sure, you still might die from the virus. But if you don’t, you’ll just be blissfully content and at ease with the world. What does society do with something like that? How would different categories of humans react?

In this book, Shusterman explores all of these possible reactions. You have a kid who is desperately depressed and figures that even if he dies from the virus, he’s still better off than he is now so, why not get it? There are people who are desperate to avoid infection because they can’t imagine a world where their emotions are limited in such a way against their will. There are people who have made their fortunes by being ruthless and uncaring about their fellow humans, and now need to make provisions about what will happen to their assets if they get this virus and suddenly feel altruistic. You have people who are so blissfully happy that they feel everyone in the world should get the virus.

Now take all of these stories and focus on 3-4 of the best ones and you end up with this book. I really enjoyed every single storyline and could easily imagine that these are real reactions of real people. I loved it. My only complaint on the character side was that a few of them were desperately annoying, even though their story was interesting. I didn’t really connect with any of the characters either, they were more of a vehicle for the plot than anything else.

It ends on a cliffhanger…of sorts, and there is a 2nd book due to be published at some point in the future. I look forward to seeing where else this story can go because this was a fun ride. I really enjoy how Neal Shusterman’s brain works, he is an automatic read for me these days.

Exploring Dystopia: A Review of ‘All the Water in the World’

by Stefani

All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall

Published: January 7, 2025 by St. Martin’s Press

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Synopsis:

All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river towards what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they’ve saved.

Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story—with danger, storms, and a fight for survival. 

Rating:

Review:

My reading is not off to a good start this year. Most of the books I’ve read haven’t been very good, so I wanted to grab a dystopian novel about a family working to save exhibits in a museum from a flooded world. Unfortunately, this one was just not good.

The main narrator, Nonie, is completely flat and devoid of any emotion. Her tone and temperament don’t really change throughout the story, no matter what action packed or traumatic events are taking place around her. It made it difficult to connect with the story because the narrator was entirely disconnected from it. I’m not sure if this was done on purpose or not, but it was a bad choice. I wanted to feel something for these people. I wanted to feel something about what they were experiencing. But I couldn’t. Because Nonie didn’t.

The narrative felt very fractured. We switch back and forth from the present to the past, but all of it is written exactly the same and in the same past tense tone. So it was really difficult to determine when we were flashing back to the past and when we were in the present. Or perhaps all of the book was in the past and being told as a memory. I have no idea. It was very confusing and I got tired of trying to follow it. Eventually I just tuned out because I couldn’t keep up.

As a side note, I don’t understand what the point was of Nonie’s “superpower”. She has a “deep connection” to water. But the book doesn’t really explore this at all. It’s mentioned once in the beginning of the book, and once at the end. That’s it. We don’t explore it or discuss it at all. So, what was the point?

Unfortunately this book is a case of lots of potential that wasn’t realized. Which is disappointing.

Audiobook review: Brave New World: A BBC Radio Dramatization

by Stefani

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Audiobook by BBC Radio 4

Published: October 11, 2016 by BBC Worldwide

Check this audiobook out at: Audible

Synopsis:

A gripping BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Aldous Huxley’s classic dystopian novel.

It’s 2116, and Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson are token rebels in an irretrievably corrupted society where promiscuity is the norm, eugenics a respectable science, and morality turned upside down. There is no poverty, crime or sickness – but no creativity, art or culture either. Human beings are merely docile citizens: divided into castes, brainwashed and controlled by the state and dependent on the drug soma for superficial gratification.

Into this sterile society comes an outsider, John – a man born into squalor and suffering, but raised on The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, a book which has shaped his entire life. When he discovers that treasured ideals such as love mean nothing in this ‘brave new world’, where romance is ridiculous, marriage shocking and parenthood shameful, John’s world is shattered – and his reaction will show Bernard and Helmholtz what rebellion really means….

Based on Aldous Huxley’s 1932 masterpiece, widely considered one of the greatest novels of all time, this chilling dramatisation set in a futuristic totalitarian society stars Jonathan Coy, Justin Salinger, Milton Lopes and Anton Lesser. 

Rating:

Review:

I am a huge fan of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I have read the novel at least 10 times. I find it incredibly relevant to society today. I quote it more often than I should, I compare news stories to it far more often than I ever thought I would. It is truly a masterpiece of fiction. So, when I was contemplating having another listen to Brave New World, I stumbled across this audiobook. This was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 back in 2016. It features a full voice cast and is a dramatization of the novel.

Overall it was marvelous. They took all of the compelling and interesting pieces of the novel and displayed them in a new way. It was reminiscent of the days of Mystery Theater (although I know that radio dramas long preceded that particular program). I love listening to radio dramas. I find them interesting and compelling in ways that reading a book wouldn’t be, and you are forced to focus on the words much more than an in-person dramatic performance. It’s perfect for someone like me.

The voice actors did a masterful job. The story was told with passion and fire and it was everything I hoped it would be. Don’t listen to this if you aren’t familiar with the novel however. It is a dramatization, so it doesn’t tell you the full story. If I wasn’t so well acquainted with the story then I would have been confused on what was going on. I did have some mild confusion because several of the voice actors perform several different roles. Because the voices were similar, I sometimes would be confused on which character was speaking. At least for a minute until I recognized the line and recalled who said it.

If you love Brave New World then I highly recommend this piece. It’s only two hours in length, can be done in an afternoon. It is truly wonderful.

New Releases Wednesday – May 22, 2024

by Stefani

The Honey Witch by Sydney J Shields

Published: May 16, 2024 by Orbit

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

The Honey Witch of Innisfree can never find true love. That is her curse to bear. But when a young woman who doesn’t believe in magic arrives on her island, sparks fly in this deliciously sweet debut novel of magic, hope, and love overcoming all.
 
Twenty-one-year-old Marigold Claude has always preferred the company of the spirits of the meadow to any of the suitors who’ve tried to woo her. So when her grandmother whisks her away to the family cottage on the tiny Isle of Innisfree with an offer to train her as the next Honey Witch, she accepts immediately. But her newfound magic and independence come with a No one can fall in love with the Honey Witch.
 
When Lottie Burke, a notoriously grumpy skeptic who doesn’t believe in magic, shows up on her doorstep, Marigold can’t resist the challenge to prove to her that magic is real. But soon, Marigold begins to care for Lottie in ways she never expected. And when darker magic awakens and threatens to destroy her home, she must fight for much more than her new home—at the risk of losing her magic and her heart.

My thoughts:

I love books with magic. I love books with magic that comes with a price. A woman being torn between using magic to save her town but also the idea of losing the woman she is starting to love it a good premise for a book. And the cover is lovely.

Paradise of the Damned by Keith Thomson

Published: May 21, 2024 by Little, Brown & Company

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

The transporting account of an obsessive quest to find El Dorado, set against the backdrop of Elizabethan political intrigue and a competition with Spanish conquistadors for the legendary city’s treasure

As early as 1530, reports of El Dorado, a city of gold in the South American interior, beckoned to European explorers. Whether there was any truth to the stories remained to be seen, but the allure of unimaginable riches was enough to ensnare dozens of would-be heroes and glory hounds in the desperate hunt. Among them was Sir Walter Raleigh: ambitious courtier, confidant to Queen Elizabeth, and, before long, El Dorado fanatic.

Entering the Elizabethan court as an upstart from a family whose days of nobility were far behind them, Raleigh used his military acumen, good looks, and sheer audacity to scramble into the limelight. Yet that same swagger proved to be his undoing, as his secret marriage to a lady-in-waiting enraged Queen Elizabeth and landed him in the Tower of London. Between his ensuing grim prospects at court and his underlying lust for adventure, the legend of El Dorado became an unwavering siren song that hypnotized Raleigh.

On securing his release, he journeyed across an ocean to find the fabled city, gambling his painstakingly acquired wealth, hard-won domestic bliss, and his very life. What awaited him in the so-called New World were endless miles of hot, dense jungle packed with deadly flora and fauna, warring Spanish conquistadors and Indigenous civilizations, and other unforeseen dangers. Meanwhile, back at home, his multitude of rivals plotted his demise.

Paradise of the Damned, like Keith Thomson’s critically acclaimed Born to Be Hanged, brings this story to life in lush and captivating detail. The book charts Raleigh’s obsessive search for El Dorado—as well as the many doomed expeditions that preceded and accompanied his—providing not only an invaluable history but also a gripping narrative of traveling to the ends of the earth only to realize, too late, that what lies at home is the greatest treasure of all.

My thoughts:

I have read a lot of books and watched a lot of documentaries about the fables El Dorado. The quest for gold and riches has been a defining quest for humanity all over the world, throughout all of human history. This one sounds interesting.

Loneliness & Company by Charlee Dyroff

Published: May 7, 2024 by Bloomsbury Publishing

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

A timely, beautifully observed debut novel set in near future New York about a young woman who finds herself tangled in a secret government project combating loneliness.

Lee’s life is perfectly mapped out. A top student and professor favorite, everyone expects her to land one of the coveted roles at a Big Five corporation. So when, upon graduating, Lee finds herself at a company no one’s heard of in the dead city of New York instead, her goals are completely upended.

In this new role, Lee’s task is to gather research to train an AI how to be a friend. She begins online and by studying the social circle of her outgoing roommate Veronika. But when it’s revealed that the company is part of a classified mission to solve loneliness—an emotion erased from society’s lexicon decades ago— Lee’s determination to prove herself kicks into overdrive and she starts chasing bolder experiences for the AI.

How far will Lee go? As loneliness continues to spread, she must decide what she’s willing to give up for success and, along the way, learn what it means to be a true friend.

Loneliness & Company is an enchanting, gorgeously written novel about finding meaning and connection in a world beset by isolation.

My thoughts:

Over the past few years I have heard a lot about the “epidemic of loneliness”. This seemed to start entering the public lexicon after the COVID-19 epidemic. Scientists started talking a lot about how we all need to get out from behind our screens, re-engage with the world, and combat the loneliness. This book seems to play on that theme. That’s an interesting premise and I am always willing to try out a debut novel.

Audiobook Review: Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling

by Stefani

Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling

Narrated by: Emily Tremaine, Greta Jung and Graham Halstead

Published: April 4, 2023 by Simon & Schuster Audio

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Synopsis:

In the far north of Canada sits Camp Zero, an American building project hiding many secrets.

Desperate to help her climate-displaced Korean immigrant mother, Rose agrees to travel to Camp Zero and spy on its architect in exchange for housing. She arrives at the same time as another newcomer, a college professor named Grant who is determined to flee his wealthy family’s dark legacy. Gradually, they realize that there is more to the architect than previously thought, and a disturbing mystery lurks beneath the surface of the camp. At the same time, rumors abound of an elite group of women soldiers living and working at a nearby Cold War-era climate research station. What are they doing there? And who is leading them?

An electrifying page-turner where nothing is as it seems, Camp Zero cleverly explores how the intersection of gender, class, and migration will impact who and what will survive in a warming world.

Rating:

Review:

“Why do men take so easily whatever they want? Because nothing will ever be enough, she realizes. The more a man possesses, the more he thinks he deserves.”

This book tried to accomplish a lot of things in its pages. This audiobook ran for 10 hours and some change, so an average length story. But this book wanted to be a dystopian thriller, a commentary on climate change, a commentary on race, and a commentary on gender, plus throw in some examination of misogyny. In the end, it was largely successful on these fronts. But not all of them.

This book follows the perspective of three individuals/groups. Rose is a half-Korean young woman who is hired at the camp as a “Bloom”, a woman who is hired to “entertain” the men in charge. What this means without euphemism is that she is a sex worker. Sex work seems to be a large part of the world of Camp Zero, and it’s an interesting examination of gender roles. Many of the woman seem perfectly happy to be involved in sex work, viewing it as a way to make a better living than most other jobs, and an opportunity to better their station in the world. In Rose’s case she is not only at camp as a sex worker. She has also been tasked as a spy. We don’t learn exactly what her mission in for quite a long time, but there are clues along the way. She also tells us about her childhood and her mother’s life. This was a really great way to not only build the character but the world. We see several different facets of life in the world of Camp Zero through her eyes. And they were all fascinating. I loved the bits that talked about Rose’s history, I learned so many interesting things.

We also follow Grant. He is a trust fund baby. His family is one of the wealthiest and most influential families in this world. But when a tragedy leaves him examining his privilege, he is desperate to escape his family’s influence and make his own reputation. That’s why he takes the job to be an English teacher at this remote northern camp. He figures that it is so remote that his father’s influence couldn’t possibly reach him and he will be free. But he quickly learns that the job he was hired for isn’t exactly what he thought it would be. He is also very troubled by the existence of the Blooms. All in all, I grew to like Grant by the end but found him horribly naïve. It was quite clear to me that he had lived in a giant bubble for his entire life.

The third narrative is that of White Alice. This narrative is presented in the plural, it is the story of a group of women. These women are tasked with manning a climate change research outpost. Every day they are to report on the changes to the environment and also work on methods of living independently in a largely inhospitable environment. At first the woman are apprehensive about working together, having come from the male dominated military. But, over time, they build relationships and a community and find the remoteness of their lives to be refreshing and comforting. I loved the story of the women of White Alice, though I struggled to understand their relevance to the larger story for longer than I thought. In the end the narratives came together, but it took awhile to get there.

Each of these narratives has its own narrator. I found all of the narrators to be very good at their job. They humanized their characters and their individual styles were complimentary to the other narrators, so the narration felt seamless. It also made it extremely easy for the listener to identify who was telling us the story and when we switched narratives.

My only complaints about this book are that it tries to take on too much. Between the climate change, gender roles, misogyny, racism, wealth privilege…it all just started to feel a little too surface level. We don’t get an opportunity to examine any of these issues with any depth because there’s so many other themes happening. The ending was very good, but it got a little bit confusing. There was a lot of action happening and frequent narrative switching and this was the only time I found it confusing to follow what was happening. I caught up in the end and enjoyed the conclusion. I feel that this book stands on its own perfectly well, but I would be very happy to see the author visit this world again.

Library Haul – May 9, 2024

by Stefani

Mal Goes to War by Edward Ashton

Published: April 9, 2024 by St. Martin’s Press

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

The humans are fighting again. Go figure.

As a free A.I., Mal finds the war between the modded and augmented Federals and the puritanical Humanists about as interesting as a battle between rival anthills. He’s not above scouting the battlefield for salvage, though, and when the Humanists abruptly cut off access to infospace he finds himself trapped in the body of a cyborg mercenary, and responsible for the safety of the modded girl she died protecting.

A dark comedy wrapped in a techno thriller’s skin, Mal Goes to War provides a satirical take on war, artificial intelligence, and what it really means to be human.

What caught my attention: The cover of this one drew my eye from across the library. When I read the cover summary I was hooked. An artificial intelligence who ends up embroiled in a conflict that he takes no interest in, protecting someone that he has no allegiance to. That’s an interesting idea. And I am interested to see what kind of commentary this book gives on war.

Snowglobe by Soyoung Park

Published: February 27, 2024 by Delacourte Press

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

In a world of constant winter, only the citizens of the climate-controlled city of Snowglobe can escape the bitter cold—but this perfect society is hiding dark and dangerous secrets within its frozen heart.

Enclosed under a vast dome, Snowglobe is the last place on Earth that’s warm. Outside Snowglobe is a frozen wasteland, and every day, citizens face the icy world to get to their jobs at the power plant, where they produce the energy Snowglobe needs. Their only solace comes in the form of twenty-four-hour television programming streamed directly from the domed city.

The residents of Snowglobe have fame, fortune, and above all, safety from the desolation outside their walls. In exchange, their lives are broadcast to the less fortunate outside, who watch eagerly, hoping for the chance to one day become actors themselves.

Chobahm lives for the time she spends watching the shows produced inside Snowglobe. Her favorite? Goh Around, starring Goh Haeri, Snowglobe’s biggest star—and, it turns out, the key to getting Chobahm her dream life.

Because Haeri is dead, and Chobahm has been chosen to take her place. Only, life inside Snowglobe is nothing like what you see on television. Reality is a lie, and truth seems to be forever out of reach.

What drew my attention: The first thing that I noticed about this book was the cover. It is breathtakingly beautiful. I have also been hearing about this book quite often over the past few months. I have heard it compared to the Korean Hunger Games. So that piqued my interest. I was very excited to see it at my library. Honestly, if the world was this desolate, wouldn’t you trade your privacy for warmth and safety? I probably would.

How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler

Published: December 6, 2022 by Little, Brown and Company

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

A queer, mixed race writer working in a largely white, male field, science and conservation journalist Sabrina Imbler has always been drawn to the mystery of life in the sea, and particularly to creatures living in hostile or remote environments. Each essay in their debut collection profiles one such creature: the mother octopus who starves herself while watching over her eggs, the Chinese sturgeon whose migration route has been decimated by pollution and dams, the bizarre Bobbitt worm (named after Lorena), and other uncanny creatures lurking in the deep ocean, far below where the light reaches. Imbler discovers that some of the most radical models of family, community, and care can be found in the sea, from gelatinous chains that are both individual organisms and colonies of clones to deep-sea crabs that have no need for the sun, nourished instead by the chemicals and heat throbbing from the core of the Earth. Exploring themes of adaptation, survival, sexuality, and care, and weaving the wonders of marine biology with stories of their own family, relationships, and coming of age, How Far the Light Reaches is a book that invites us to envision wilder, grander, and more abundant possibilities for the way we live.

What drew my attention: My local library has a shelf titled “Great nonfiction that you may have missed”. I always give it a look to see if something catches my eye. The first thing that caught my eye with this book was the sturgeon on the front cover. I love the ocean. I love the creatures who live in the ocean. So, to find a book with a particular theme on 10 sea creatures that can teach us valuable lessons in life, is a fascinating idea. I hope it turns out as fascinating as it sounds.

New Releases Wednesday – May 8, 2024

by Stefani

Shock the Monkey by Neal Shusterman and Eric Elfman

Published: May 7, 2024 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Check this book out: Goodreads

Synopsis:

Noah Prime must set out to save his friends and the universe once again in this jaw-dropping sequel to the New York Times bestselling novel, I Am the Walrus . 

Noah Prime thought he was no more running, no more murderous aliens, and absolutely no more saving the world. The day he went into hiding should have put an end to it. But staying away is no longer an option when he winds up embroiled in yet another intergalactic calamity. This time, it’s courtesy of his usually level-headed friend Ogden, whose crush on the most popular girl in school, Claire, leads him to buy her a star for her birthday.

However, this heart-warming gesture ends up having disastrous consequences when it turns out the star is real—as in home to a gazillion aliens real. And it’s not long before these creatures have swooped down to Earth to abduct Claire and take her back to their planet—or rather her planet—as its new owner.

Now it’s up to Noah and his quick-changing animal abilities to help his friends find her. But with dangerous forces still out there and a perilous journey ahead, will Noah be able to find Claire before she meets her untimely doom? Even if it means putting his friends in more danger than ever before?

This action-packed, laugh-out-loud sci-fi adventure is perfect for fans of Eoin Colfer and Rick Riordan.

Why I want to read it: You might remember Neal Shusterman from the Unwind series. I read the first book of that series back in 2022, it was honestly one of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read. It left me thinking about it for days after I closed the cover. Remembering it still leaves me with the creepy crawlies. You can check out that review here. So, when I saw a new book from Neal Shusterman it went immediately on my Want To Read list. And a mental note that I need to get back to the Unwind series, I was interested to see where it went.

The Family Experiment by John Marrs

Published: May 9, 2024 by Macmillan

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

The world’s population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families let alone raise them.

But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality tv show. It will follow ten couples as they raise a Virtual Child from birth to the age of eighteen but in a condensed nine-month time period. The prize: the right to keep their virtual child or risk it all for the chance of a real baby . . .

Set in the same universe as John Marrs’s bestselling novel The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and twisted thriller about the ultimate ‘tamagotchi’ – a virtual baby.

Why I Want to Read It: I love a good dystopian novel. Because it may seem like everything is rosy at first, but it’s going to go wrong. We all know it is going to go wrong, because that’s what dystopian fiction means. The question is always, how will it go wrong? When will it go wrong? What will be the collateral damage? This one looks like a perfect example of this kind of fiction. It takes real world issues and the extrapolates them to an extreme to examine what could happen. I love it. I want it.

Review: The Book of Koli by M.R. Carey

by Stefani

The Book of Koli by M.R. Carey

Published: April 14, 2020 by Orbit

Buy this book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository

Rating:

Synopsis: Beyond the walls of the small village of Mythen Rood lies an unrecognizable world. A world where overgrown forests are filled with choker trees and deadly vines and seeds that will kill you where you stand. And if they don’t get you, one of the dangerous shunned men will.

Koli has lived in Mythen Rood his entire life. He knows the first rule of survival is that you don’t venture beyond the walls.

What he doesn’t know is – what happens when you aren’t given a choice?

The first in a gripping new trilogy, The Book of Koli charts the journey of one unforgettable young boy struggling to find his place in a chilling post-apocalyptic world. Perfect for readers of Station Eleven and Annihilation.

Review: ***Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you NetGalley and Orbit!***

On a side note, expect to see a lot of this disclaimer. Somehow I got behind like 20 ARCs from places like NetGalley and authors. So, flurry of reviews!

On to this book. It was fairly good. The biggest annoyance that I had with it was the writing style. It was written in a world where humans have brought on their own demise. Through genetic engineering that was weaponized and AI used to fight a war, humans have been decimated. Human beings now live in separate small communities in a world that is constantly attacking them. Because while the war between humans may be over, no one told that to the attack drones or the killer trees. As a result, humans have lost a lot of the knowledge they had. And the writing style was done to match. It was also kind of annoying.

The beginning of this book wasn’t very good. Koli was not a very interesting narrator and most of what he did was pine over a girl. I was more interested in the wider world. I mean trees are out there attacking people! Can we not spend so much of our time in Koli’s bland little town of less than 200 people? Pretty please.

Once the plot moved on from his little town the story got a lot better. I liked the dynamics of the wider world and the resolution of the story. It was more of cliffhanger ending than I usually like but since I am invested in the story that’s okay with me because I planned on reading the next book anyway.

New Releases Wednesday

by Stefani

Blue Ticket by Sophie MacKintosh

Published: June 30, 2020

Goodreads

Synopsis: Calla knows how the lottery works. Everyone does. On the day of your first bleed, you report to the station to learn what kind of woman you will be. A white ticket grants you marriage and children. A blue ticket grants you a career and freedom. You are relieved of the terrible burden of choice. And once you’ve taken your ticket, there is no going back. But what if the life you’re given is the wrong one?


When Calla, a blue ticket woman, begins to question her fate, she must go on the run. But her survival will be dependent on the very qualities the lottery has taught her to question in herself and on the other women the system has pitted against her. Pregnant and desperate, Calla must contend with whether or not the lottery knows her better than she knows herself and what that might mean for her child.


An urgent inquiry into free will, social expectation, and the fraught space of motherhood, Blue Ticket is electrifying in its raw evocation and desire and riveting in its undeniable familiarity.

My Thoughts: I know I have often been critical of feminist leaning dystopians, but this sounds different. It sounds like a woman questioning the system that is telling her what to do with her womanhood. She ends up in a situation she wasn’t supposed to and starts to question everything. I like that concept.

Interlibrary Loan by Gene Wolfe

Published: June 30, 2020

Goodreads

Synopsis: Hundreds of years in the future our civilization is shrunk down but we go on. There is advanced technology, there are robots.

And there are clones.

E. A. Smithe is a borrowed person, his personality an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human.

As such, Smithe can be loaned to other branches. Which he is. Along with two fellow reclones, a cookbook and romance writer, they are shipped to Polly’s Cove, where Smithe meets a little girl who wants to save her mother, a father who is dead but perhaps not.

And another E.A. Smithe… who definitely is. 

My Thoughts: This is the second book in a series, but I can’t seem to say no to it. It’s another Tor release, and I generally really love what they offer. This sounds like an interesting take on AI and the idea of transferring consciousness after death.

Review: Docile by K.M. Szpara

by Stefani

Docile by K.M. Szpara

Published: March 3, 2020 by Tor

Buy this book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository

Rating:

Synopsis: There is no consent under capitalism

Docile is a science fiction parable about love and sex, wealth and debt, abuse and power, a challenging tour de force that at turns seduces and startles.

To be a Docile is to be kept, body and soul, for the uses of the owner of your contract. To be a Docile is to forget, to disappear, to hide inside your body from the horrors of your service. To be a Docile is to sell yourself to pay your parents’ debts and buy your children’s future.

Elisha Wilder’s family has been ruined by debt, handed down to them from previous generations. His mother never recovered from the Dociline she took during her term as a Docile, so when Elisha decides to try and erase the family’s debt himself, he swears he will never take the drug that took his mother from him. Too bad his contract has been purchased by Alexander Bishop III, whose ultra-rich family is the brains (and money) behind Dociline and the entire Office of Debt Resolution. When Elisha refuses Dociline, Alex refuses to believe that his family’s crowning achievement could have any negative side effects—and is determined to turn Elisha into the perfect Docile without it.

Review: ***Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you NetGalley and Tor!***

SPOILER ALERT: I don’t think I can actually discuss this book without spoilers, except to say it had no point.

This book was basically a slavefic erotica with a messy attempt at a moral/political/social message attempt. But it failed pretty badly on all fronts with it. Instead I was left with a book that had a good idea and a snazzy tagline but otherwise had no purpose. It gets an extra star for being well written, because the writing is very good.

I had hoped this book would make some point about the social and economic gap between the wealthy and the poor. I mean, re-instituting slavery is a rather aggressive step to deal with a debt problem so I expected there to be some kind of larger point. But this is very rarely touched upon except to be pointed out that “this person is wealthy, this person is not.” There exists no other purpose for this distinction that I could fathom. I also don’t understand how there’s seemingly two classes of people at play here (3 technically). First, we have the very poor and indebted county folk. Most of them seem to have somehow accumulated millions of dollars in debt over three generations but I am not clear how. They live in a house that was built with abandoned bits of other houses. They run a self sufficient farm. No one is college educated and all of them refuse to seek medical care. So, where exactly did all this debt come from? Never explained. Then you have the trillionaires who buy the debt of the county folk. Always trillionaires. I don’t know why, and it’s not clear how they amassed such extreme wealth either. Then they have a mostly absent third category of people who work in the city, live outside the city, and spend most of their time worried about making sure they don’t accumulate debt. They aren’t wealthy but they aren’t in debt either. But these people only become relevant in the latter half of the book so they don’t matter.

We spend the first few chapters of the book being introduced to this world system. Laws have been passed that make debt inter-generational. You inherit your parents’ debt. We later learn that this has been in place for about three generations. You have two options to handle your debt. Go to debtor’s prison or become a Docile (a slave) for a set period of time that is set forth in the contract agreed upon by you and your Patron (the one who will be paying your debt). As a Docile your Patron can do….well basically anything they wish to you, as long as they get you medical care and try to keep you alive. The wealthy seem to mainly use this power to rape their Dociles and have sex parties. I don’t know why, except so that we could put in sex scenes or make it seem more despicable. But the more we learned about the treatment of Dociles, the more I thought “you have told me nothing about debtor’s prison, but in pretty much any world it’s better than spending multiple years being raped……”

Dociles have rights…sort of. They have the right to request or refuse to use the drug Dociline (which makes them forget their memories while under its influence), they have the right to not tell anyone their real name, they have a right to medical care…and a few other things that really don’t matter. But here’s the rub. Everyone chooses to take Dociline (except Elisha it seems). Dociline makes that person agree to anything. So what is the point of insisting that there are rights they have if they have no capacity to realize that their rights may have been violated? It seemed utterly pointless. We spent a LOT of time being reminded of a Docile’s rights, but they are entirely unaware of themselves and unable to say no to anything. So they really don’t have those rights if no one is actually around to enforce them.

I knew that Alex would change course and suddenly have a change of heart about the company and Dociline, and would see Elisha as a human being and be horrified by his treatment of him. But it was also made clear to me through the writing that I was supposed to feel sorry for him. He just didn’t realize that what he was doing was wrong. Except that isn’t true. He knew it was wrong. He told us it was wrong over and over again. But he did it anyway. He spent 200 pages torturing and dehumanizing Elisha but then suddenly has so much regret and “loves” him. The fact that the two of them end up in a relationship at the end of the book was such bad judgment. It’s like the abused woman leaving the shelter to go back to the husband who’s been beating the crap out of her for years. That is literally what happened here. Elisha got a month or two of making his own choices and then went back to his abuser. I don’t give a damn if his abuser “changed” or was a better person, that was disgusting and cheap.

Now we come to my biggest problem with this book. It makes no sense. Literally zero sense. At first I thought this was the new debt system of the entire United States. But at the end we find out it’s only Maryland. So…..the entire federal government and 49 other states were totally okay with Maryland pretending that the Constitution doesn’t exist and that the Emancipation Proclamation, Civil War and Civil Rights Movement never happened? They just allow an entire state to reinstate slavery? No one took that decision to the Supreme Court as a gross violation of the Constitution? Really? I am expected to believe this? No sense. If it was the whole country then I could get there if you gave me an explanation. But one singular state that is allowed to do all these outlandish things with no interference or intrusion from other states or the federal government? I have a really hard time believing that is even remotely plausible.

This book is nothing more than an erotica with a snazzy tagline and a half backed premise. Which is disappointing because the writing is wonderful.