Book Love (original) (raw)

Ugh. I did NOT like this book. I loved the Imperial Radch Trilogy so I thought I'd fall right back into the world. Lance attempted to read this book first, about a third of the way through he was like, "NOPE" and tossed it aside. I thought I'd have a go and I was determined to at least get further than he did, to see if there was anything there.

Yeah. NOPE.

Here's where it fell down for me:
1. The gender thing she's trying to do. OK, multiple/chosen/alternative genders can be interesting but in this case the language is just confusing, the inconsistency (wait, that person was "e" a minute ago now that person is "she" - who are we even talking about and why am I thinking more about their gender pronoun than the freaking storyline?!) is a large problem and the "just accept this" approach is frustrating to me as a reader. Not because I have an issue with alternative pronouns but because I have an issue with badly done, distracting from your point alternative pronouns.

2. The relationships. The story has several relationships that should have layers and be interesting. They are not. The relationships all feel incredibly two-dimensional and kind of "middle school flat" - if that makes sense. They have no depth, are not engaging, and seem to be build on ideas about relationships, not on actual interactive relationships.

3. The "caper" - this book promotes itself as kind of a caper/adventure thing. I did not see that. In fact, I was confused and bored pretty much the entire time.

4. The politics. Clearly there's a whole political world in Leckie's head. I wish more of it had been obvious on the page.

In the end, it wasn't so bad that I stopped reading, I decided to finish it hoping that something of the fun that was reading the Trilogy would emerge. It didn't. I just didn't find anything engaging about this piece which makes me sad.

Rating: 5 of 10