It’s an anguish-inducing read - bleak, brutal, and unforgiving. The world is viscerally disturbing and the characters fight to survive horror after horror. Solomon has crafted a tale of slavery filled with rage & humanity & challenges to perceived boundaries around gender and sexuality.

We follow Aster, who lives with other low-deckers on the HSS Matilda. The ship is organized in quite a literal hierarchy, with darker-skinned enslaved workers serving those who live above. It has been generations since humans have inhabited Earth and not much memory remains; the Matilda is en route to an idealized Promised Land amongst the stars. 

Aster has always been an outcast, but has forged a unique relationship with the revered Surgeon, Theo. Her medical prowess allows her access to parts of the ship and slight privileges that could help her uncover a mystery – a mystery related to the unusual death of the Matilda’s leader & the suicide of Aster’s mother - and a chance to escape.

I found the characterization to be quite incredible. Between Aster & Theo and other major characters’ neurodivergence, their fury and determination and ways of coping, and their experiences with gender & identity … I was incredibly engaged and felt as though they were living and breathing fleshed-out individuals. 

Additionally, while we don’t get a lot of history to the world-building (how has so much of Earth’s history been forgotten? why is the ship essentially a recreation of the antebellum South? where did their specific religion come from?), the current reality was detailed and vivid. 

While the characters and ship were both incredibly rich, I didn’t quite get enough of a grasp on the plot. I had a lot of overarching questions. I didn’t mind the open-ended final chapter, but I did feel like the pacing leading up to the climax was uneven. There were major reveals here that didn’t feel like they were given enough weight.

But overall … wow. I’ll have dreams about this one.

CW: racism, slavery, rape & various forms of sexual assault and violence, police brutality, medical content, death & murder (including child death), physical & emotional abuse & torture, gun violence, mental illness, suicide & suicide attempts, self harm, homophobia & transphobia & all forms of queerphobia, abortion, sexism & misogyny, confinement, ableism, slurs (racial, homophobic), classism, psychosis, religious bigotry, fire, colonization, pedophilia, excrement, vomit, amputation

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