GODS WITHOUT MEN pretty much does as it says on the tin: across time and space, vastly different groups of people come to California's Pinnacle Rocks trying to find meaning and pattern in the chaos of their lives. Kunzru is a master of prose, spooling out story and its delicate spider-web of connections with the sandy dryness and glittery, mirage-inducing heat of an actual desert. As a Southern California native, I was pleased and engaged.

On the feminism front, however, this book lost stars for me. While I think the book is a brilliant study of racial microaggressions towards immigrants, people with brown skin, and natives, the female characters were more props than people. Even Lisa, our supposed main heroine, seems more a collection of anxieties and thorny source of obstacles for her husband Jaz. For example, she complains constantly about how rational and logical Jaz is, especially as she becomes more religious. And yes, it can be frustrating to be around a logical person all the time, or an agnostic person if you're faithful, but....Jaz was logical and agnostic when she married him. Why did she marry a logos-driven person if she doesn't jive well with logos-driven people? How did their relationship even function its way into marriage? It's just...very odd to me.

Finishing the book, I was torn. I appreciated learning more about what it's like to be brown. I didn't appreciate all the femmes being treated like objects. I found the writing style intriguing. I couldn't stand that every other character was named a variation of "Willis," "Prince," or "Fenton." I liked all the connections forged across timelines, all the lives the book touched. I really, really, really disliked the domestic abuse, violence, and threatened violence against women.

TL;DR: Kunzru is a beautiful writer. Read GODS WITHOUT MEN if you're interested in learning more about race, deserts, and space hippies. Don't read GODS WITHOUT MEN if you also want fleshed out femme characters.