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pineconek 's review for:
The Actual Star
by Monica Byrne
I literally made a YouTube video predicting this would be a five star book.
Oh how the mighty have fallen.
Why I considered giving this book five stars: the concept is really neat. Clifi has really grown on me in recent years, and I love watching the past echo in the present. I was charmed by the descriptive and detailed writing that depicted some really cool and memorable images of Jaguars and caves.
Why I considered giving this book four stars: the above, but I started noticing things that felt off to me and took me out of the story. I stopped being able to tell certain characters apart, only realizing later that there was "the character with an X in their name" and "the character with a J in their name" and that's how I was meant to keep track of which soul was which...but....
Why I considered giving it three stars: all the characters felt interchangeable past a certain point in the book and my investment in them nosedived completely. Things were getting somewhat repetitive. And, as many low reviews have said, the focus instead was on very bizarre sex and conversations about sex that were surprisingly boring. That and the futuristic social structure that was presented as utopian but read like a posthumanist nightmare. Which got me thinking...
Why I considered giving it two stars: the entire futuristic plotline turned incoherent quickly, and the social structures made very little sense. In fact, the more I thought about anything in this book, the less sense it made. The future world is centered around a religion that promotes isolation (don't spend more than 9 consecutive days with the same people), a focus on panopticism, where everyone has all sets of primary and secondary sexual characteristics, and uses spanish-derived words for relating to each other...but with "x" endings (hermanix, ninx, carnalix). Whether you agree or disagree with the modern use of "Latinx" in the current discourse is beside the point, as these linguistic choices made me think I was reading Asterix the Gaul. It was also inconsistent with the fact that everyone used she/her pronouns (this was explicitly stated in text multiple times) in honour of "st Leah", our main character from the present day timeline. Speaking of...
Why I'm giving this book one star: one actual star for this book. One star. Because everything just fell apart at the end. The more I thought about the coherence of the plot, the less sense it made. The entire plot presumes reincarnated twin souls are interested in a 19 year old Belizean/mayan-american who disappears in a cave. A whole religion is founded around this idea and the late night scribbles of her tourguide, a religion that persists throughout the following millenniums climate crisis, post humanistic nomadic but futuristic world... Why?
The more I think about the coherence of anything in this novel, the more things fall apart. And that's setting aside the copious amounts of glorified self harm and twincest present. I'm left with frustration.
And so here I am, giving this book one actual star. I stuck it out so you don't have to.
I somehow expressed even more thoughts here: https://youtu.be/Wj9tTFqo-BM
Oh how the mighty have fallen.
Why I considered giving this book five stars: the concept is really neat. Clifi has really grown on me in recent years, and I love watching the past echo in the present. I was charmed by the descriptive and detailed writing that depicted some really cool and memorable images of Jaguars and caves.
Why I considered giving this book four stars: the above, but I started noticing things that felt off to me and took me out of the story. I stopped being able to tell certain characters apart, only realizing later that there was "the character with an X in their name" and "the character with a J in their name" and that's how I was meant to keep track of which soul was which...but....
Why I considered giving it three stars: all the characters felt interchangeable past a certain point in the book and my investment in them nosedived completely. Things were getting somewhat repetitive. And, as many low reviews have said, the focus instead was on very bizarre sex and conversations about sex that were surprisingly boring. That and the futuristic social structure that was presented as utopian but read like a posthumanist nightmare. Which got me thinking...
Why I considered giving it two stars: the entire futuristic plotline turned incoherent quickly, and the social structures made very little sense. In fact, the more I thought about anything in this book, the less sense it made. The future world is centered around a religion that promotes isolation (don't spend more than 9 consecutive days with the same people), a focus on panopticism, where everyone has all sets of primary and secondary sexual characteristics, and uses spanish-derived words for relating to each other...but with "x" endings (hermanix, ninx, carnalix). Whether you agree or disagree with the modern use of "Latinx" in the current discourse is beside the point, as these linguistic choices made me think I was reading Asterix the Gaul. It was also inconsistent with the fact that everyone used she/her pronouns (this was explicitly stated in text multiple times) in honour of "st Leah", our main character from the present day timeline. Speaking of...
Why I'm giving this book one star: one actual star for this book. One star. Because everything just fell apart at the end. The more I thought about the coherence of the plot, the less sense it made. The entire plot presumes reincarnated twin souls are interested in a 19 year old Belizean/mayan-american who disappears in a cave. A whole religion is founded around this idea and the late night scribbles of her tourguide, a religion that persists throughout the following millenniums climate crisis, post humanistic nomadic but futuristic world... Why?
The more I think about the coherence of anything in this novel, the more things fall apart. And that's setting aside the copious amounts of glorified self harm and twincest present. I'm left with frustration.
And so here I am, giving this book one actual star. I stuck it out so you don't have to.
I somehow expressed even more thoughts here: https://youtu.be/Wj9tTFqo-BM