2.5 stars

The Genesis of Misery wasn’t the hit I was hoping it would be. I will admit part of this was because of misplaced expectations. While I can appreciate some of what Neon Yang was going for I ultimately didn’t connect to this story as much as I'd hoped I would.

The Genesis of Misery follows Misery Nomaki (she/they) a burnout criminal from a dirt-poor mining planet. Misery is seeing visions and is convinced she’s on the precipice of succumbing to the same madness that took her mother’s life. However, her will to survive sees her play the role of a prophet and she soon becomes a key player in turning the tides of an intergalactic war.

As I mentioned above I went into this novel with skewed expectations. Namely that politics and tensions between the monarchy and church would take centre stage in the novel. I know it's unfair to measure a book by your own expectation rather than what you’re given, but what makes this bait-and-switch frustrating for me was the hints of fascinating complex politicking in the background of the narrative. Reflections on the futility of war and cyclical violence existed exclusively in the background of the story and our protagonist rarely engaged with them.

I will say Neon Yang’s prose throughout this novel was fairly well rendered. Barring a handful of jarring modern anachronism and instances of meme speak Yang captured religious grandiosity incredibly well thought the story. They were especially skilled at describing the mechas that become central to the story. Yang articulated just how reverence-inducing the angel-like mechs were. They also contrasted that holy imagery with their inherent brutality to great effect. Overall Yang's lush descriptive prose was well suited to this tale.

While I liked Neon Yang's descriptive prose I didn't connect with their narrative style. This story is largely told by a third-person omniscient narrator. While we can get pretty close to Misery’s thoughts and feelings there was often a distant formality to the storytelling that held me at arm's length. This was most apparent in the series of interludes scattered throughout the novel that bridged gaps in time and offered a retroactive perspective on events. These often drained immediacy of Misery's feelings making it harder to connect with them.

My initial disconnect with Misery as a character wasn't helped by how rocky I found her character arc. We are introduced to Misery as a cynical opportunist willing to do anything to survive. As a staunch non-believer, they are in complete denial about the possibility that they are actually the prophet that was promised and only playacts as such to stay alive. I wouldn't have objected to seeing a gradual change of heart as Misery either becomes more convinced she's a prophet or finds greater meaning than self-preservation. However, the narrative gives us an almost instant conversion instead. Misery's journey from a self-involved swindler to the Forge’s most faithful was abrupt, to say the least. From that moment her motivations, beliefs, goals and personality completely changed dissolving what little connection I had with them in the first place. This meant as the story reached a crescendo I wasn't invested in what was going on.

If there’s a positive note I can leave this review with its that The Genesis of Misery’s ending was somewhat redeeming. The reveal of who had been narrating the tale was fitting and contextualized the story in new and interesting ways. This satisfying note the story ended on did ultimately soften the rough edges of the book for me.