Book Review: Poster Girl by Veronica Roth

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Poster Girl
Author: Veronica Roth
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication date: October 18, 2022
Length: 288 pages
Genre: Science fiction/dystopian
Source: Library
Rating:

WHAT’S RIGHT IS RIGHT.

Sonya Kantor knows this slogan–she lived by it for most of her life. For decades, everyone in the Seattle-Portland megalopolis lived under it, as well as constant surveillance in the form of the Insight, an ocular implant that tracked every word and every action, rewarding or punishing by a rigid moral code set forth by the Delegation.

Then there was a revolution. The Delegation fell. Its most valuable members were locked in the Aperture, a prison on the outskirts of the city. And everyone else, now free from the Insight’s monitoring, went on with their lives.

Sonya, former poster girl for the Delegation, has been imprisoned for ten years when an old enemy comes to her with a deal: find a missing girl who was stolen from her parents by the old regime, and earn her freedom. The path Sonya takes to find the child will lead her through an unfamiliar, crooked post-Delegation world where she finds herself digging deeper into the past–and her family’s dark secrets–than she ever wanted to.

With razor sharp prose, Poster Girl is a haunting dystopian mystery that explores the expanding role of surveillance on society–an inescapable reality that we welcome all too easily.

Most of the YA dystopian novels I’ve read follow a similar story arc. We learn about the society and all the ways in which it’s awful, we follow a plucky hero as they work to overthrow the government, and we end with a victory.

But what happens after the victory? When the bad guys are toppled from power, what takes their place? And what happens to the many people who lived under the old regime — not major evil-doers, but those who, one way or another, ended up on the wrong side of history?

In Poster Girl, marketed as an adult novel rather than YA, author Veronica Roth shows us one particular post-dystopian world. We meet Sonya Kantor, daughter of an influential figure within the Delegation, the toppled autocratic government. Sonya herself was deemed “mediocre” by the Delegation and never did anything considered particularly important… until her father asked her if she’d like to be featured on an official Delegation poster. Ten years after the Delegation’s demise, Sonya is still known as Poster Girl — and nobody means that as a good thing anymore.

Sonya is imprisoned in the Aperture, a former block of apartment buildings heading slowly toward decay, now a prison for people associated with the Delegation (but not having done anything quite heinous enough to get sent to a more formal prison, or worse). The outside world seems content to let the residents of the Aperture fade away, in shoddy living conditions and inadequate food, and absolutely no hope of anything other than remaining there until they eventually die.

But when a new policy comes into effect by which Children of the Delegation — those imprisoned while minors — can be freed, Sonya remains just the wrong side of the age cut-off. Initially imprisoned at seventeen, she’s now 27 and just a teeny bit too old to qualify for release… until a former acquaintance offers her a too-good-to-be-true deal: Find a long-missing child on behalf of the Triumvirate, the new governing body, and she’ll earn her freedom at last.

As Poster Girl moves forward, we see Sonya navigate the changed city outside the Aperture’s walls, learning what has changed (and what hasn’t) in the years of her incarceration. It’s hard to hope, but harder to walk away, even though the idea of freedom doesn’t necessarily offer her any promise of happiness. With no family or friends on the outside, what could possibly await her?

I found Sonya’s challenge to be quite intriguing. She’s not a straight-forward hero. She’s done some lousy things in her past, blithely went along with the Delegation’s rules, victimized others for her own benefit. And yet, the prospect of a hopeless life within the Aperture makes Sonya sympathetic. Despite her past, she’s clearly trying to help others in her present, and her complicated mix of guilt and remorse make her an interesting character, morally grey, but trying and hoping to be better.

For me, this look into a post-dystopian world presented a unique take on a disjointed imagined future. As I mentioned earlier, I’m used to dystopian fiction that ends right after the victory. Hurray, the evil government has been overthrown! But the question of what comes next presents more nuanced questions to consider. Is the replacement government truly better? What’s life like for average people in the new society? Are people better off? Who determines which people end up on the right side of history?

Poster Girl features fascinating characters in a thought-provoking situation. While some of the action and investigation sequences felt a little unrealistic, overall, I thought the storyline was well written. Fast-paced and never dull, Poster Girl is well worth the read!

20Oct2021

Shelf Control #290: A Song For A New Day by Sarah Pinsker

Posted in Shelf Control by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.

Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.

Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!

Title: A Song For a New Day
Author: Sarah Pinsker
Published: 2019
Length: 384 pages

What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):

In this captivating science fiction novel from an award-winning author, public gatherings are illegal making concerts impossible, except for those willing to break the law for the love of music, and for one chance at human connection.
In the Before, when the government didn’t prohibit large public gatherings, Luce Cannon was on top of the world. One of her songs had just taken off and she was on her way to becoming a star. Now, in the After, terror attacks and deadly viruses have led the government to ban concerts, and Luce’s connection to the world—her music, her purpose—is closed off forever. She does what she has to do: she performs in illegal concerts to a small but passionate community, always evading the law.
Rosemary Laws barely remembers the Before times. She spends her days in Hoodspace, helping customers order all of their goods online for drone delivery—no physical contact with humans needed. By lucky chance, she finds a new job and a new calling: discover amazing musicians and bring their concerts to everyone via virtual reality. The only catch is that she’ll have to do something she’s never done before and go out in public. Find the illegal concerts and bring musicians into the limelight they deserve. But when she sees how the world could actually be, that won’t be enough.

How and when I got it:

I bought the Kindle edition over a year ago.

Why I want to read it:

I first heard about this book when it won the 2019 Nebula Award for best novel, and must have grabbed a copy when there was a price break at some point after that. At the time of its release and award spree, I thought it sounded like a fascinating dystopian read, but not necessarily something that felt connected to real life.

Whoo boy. Fast forward to our ongoing pandemic, and this book feels practically prescient! Not leaving the house, not being out in public, bans on gatherings, no concerts? Check, check, check, and check!

Granted, the circumstances in the book are different… but not all that different, if deadly viruses are part of what triggers this sort of shutdown.

I’m still curious about this book and would like to read it, but I’ve also pretty consistently shied away from books that feel too closely connected to pandemics, so my reader instincts on this one are very mixed. On the one hand, I do think it sounds great! But on the other hand, now might not be the best time.

What do you think? Would you read this book?

Please share your thoughts!

Literary Potpourri

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Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how:

Write a blog post about a book that you own that you haven’t read yet.
Add your link in the comments or link back from your own post, so I can add you to the participant list.
Check out other posts, and…

Have fun!

24Jun2021

Book Review: The World Gives Way by Marissa Levien

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The World Gives Way
Author: Marissa Levien
Publisher: Redhook
Publication date: June 15, 2021
Length: 380 pages
Genre: Science fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher
Rating:

In a near-future world on the brink of collapse, a young woman born into servitude must seize her own freedom in this glittering debut with a brilliant twist; perfect for fans of Station Eleven, Karen Thompson Walker, and Naomi Alderman.

In fifty years, Myrra will be free.

Until then, she’s a contract worker. Ever since she was five, her life and labor have belonged to the highest bidder on her contract–butchers, laundries, and now the powerful, secretive Carlyles.

But when one night finds the Carlyles dead, Myrra is suddenly free a lot sooner than she anticipated–and at a cost she never could have imagined. Burdened with the Carlyles’ orphaned daughter and the terrible secret they died to escape, she runs. With time running out, Myrra must come face to face with the truth about her world–and embrace what’s left before it’s too late.

A sweeping novel with a darkly glimmering heart, The World Gives Way is an unforgettable portrait of a world in freefall, and the fierce drive to live even at the end of it all.

Based on the synopsis, I expected a dystopian world of class wars and enforced servitude. And yes, that is what’s going on here, but also…

[SPOILER ALERT FOR BIG REVEAL AT END OF FIRST CHAPTER]

[BUT IS IT REALLY A SPOILER IF YOU FIND OUT IN THE FIRST CHAPTER???]

Here’s the spoiler…

The world is a spaceship.

Yup. This is a science fiction novel, and I had no idea before I picked it up!!

Now that that’s out of the way…

Myrra Dal is indentured to the Carlyle family, thanks to a contract signed by her great-grandmother. It’s a work contract that’s binding for not just the original contract signer, but for generations to follow. Myrra is the last in the chain. There are fifty years left on her contract, and then she’ll be free. Of course, this isn’t really a comfort to Myrra: A woman in her 20s, she doesn’t relish the idea of being old by the time she’s released from the contract, but she has no options. Contracts are completely binding and are enforced by the government’s security bureau, which tracks down those who try to escape. Rumor has it that there are executions, but no one really knows for sure.

And back to that spaceship thing: The world of the The World Gives Way is a huge space ship (which the book refers to as “the world the ship” and people just think of as the world). It’s been traveling for centuries, and is expected to reach their planetary destination within fifty years. It’s implied that the Earth was on its way to becoming uninhabitable when the ship was built and launched, and finding a home on board sounds like it was something available to the privileged and wealthy, plus all the workers needed to support a comfortable lifestyle during the lengthy journey.

When I say that the ship is huge, I really mean it. It’s described as being about the size of Switzerland! Which (I looked up for comparison) is equivalent to about Vermont and New Hampshire combined, or closer to home for me, about the size of the Bay Area. (I absolutely couldn’t grasp the size until I had something more familiar to compare it to.)

The world of the ship includes large cities, resort getaways, mountains, deserts, and seas. It really is a world unto itself. For those who can afford it, there are luxuries and extravagances. For everyone else, there’s work and a daily drudge.

As the novel opens, Myrra’s employer, Imogene Carlyle, summons Myrra to the roof of their penthouse. Imogene intends to jump, and wants Myrra to promise to care for her baby, Charlotte. She tells Myrra a huge secret, known only to the top tier of politicians (such as her husband) and government scientists — there’s a breach in the outer hull of the ship, and despite months of study and efforts, there’s no way to repair it. The ship is doomed, expected to breach completely within the next few months. Imogene and Marcus have decided to end their lives now, leaving Charlotte in Myrra’s care. And then she jumps.

Myrra can’t quite believe what’s happened or what she’s just heard, but after searching Marcus’s office, she’s convinced. Taking money from the Carlyle’s safe, she escapes with Charlotte, heading out on the run in search of temporary freedom, alone with the knowledge of the inescapable end of the world.

From here, we also meet Tobias, a rookie cop with a burdened family history who’s assigned the Myrra Dal runaway case as his big opportunity to prove himself. Since no one knows why the Carlyles committed suicide, or if it might even be murder, Myrra is not only an escaped contract worker but also a suspect in their deaths and the kidnapping of their daughter. Tobias and his older partner are hot on Myrra’s trail, following leads that take them to Palmer, an underwater domed city, and onward from there.

Meanwhile, the world begins to show signs of doom. There are more and more frequent “earthquakes”, causing damage, then city-ending destruction, and other strange phenomena as well. Buildings collapse and people are killed, and finally, the government has no choice but to share the horrible news.

But what good does knowing do when there’s no escape? The world the ship is alone is space, years away from any known destination or safe harbor. As the end nears, all Myrra can do is continue her journey, trying to find some sort of solution for Charlotte, and almost inadvertently looking for a semblance of peace for herself.

The World Gives Way has a sense of inevitability about it. As interspersed chapters tell us, the end is indeed coming. These small interludes, in between the chapters focusing on Myrra and Tobias, show us how different parts of the world experience the end and what happens to the people there. It’s awful, because we know all along that there’s only one way the story can end — the world does in fact give way.

That said, Myrra and Tobias’s parallel and then joined journeys are fascinating and moving to read. Their experiences combine elements of an adventure story — daring escapes, near misses, constant danger, clever ruses — with introspective moments about their lives, their pasts, and their hopes, now shown to be out of reach.

As with other books about the end of the world, it can be a very melancholy read, as we know that no matter how much we might wish otherwise, all the characters we meet are doomed. Still, their journey is powerful and and I was very caught up in seeing how their experiences would change them. Would they find peace? Would they make new discoveries? Would they find a way out for Charlotte? I won’t tell here, but I found the ending sad, satisfying, and oddly right, in its own way.

I will say that my brain could never quite grasp the enormity of the world the ship. How can there be a space ship the size of Switzerland? There are only brief descriptions of the overall shape and design of the container of the world — the ship’s hulls, its cylindrical shape, its rotational access — but my mind just never quite got how there could be an entire world, with geographical features like seas and mountains, inside a ship. (That said, I was fine with reading Discworld, in which the entire world travels through space on the back of a giant turtle… but hey, that’s fantasy!)

Despite not being able to come to terms with the size and features of the ship itself, I did enjoy the attempt to picture it all, and couldn’t help but admire the author’s inventiveness in creating such a strange, weird world. Besides the physical aspects of the world, I thought it was also very clever to create such a stratified society, with the ultra-privileged wealthy few dominating the lives of so many contract workers and free working class people. It’s literally an entire world created to support the privilege of those able to afford a new life on a new planet, and the social structure really is fascinating.

The World Gives Way is a little inconsistent in tone, with its ups and downs of action and emotion, but I did like it very much. It wasn’t what I expected, but it ends up really delivering an engrossing and thought-provoking reading experience.

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