bookhobbit (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bookhobbit) wrote2019-06-11 07:29 pm
bookhobbit) wrote2019-06-11 07:29 pm
Entry tags:
book review: In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan
I picked this up at the local library's Pride display, which had a bunch of queer books on it. Please don't expect objectivity of me, folks, this maybe my favorite new book I've read this year.
Ahhhhh what can I even say? Let me start off with talking about the negatives such as they are so I can pretend this is a fair and balanced review and not just a chance to, as we used to say, squee.
Uhhh there were not that many people of colour. Also I was 100% DEAD sure it was gonna have an endgame polyam relationship between the three leads and it did not, so that was a little disappointing.
And that's...it. I loved everything else?? Oh my god the writing style y'all. How can I even describe it. It's one of those contemporary, poetic, beautiful ones, but it's got a lot of snark. It has a certain...hm. Fairy-tale? quality, which suits the general themes but is also just really fun.
The worldbuilding was good? I also usually don't like "gender stereotypes just like ours but it's a matriarchy!" but I thought this one was unusually well done because it made such a point of gender stereotypes, in general, being arbitrary and bad. And the justifications (like "women don't RAISE children, because they have to BEAR them") served to highlight how totally arbitrary and feeble the double standards and stereotypes in our world are. Usually matriarchies in fiction are either "wouldn't everything be so much better if women were in charge" or "wouldn't everything be so much worse if women were in charge" but this one felt a bit more balanced.
But actually the worldbuilding (which mostly just felt like a competent, logical pastiche of fairylands rather ala DWJ) was not what drew me in. That's a bit unusual for me. I mean it was good, but, like. The characters.
It's always hard for me to describe what makes characters really come alive off the page for me. Because equally competent books don't always generate it. Of the many, many things I've read in the last couple of years, I can only think of a few that had characters which really, really leapt off the page for me, on what I might describe as a fandom level. Vorkosigan Saga, Raven Cycle, that kind of thing. I don't know what makes it happen, but this is one of them.
I think it's maybe something about the sheer, deep, pulled-up-from-your-stomach level of visceral emotion, especially insecurity and interpersonal pain, written in a way that's convincing and beautiful. That is maybe what sticks with me. In Other Lands has it in spades. Elliott is A Lot. A lot. And his eventual relationship with Luke, after all the pain and unloved-ness he's dealt with, made me so so happy. Especially because he continued to be equally insufferable afterwards, just like. Happily? I love him.
The unfortunate thing is that I now have Bless the Broken Road, a favorite song of my cousins', stuck in my head.
Anyway, anyway, ANYWAY, I thought it was beautiful, funny, touching, and gorgeous. Elliott's commitment to changing the world, his absolute determination that Things Must Be Different, really got to me. Luke's self-hatred about the harpy thing and Elliott's "wtf how do you not realize how hot you are"! Brief fake dating! The writing style. Ahhhh.
Ahhhhh what can I even say? Let me start off with talking about the negatives such as they are so I can pretend this is a fair and balanced review and not just a chance to, as we used to say, squee.
Uhhh there were not that many people of colour. Also I was 100% DEAD sure it was gonna have an endgame polyam relationship between the three leads and it did not, so that was a little disappointing.
And that's...it. I loved everything else?? Oh my god the writing style y'all. How can I even describe it. It's one of those contemporary, poetic, beautiful ones, but it's got a lot of snark. It has a certain...hm. Fairy-tale? quality, which suits the general themes but is also just really fun.
The worldbuilding was good? I also usually don't like "gender stereotypes just like ours but it's a matriarchy!" but I thought this one was unusually well done because it made such a point of gender stereotypes, in general, being arbitrary and bad. And the justifications (like "women don't RAISE children, because they have to BEAR them") served to highlight how totally arbitrary and feeble the double standards and stereotypes in our world are. Usually matriarchies in fiction are either "wouldn't everything be so much better if women were in charge" or "wouldn't everything be so much worse if women were in charge" but this one felt a bit more balanced.
But actually the worldbuilding (which mostly just felt like a competent, logical pastiche of fairylands rather ala DWJ) was not what drew me in. That's a bit unusual for me. I mean it was good, but, like. The characters.
It's always hard for me to describe what makes characters really come alive off the page for me. Because equally competent books don't always generate it. Of the many, many things I've read in the last couple of years, I can only think of a few that had characters which really, really leapt off the page for me, on what I might describe as a fandom level. Vorkosigan Saga, Raven Cycle, that kind of thing. I don't know what makes it happen, but this is one of them.
I think it's maybe something about the sheer, deep, pulled-up-from-your-stomach level of visceral emotion, especially insecurity and interpersonal pain, written in a way that's convincing and beautiful. That is maybe what sticks with me. In Other Lands has it in spades. Elliott is A Lot. A lot. And his eventual relationship with Luke, after all the pain and unloved-ness he's dealt with, made me so so happy. Especially because he continued to be equally insufferable afterwards, just like. Happily? I love him.
The unfortunate thing is that I now have Bless the Broken Road, a favorite song of my cousins', stuck in my head.
Anyway, anyway, ANYWAY, I thought it was beautiful, funny, touching, and gorgeous. Elliott's commitment to changing the world, his absolute determination that Things Must Be Different, really got to me. Luke's self-hatred about the harpy thing and Elliott's "wtf how do you not realize how hot you are"! Brief fake dating! The writing style. Ahhhh.