An Unkindness of Ghosts

I really flew through this book, even though I wouldn't necessarily call it an easy read. There is a lot of pain, sexual assault and racism/classism, state-sanctioned murder and constant discrimination. There are some inconsistencies in the book and sometimes things are mentioned that don't go anywhere, but I liked reading it and I really liked Aster as a character.

Immersive and oftentimes uncomfortable, “An Unkindness Of Ghosts” is a modern must-read. 

So much of this book didn't work: the physics, the political power structure, the life-support mechanisms, the security protocols, many of the interpersonal dynamics, the languages. But that's just logistics—as a whole, it worked remarkably well regardless. It kept me hooked, made me think and feel. I honestly enjoyed it.

The story is more than just a clumsy Southern Plantations In Space: sweeping themes include body autonomy, gender identity, arbitrariness of beauty norms, neurodiversity, abuse of power, and the use of religion to justify race/class persecution. (A significant subset of my hot-button topics). Solomon writes with deep feeling: I cared about even the minor characters. Huge thanks to E. for handing me this book.

I liked the idea of a strong caste-system being enforced on a generation ship, which launched from a post-apocalyptic earth with no destination. Planets are, in some ways, just generation ships, but it feels more claustrophobic in a ship, and therefore less room for idealism. I liked Aster and the deuteragonist, Theo a lot as part of a complicated, diverse and neurodiverse cast. And I also liked that for once in a dystopian setting, Solomon really explores the psychological impact of trauma in a way that is unflinching but still leaves room for sympathy.

But while the first half of the book was fascinating and driven by a compelling mystery, the denouement of the central mystery around page 150 requiring a bunch of pseudoscientific babble broke the metafictional agreement of mysteries (i.e. that before they are solved the reader at least has heard of all of the core components necessary to solve them; no fictional toxic heavy metal elements at the last minute.) And following that, the pacing really lagged into a series of upsetting but ultimately irrelevant oppression scenes. And ultimately, I wasn't sure what Solomon was trying to say about American slavery by telling a very conventional slavery narrative in space. I wish they had used the setting to advance the narrative.

Rereading this one for a class really improved my opinion of it. Solid read.

Incredible!!!! Read it.

Updated review: I finished the book in IRL form. I still found it very challenging to get through at times and my interest only began to peak slowly as I kept reading. I was very invested in the last 100 pages, but the ending felt rushed. I have a great respect for so much of the brilliance of the book, e.g. taking you to another world, but really showcasing the parallels of our real modern world. Unfortunately, I think the audiobook ruined much of it for me, then it took me effort to get into the writing style, with a lackluster ending. 3.5 stars.

I quit the audiobook halfway through, “reading” it at double speed. For me the narration itself was brutal to listen to as it was very monotone, but the narrator's character voices were excellent. I wanted to know more while reading and still do, so I plan to eventually pickup the actual book.

World building and characters are unique and interesting, but I wasn't quite convinced by the plot. There are some specific moments where a character will do a thing (that takes the plot in a certain direction) and I just couldn't justify it with logic or madness or anything else.

It feels strange to say I really enjoyed this, because it is brutal. An Unkindness of Ghosts is set on a massive spacecraft with stratified decks, operating as a sort of racial caste system. Those on the upper decks live lavishly, while those on the lower decks toil and starve and freeze, made to ration resources they can barely access.

People on the lower decks live entrenched in scarcity and cruelty. But despite moments of hopelessness, Aster and her loved ones are defiant. Aster wastes no energy humanizing those whose worldview requires her dehumanization. She matter-of-factly rejects demands that she sympathize with or apologize to people that subject her and countless others to gratuitous violence.

Moreover, Aster, Theo, and others reject binary definitions of gender and sexuality. They are skeptical and unimpressed. They are bored by the boxes they are expected to place themselves and others into. Which is not to say they don't see the impact of gender and sexuality in their society; quite the opposite. The way they practice medicine shows this.

Aster and Theo use their expertise in medicine to provide healthcare that not only decreases pain and fear, but increases autonomy. The pain suffered by their patients is seen as trivial, or even necessary for the stability and advancement of society. The care they take in healing these wounds refutes this.

There's a lot more to say about this book (like its searing but precise depiction of mental illness, for example), but you should probably just read it. I've come away drained, but it can't be about what it's about and be a feel-good read. It didn't feel like torture porn to me: the guards and political leaders subject the lower decks to gratuitous violence, but the book is about how that violence is gratuitous and despicable. It depicts cruelty so that it can be challenged.

I think this is a strong debut by an author who has a lot to say. I'll definitely read more Rivers Solomon in the future.

3.5 I liked the big picture of the story and the identities of the characters—women of colour, neuroatypical, queer, non-maternal. The pacing was lurching, however, with some episodes feeling out of place, others unfinished, while others still went on too long, like with the multiple flashbacks of misogynist role play. It's a world that replicates our same oppressions without authorial resolve, character actions are erratic, and there's just a general jumble through to a hurried conclusion. My interest ended well before then, with the successful detective work, but that was also the book's strength, as a satisfying sci-fi mystery.

Oh wow.

A rebuttal to “Orphans of the sky” and everything I wished “Binti” was. This beautiful narrative is artfully craft and and captivating. I lost my self in in Solomon's words, but she never lost the story in all the richness of her universe.

Amazing!

This was a hard book to get through. However, it was worth the effort.

I didn't particularly care for this book. The book had a lot of potential. Solomon made a bold attempt at tackling complex topics concerning gender, race, and sexuality. The book thus could have been a thoughtful journey for the reader. But, in this respect, the book did not deliver. The discussion of race lacked originality. Many, many novels about the Antebellum South have the same message (“racism is bad”). Aster's struggles with racism did not feel much different from classic YA novels like [b:Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry 310459 Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Logans, #4) Mildred D. Taylor https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388345167s/310459.jpg 1165554]. The issues of gender and sexuality felt like a sidebar. Moreover, the plot itself was too thin to support the weight of these topics. It was never clear what was driving the plot forward. There were many unbelievable aspects of the plot, which further distracted. Why would the leader of an entire colony ship care about one low-class person, singling her out for abuse? Why does everyone seem to know everyone if the ship is so large? All of this said, I think that Solomon has tremendous potential as an author and I would be interested in reading their work in the future.

This book took time to read in the best way. It is heart-breaking, brutal, fascinating, and real. Rivers Solomon explores themes of race, gender, religion, and power through the magnified lens of a generation ship. Their main character, Aster, is a brilliant doctor who struggles with understanding others and forming relationships, but the relationships she does make are powerful enough to carry her through her dangerous quest through her mother's notes.

The blurb on the back compares the ship to the antebellum south, but that seems a shortcut to saying black people in this book are slaves. The system is more complicated and a whole different variety of horrific because this is an organized future and thus also heavily influenced by the present. This isn't a dissection of the past but an exploration of where the present could lead us if we forget to treat our fellow people like people. It's hard to read, but I'm glad I did.

Aster is my new hero. This is a case of the jacket copy not quite nailing what the novel is about, so I found myself at a loss reading this. I don't know, I went in expecting Snowpiercer and got something much different. I had some trouble following the plot but I chalked that up to the fact that Aster is a complex character who does not think in a linear way and to the flashbacks/fairytales/religious stories that are jammed in here as well. Sometimes the flashbacks went on for an entire chapter and I'd forget what was happening.
Overall, it's one of the most original works I have read in a long time.

Executive Summary: This book is brutal and hard to read at times, but very well written and I ended up enjoying it far more than I expected to from the blurb alone.

Full Review
I hadn't heard of this book at all before it was chosen as the March pick for Sword & Laser. The blurb really didn't excite me, so I decided to borrow this from the library and ended up having my hold come in much earlier than I'd planned.

The first few chapters didn't really pull me in. Aster is an oppressed “lower deck” woman who seems to have some kind of background in medicine/healing. Everything changed for me a few chapters in when we discover there is some sort of mystery surrounding the suicide of Aster's mother.

To me the mystery aspect of this book was the most interesting/intriguing. I think if that part had been included in the book blurb (goodreads has an extra paragraph that hints a bit at the mystery that my copy of the book didn't have on the back) I might have been interested in reading it beforehand.

I found the characters well-developed, and extremely complex. These are people who have been forced to suffer a great deal. Some of the characters are broken. Likely all of them are to some degree. Aster seems able to rise above it most of the time, but even she is not immune.

The world-building was pretty interesting too. The story takes place on a generation-ship, with a rigid class system. We learn some more about the ship as it goes on, but the finer details never really come. It's largely a character-driven story.

The oppression aspects make this hard to read. It is very reflective of the ways in which minorities have long been treated. The abuse, the demeaning behavior, and all around atrocities are hard to stomach. They should be though. This is the horrible kind of behavior humans, especially those of privilege have been doing for centuries to those who happen to be born into a “lower” class.

I generally read to escape. Things aren't exactly very happy right now. That made this book very hard to read at times. However the mystery that Aster was investigating really sucked me in.

It's also so well written that it was less off-putting to me as it might have otherwise been. It's quite an impressive debut novel from Rivers Solomon.

There are some circles out there who are angry at this type of Science-Fiction because it holds up a mirror and if they are being honest they don't like what they see reflected back at them. I'm not one of those people, but I generally don't go out of my way to read this sort of thing.

I'm glad this was picked because I think it's important to get uncomfortable at a book like this because it can be so close to non-fiction at times. I will definitely be more interested in picking up Rivers Solomon's next book as a result.

The characters in this book are amazing! They are complicated and lovely. They all feel natural. Aster has habits that could appear on the Autsim spectrum, but that isn't what we notice about her. We just notice her. Theo and Giselle and Ainy also have their ‘issues' and ‘titles' you could give them, but mostly we just see the person. That is why you should read this book in order to meet these characters.
As you are reading it, you might notice a few other things. It does not start with a lot of world building, so we are figuring it all out as we read. There were a couple times that I got a little lost. There are several levels of the ship and wings within those levels and each of these have characteristics typical of them that are not typical of others. There are references to the language they use as well as the gender roles they embody.
There is also A LOT going on in this book. It doesn't feel like it is all resolved, but maybe that is the point. All of life is rarely tied up in a neat bow. It also leaves room for another book. There are also a couple times that things get a bit preachy. Not so much that I skipped it, but enough that it took me out of the experience of reading. However more often than not, I was wrapped up in the life of Matilda and what would happen next.
All of that was worth it because these characters were so amazing.

This book is fascinating; at its core, it's a book about modern slavery (drawn along U.S. historical lines) in space. I loved that Solomon incorporated strong, detailed nonbinary and genderqueer characters in the book, and the plot itself felt reminiscent of an Octavia Butler book.