An Unkindness of Ghosts

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.