Geometry for Ocelots

The writing at times comes off as amateurish, but there’s a very clear and palpable passion put into this story that translates into passages that read nothing short of stupendously beautiful. Sometimes this tale held onto me and didn’t let go.

First of all I want to say that I will not support Exurb1a in the future. I recommend that you search for "Pieke Roelofs" online for the reasons behind this. In short, after some research on the subject, I am personally convinced that her story is real. And what a horrible story it is.

I'll now do my best to review the book on its own merits. The star rating is my opinion of the book. It has interesting concepts. What originally caught my attention was seeing Buddhist principles in a sci-fi setting. Theories of resource scarcity and this book's take on a society that consumes itself to death are good at points.

Given the subject matter, I wanted to like the book. Space Buddism was enough of a hook for me to finish the book, just to find out where "Geometry for Ocelots" was going with it. In the end, unfortunately, I just didn't like the book that much. The story and its characters are dragged through the plot without having time to breathe. The characters, instead of being believable or, in my opinion, relatable, are mostly used to move things along. Issues such as alcoholism and suicide are not handled well and are normalized or even glorified throughout most of the book.

For a book that deals with complicated issues, it lacks nuance at every turn. The main characters are all some extreme on a spectrum. Evil, good, drunk, or lacking any agency. After the first few chapters there is also very little world building.

The first few chapters were promising, I liked how the characters were introduced and the core ideas this book was trying to tackle. "Geometry for Ocelots" just had no idea where to go with it. So it ended up going nowhere interesting.