The Hands We're Given

In a story of late stage capitalism run amok, The Hands We're Given drops the reader right onto the front lines of a 60-year-old war set in the near future. Names come at you fast. People, places, things, but it's somehow never actually too much. The first few pages especially can be dense, but I wouldn't say the narrative even gets close to crossing the line between story and info dump like many novels I've read in this genre. The world feels real, lived in, and this helps the characters feel just as tangible.

Told from mostly alternating points of view, the decision to start from the eyes of the new commander was a marvelous one. We're experiencing something new right along a character experiences it too: meeting their new ragtag team of operatives. The decision also lets the reader know almost immediately what makes Commander Headly unique even outside the scope of the actual novel. He is by far one of the best portrayals of a transgender character I've yet read. The other point-of-view character, and love interest, also felt multi-faceted. Largely because of his emotional journey and well-described motivations.

I did eventually love both of the main characters, and the vast majority of the supporting ones. But the start was a bit rocky for me because of the running internal monologue one had. It wasn't so much what was being conveyed as much as how, usually the same thing with largely the same wording. I felt like it was just repeated too often. Almost like someone checking their temperature every couple of minutes when they already know they have a fever.

Many times, I wish I could rate a novel by different criteria instead of lumping it all under one set of stars. The world-building would have been an easy top marks, it's just that good. The plot and characters would be slightly under that. Both for the reasons listed above, and because the novel's main through line flips genre and subgenre by the end. The technical side brought my ultimate rating to what you see though. There are a decent amount of errors, mostly just tenses, and they don't really impact the clarity or ease of reading. However, missing line breaks and extra line breaks quite often did make me have to go back and reread. Especially in and around dialogue.

I recommend The Hands We're Given to any reader that enjoys near future sci-fi or dystopian novels. Despite describing some of the roughness on the edges, I'm happy to have spent some time in the Dust with these characters.