Ratings3
Average rating3.7
This World is Not Yours by USA Today bestseller Kemi Ashing-Giwa is the perfect blend of S.A. Barnes' space horror and Cassandra Khaw's beautiful but macabre worlds. An action-packed, inventive novella about a toxic polycule consumed by jealousy and their attempts to survive on a hostile planet. After fleeing her controlling and murderous family with her fiancée Vinh, Amara embarks on a colonization project, New Belaforme, along with her childhood friend, Jesse. The planet, beautiful and lethal, produces the Gray, a “self-cleaning” mechanism that New Belaforme’s scientists are certain only attacks invasive organisms, consuming them. Humans have been careful to do nothing to call attention to themselves until a rival colony wakes the Gray. As Amara, Vinh, and Jesse work to carve out a new life together, each is haunted by past betrayals that surface, expounded by the need to survive the rival colony and the planet itself. There’s more than one way to be eaten alive.
Reviews with the most likes.
Despite my general indifference towards short stories, I liked this one quite a lot. From what I've gathered while going through others' reviews, people's dislike for it is, in most cases, caused by virtue of them expecting it to be something that it's not. So, I want to start this review by prefacing that if you're looking for a plot driven, sci-fi horror book then This World Is Not Yours is not for you. In my opinion, it's a story that focuses more on different types of human connections (emphasis on different, which is quite refreshing), rather than the plot or themes of environmentalism and consumerism. Personally, I found characters in the book to be interesting and complex (the same goes for their relationships with each other). Jesse, in particular, is a very peculiar character, who seems to be an enigma for most but with whom I had the strongest connection (in my point of view, this is caused by how heavily aroace coded he is, his “inhumanity” in the context of the story since the very beginning, his love towards Amara and Vihn, which is undoubtedly not romantic nor sexual, but is undeniably there). More than that, the writing was great, the imagery containing gore and horror elements was also done in a very good way. Overall, the only thing lacking for me in this is its size, but that's just a quirk of my mind, which can't form deep connection without prolonged exposure. I would recommend this novel if you're interested in sci-fi and, more importantly, is looking for a book with messy, codependent romantic and non-romantic relationships.