Book report #34
What I read June 8 to June 21: Wool, Mistborn, Homegoing and Deep End
Let’s get right into it.
Wool, by Hugh Howey 🎧
Genre: Dystopian, Sci-fi
What’s it about: The world has become uninhabitable. The remaining humans live underground in a massive silo, and their society is structured based on the functions of the 150 floors of the underground tower, and maintaining perfect equilibrium. (Can it be a tower if it’s underground??) No one knows what happened outside, all they know is that even to inquire about the past, or to talk of leaving the silo is forbidden. Those who disobey get their wish: they can leave the silo to certain death.
When the silo sheriff leaves as a result of this ritual punishment, the mayor inexplicably chooses Juliette, a mechanic who lives in the deepest part of the silo, to serve as the next sheriff. As Juliette gains access to information about the silo, she begins to uncover a conspiracy that could spell humanity’s doom.
Was it good? Yes, I loved it, and I didn’t expect to. It’s an old book that’s recently been made into a tv show, but I managed to avoid learning anything about it. Wool, which is the first in a trilogy, was made up of a series of short stories weaving the lives of various inhabitants of the silo. You can tell, but it’s not to the novel’s detriment. The characters are lived in and deep, even though we are as much in the dark about them as we are about the existence of the silo they live in. Each character feels important, and switching between their narratives highlights the claustrophobic and monotonous nature of living in the silo without it becoming too repetitive. I felt as exhausted as Juliette as she traverses up and down the 149 flights of stairs of the silo.
Highlights:
For some reason, this novel put me in a crisis about my own work. The premise is bizarre and largely unexplained, but I never felt confused. I met the characters mid plot, mid life, and I never felt like I didn’t know them. How do I do the same??
I am pathologically drawn to narratives about complicity, and this book doesn’t disappoint.
Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson 🎧
Genre: Fantasy
What’s it about: Long ago, a great, foretold, hero sought to save the world. Now, the world is a wasteland ruled by the immortal Lord Emperor, thought to be the great hero corrupted by the evil he failed to defeat. Noblemen with metal-based magic rule in service of the emperor, and subjugate a race of people called the Skaa to serve as their workers and slaves.
But, in the criminal underbelly of the empire’s capital, are the seeds of rebellion. A criminal mastermind assembles a crew of magicians to pull off the ultimate heist, one that could overthrow the empire and free the Skaa.
Was it good? Yeah, it’s a very classic kind of fantasy epic, so nothing felt groundbreakingly new here. I was hooked by the promise of a heist, though I think that term is served loosely here. There is a lot of exposition, as the author has to explain a foreign world with a complex magic system, but it’s done well. The street urchin, Vin, serves as our way into the politics of the Final Empire and the city of Luthadel, and Sanderson cleverly weaves in the texts of the Great Hero’s final days to fill in the backstory needed to understand the world the characters live in.
Highlights:
Vin was a great character - her choices and inner life were age appropriate in a way that felt refreshing.
This is a good read for people who love found family tropes.
There’s a group of people called Steel Inquisitors who are genuinely terrifying. They have metallurgic spikes through their eyes!
So I’m not saying that all depictions of slavery must overtly acknowledge the real-life Trans-Atlantic slave trade many depictions borrow from. But there was nothing to explain who the Skaa are and why they are at the bottom of this chain, and if this existed before the drama of the Great Hero and the Lord Ruler. We get in-depth explanations about other groups of people, in particular the Seekers who work to find a lost history, and who play an important role in the fable of the Great Hero. But why do the nobleman assume the Skaa are less than human? How do they differentiate who is Skaa and who is not? Maybe I just missed it.
Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi 📖
Genre: Historical fiction
What’s it about: In 18th century Ghana, two half-sisters are born, unaware of their connection. One sister is married off to an English nobleman and lives a privileged existence in the Cape Coast Castle. The other is captured in a raid on her village and sold into slavery, eventually imprisoned in the dungeons of the same castle. The book follows their parallel paths through the descendants of each sister over eight generations. The story, told in emotional character studies across time, shows a detailed history of the United States and how the effects of slavery or embedded into the nation’s bones.
Was it good? Yes! It was so beautifully written and evocative. Each story is from the perspective of a different descendent in a different time period, and can stand on its own, but the sum of all the stories together is moving.
Highlights:
I’ve talked about this before, but I have often struggled with slave narratives in fiction. You can tell when a story is told for modern day black people, and when it’s told for the edification and often validation of white audiences. Homegoing is the former. I think it especially illustrated how the violence of slavery includes the ripping away of people’s connections to their heritage. I can only trace my family back so far, and frankly, I don’t feel a particular connection to any land or culture, even the state I was born. I only feel true connection to the immediate four other members of my family, and the rituals and dialects we made isolated in southern Ohio. This book had me reflecting on that in a way I think was positive, but still forever sad.
Deep End, by Ali Hazelwood 🎧
Genre: Romance
What’s it about: Collegiate diver Scarlett Vandermeer enters her junior year at Stanford University wounded in more ways than one. She’s still recovering from a nearly career-ending injury that forced her to take a year long break from the sport she loves, and her course load has punctured her confidence in being able to get into a good medical school. She’s also still healing from the end of her relationship with her childhood sweetheart. She prefers to keep her head down and work, and doesn’t have time for friendship or romance. Scarlett thinks she has nothing in common with Luke Blomkvist, the Stanford Men’s swim team captain, Olympic medalist, and fellow med school aspirant. But when a secret slips out, she realizes they have more in common than she thought. A series of coincidences occur and she finds herself in an arrangement with Blomkvist, one that challenges Scarlett’s vision of her future.
Was it good? Yes, I think it’s actually better than some of her last few books. It relies less on misunderstandings and miscommunications (though there’s still plenty of it), and the exploration of a niche sport was interesting and created good non-romantic stakes that made me really root for the heroine. Like I said in previous reports, Ali Hazelwood do be kind of writing the same thing over and over again, but I was amused. The sex was pretty hot, and I appreciated the matter of fact tone about exploring power play and kinky dynamics in an informed and approachable way.
Highlights:
As a former journalist and current gossip, I have never overheard information that would at all affect my life. And yet, there is a trope, which exists across all genres, where a character accidentally overhears critical information that directly relates to them. Scarlett is regularly eavesdropping on conversations in hallways, bathrooms, classrooms, locker rooms. She should consider quitting a career in medicine and enter the spy program.
Diving is so cool!
I’m reading Wool too! Far slower than you though! Glad to hear you liked it.