The Book Censor's Library

The Book Censor's Library / Bothayna Al-Essa
trans. from the Arabic by Ranya Abdelrahman & Sawad Hussain
Read by Cindy Kay
Old Saybrook, CT: Tantor Media, 2024, c2019.

I listened to this one; it's a fever dream of a book in which a man in an unnamed dictatorship finds a job as a book censor. But his own young daughter is full of imagination and stories, causing him no end of trouble and angst. Imagination and whimsy is forbidden in this unnamed dictatorship. Only sensible (ie: government approved) information and behaviour is permitted. 

Another novel in an unintended streak of magical realist stories, this one was good but turned in a direction I was really not expecting. Our main character is a government employee who is placed in a book censor position. He must read books, searching out unwanted examples of imagination and other elements that the government thinks will distract citizens from daily reality (or give them ideas...). All history of the 'past world' is to be erased, denied and rewritten. Books that might place readers in the context of a past are considered unhealthy and need to be censored.  

The first job that our book censor is assigned is to read a new edition of Zorba the Greek and make his recommendation for censoring or not. This is considered an easy assignment, after all, many previous editions have already been banned. But our censor discovers through this book that he is after all a reader; the emotions and actions of Zorba inspire him and he can't stop reading. 

The story incorporates other novels, each with their own motifs and meanings that shape the book censor. Alice in Wonderland, The Little Prince, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, even Pinocchio -- many books are read and dissected by this character, even though this is a relatively short novel. The storyline does follow the outlines of 1984 -- if you've read it you may recognize some similar themes and stylistic choices. But it's a bit stranger, for me -- for example there are rabbits everywhere, even in the censorship building, and they seem to have a purpose. Our character finds an underground resistance movement, which even includes a vast subterranean library. But then his young daughter is taken away for reeducation, and everything spirals out of control.

The ending was a bit unexpected, and throws a new light on everything that came before. But the story brought up so many issues of freedom of expression, the power of reading, how a healthy society must include the freedom of the mind, and so on. And of course a book that discusses so many other books is always something I will find interesting. While I found it a little uneven, and a little strange that all the literature discussed is by men, it was still an intriguing read. Written by a Kuwaiti bookseller with experiences of her own of governmental censorship, it feels real, and communicates her love of books very strongly. 

 

Snowglobe

 

Snowglobe / Soyoung Park
trans. from the Korean by Joungmin Lee Comfort
New York : Delacorte Press, 2024, c2020.
372 p.

This YA dystopia is set in a future Korea after climate disaster has reduced most of the world to constant sub-zero weather. We’re talking -50 on an ongoing basis. Chobahm lives in a small settlement with her mother, twin brother and grandma. Now that she is finished school, she works at the local plant – nearly everyone in every settlement spends their days generating electricity on a human hamster wheel. Other jobs are few and far between - some postal clerks, some train engineers but not much else.

 To keep people satisfied with their cold and meager lives, 24 hour-a-day reality tv is streamed from Snowglobe. That's a glittering city enclosed by a dome, with a temperate climate thanks to geothermal vents -- all run by one powerful family. Everyone in Snowglobe is either an actor or director, with actor’s full lives continually televised. Chobahm’s dream is to move to Snowglobe and become a director someday.

But Chobahm has a startling likeness to Goh Haeri, the star of her favourite show. And when Haeri disappears, her Director appears with a life-changing offer – Chobahm can accompany Director Cho to Snowglobe and take on Haeri’s role, with nobody else knowing there has been a change. But dreams can harbour dark sides, and Chobahm quickly finds out that Snowglobe is not as idyllic as she’d believed. Skewering reality tv, surveillance capitalism, and corrupt governing bodies, this fast paced novel is full of dramatic plotlines and strong characters. It ends with a cliffhanger – book two of the Snowglobe duology is due out next spring. I found it engaging, quick moving and creative. Very plot driven but with some fun characters to follow as well. 

Social Fiction: a graphic novel

 

Social Fiction / Chantal Montellier
trans. from the French by Geoffrey Brock
NY: NYRB, c2023.
191 p.

This was a chance discovery from the new books arriving at my library. It's a collection of 3 graphic novels written by French writer/artist Chantal Montellier: Wonder City, Shelter, and 1996. It also includes an introduction by the translator, and a short interview with Montellier at the end. 

Montellier is a feminist and a woman who made her way in the very male world of French comics in the 70s and 80s. She's tough, and you can tell. All three of the stories here are futuristic and dark, and the drawing style is stark, in black and white, naturalistic. Wonder City has pink accents, which works with the story, but the others are monochromatic. 

I found these stories a little shocking, hard-hitting at times, a bit twisted, in the best ways of course. I think Shelter was the one that was most unsettling to me personally, but each of them has something to say about rich and poor, about totalitarian instincts, about herd mentality, and societal structures. The characters don't necessarily fight fascism or government control, they are mostly subsumed by it. 

I hadn't heard of this author previously, and so found the intro helpful to place her in context, alongside the brief interview at the conclusion. This is an activist who is writing her imagined futures, in a chilling way. I had no expectations at all going in to this, and so was able to experience these all new and fresh to me. Wow, it was a reading experience. Definitely recommended if you'd like to see the visions of a future coming to us from a prescient writer of the 70s and 80s. 

The Disaster Tourist

The Disaster Tourist / Yun Ko-Eun; 
trans. from the Korean by Lizzie Buehler
Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2020, c2013.
200 p.

I picked this up a while ago, having not reviewed it yet since I'm not quite sure what to say about it! It's a strange little book. Yona has been working at Jungle for 10 years -- it's a company who arranges tours to areas that have suffered disasters. The more terrible the disaster, the keener the tourists are on visiting the aftermath. 

Her office work has been going along smoothly for a long time, but now she's experiencing harrassment from a new, predatory coworker. Jungle doesn't want to deal with it, so they give her the "opportunity" to do a site visit to a small island that they are reconsidering their partnership with. The returns haven't been great, since there is only an underwhelming sinkhole at the island resort. She's to pose as a tourist and give a full report on the situation. 

Of course when she gets there, all sorts of things begin to change. Jungle doesn't seem as supportive as she'd like; meanwhile, the hotel where she is staying seems to be involved in a plan to create a new disaster to up their value in the eyes of the tourist trade. 

Yona has the chance to take on a new position with the island tourist organization, but is it really any better than her work with Jungle? How responsible is she for the actions of the company she works for? And will either one care about her as a person, or is to going to be left to her own devices in the looming disaster ahead? 

Lots of interesting questions posed here, and I liked the oddity of the setup. It doesn't seem too farfetched, really, but does allow the character to be put into some surreal situations. The structure of the story works, too, with a slow build that keeps you reading and horrified by what you are imagining is coming next. 

I found it interesting and appreciated what it was doing. I also liked the style, I thought it reflected the character well. However, I also found it really dark, and parts of the narrative made me uncomfortable. The aesthetic is one I find in a lot of Korean books in particular, and it just doesn't mesh with my current state of mind. So emotionally, I didn't love this story. But that's not a reflection of the book - objectively I think this is a fresh take on a topical theme, and it was unexpected and well-done. Just not what I was looking for right now. 

Trail of Lightning

Trail of Lightning / Rebecca Roanhorse
NY: Saga Press, c2018.
287 p.

And now for something really different! This dark apocalyptic Indigenous fantasy novel is unique and fascinating. It's a fast read, with lots of horror, romance, and creativity on show. 

I don't usually read things considered horror, but this is horror lite -- there was only one part I had to skim because it was too gross for me. Maggie Hoskie is a monster hunter: she is therefore also an outcast. She lives in Dinétah, formerly the Navajo reservation; now that there has been catastrophic climate change and most of the coastal areas of the US have disappeared, Dinétah is its own country. It was saved from flooding by a wall put up in the old days, not from good intentions. But along with its new independence has come the return of monsters and gods of Navajo legend. 

Maggie tracks and kills monsters who prey on humans, often children. She was taught & mentored by a demigod, who is now her nemesis. Let's just say she has trust issues. 

In this beginning story in the Sixth World series, there is a lot of setup, a lot of explaining this world and who is who, and how Maggie fits into it all. All of this is not boring or an info-dump, however. Roanhorse is endlessly creative and uses horror and fantasy tropes, but turns them into something new with the addition of a strong female sensibility and her Indigenous setting. The premise for the series is clearly established and the interaction between a wide variety of characters is so well done. 

There's potential romance as Maggie meets a city boy who has returned home to Dinétah; there is also betrayal and violence as she comes into contact with her nemesis in the end. Throughout the book she must balance her powers with her need to connect with her very human associates. Including many other strong women.

This was a great read, original and fast-moving, and followed up with book two already, though I haven't got to that one yet. Definitely recommended for fans of speculative horror fiction. 

Alderman's The Power

The Power / Naomi Alderman
New York: Little, Brown, 2017, c2016.
386 p.

Not a shocker for anyone that I've finally read this book. Everybody has!

And it is well worth the time, especially if you like feminist dystopias, as I do.

I'm sure the plot of this one is no secret by now: in the indeterminate near future, adolescent girls suddenly discover they have the power to electrically shock others, eventually realizing fatal shocks are possible. The potential for violence that women now have literally in their hands shifts the power balance between genders: now men are afraid in the way that women always have been.

There are various strands that come together in the story: a young foster girl from a religious, hypocritical home -- who becomes a leader in this new women's ascendancy; a Nigerian man who becomes a reporter of sorts; the daughter of a London crime family; and a few more. These characters experience this new world order and find their place in it in their own ways.

As the Power grows, and all women seem to change and receive the ability to shock and/or electrocute men, society shifts. It seems that there is a new war of sorts, the world over, as women look to take over what they've been refused forever. And the Power of immediate violence does appeal to some in the same way it does for men in our contemporary world: there are scenes of war crimes that are terrible and terrifying. 

I wasn't 100% convinced by some of the plot resolution, and had some issues with the way the story fell out. And I didn't feel engaged by the character of the man who was reporting on the changes; while I can see why he was there, it felt a little raw, a little bit too much "not all men", at least in this current climate. 

I felt the influence of Margaret Atwood in this book, so perhaps appropriate that she blurbed it. The Handmaid's Tale feels like a shadow behind this book, both in the idea of a female-centred dystopia and in the inclusion of 'documents' from after the action has taken place. The use of a document from the far future was the part that didn't work for me, though. I felt that it strained credulity, and also wasn't necessary -- the point of the book was clear without the addition of this extra element.

Nonetheless, this was a thrilling read, creative and not at all sentimental about what power does to people, whether male or female. While I didn't think it was perfect, and had some reservations about it, I still enjoyed reading it and would recommend to any reader who enjoys speculative fiction, especially those with women at the centre. It certainly shines the light of metaphor and speculation upon the way our world works now. 

An Ocean of Minutes

An Ocean of Minutes / Thea Lim
Toronto: Viking, c2018.
322 p.

This is the only novel on the Giller 20108 shortlist that I've read so far. And honestly, I'm not 100% sure I'd have put this one on my own personal shortlist if I were a judge. It's not very Canadian at all, in setting or in feel. 

I was first attracted by the story, another dystopian tale of women and an uncertain future. I've been reading so many of these lately. In this one, it's a bit of a different setup -- it's the 80's, there's a deadly flu raging across America, and in order to afford a treatment for her boyfriend Frank, Polly takes the opportunity offered by a time travel company who will take you forward as basically an indentured servant to work off your debt. The plan is that Frank and Polly can meet up again in 15 years when he catches up to her in time, even though he'll be 15 years older while she's only a year or so older. It's perfect. 

But of course it isn't. Polly's odd skills as an upholsterer are, for some reason, in demand. When she arrives in the future, two years later than she'd been scheduled for, she tries to get to the arranged meet-up location she and Frank had set for themselves. She's part of a regimented workforce, though, with hardly any free time, and there are security barriers everywhere, making it hard for her to move anywhere. And there is a strange subplot with her boss, the reason she's been sent forward in time, although it doesn't seem like he actually does anything.

She struggles through a difficult year, trying to adjust to her new reality in a divided America. And when she finally finds a way to leave Texas to find her long-lost aunt, and hopefully Frank, things don't turn out quite as she'd planned. 

The pros of the story were its interesting set-up, and potential for some really interesting investigation of time, age, and troubled history/future timelines. 

The cons, for me, were far more in evidence. The time travel element wasn't used to full advantage, I didn't feel -- it was very mundane and dull. The dystopia was sort of believable but not entirely -- America was divided after the flu, but seems to have gone on much the same as before, though more fragmented. Polly and Frank's love story, and their very names and back stories, are painfully everyman, so bland! But worst of all for me was the emotional throughline of the book. There is no payoff for the world building Lim is doing; why did Polly go through all of this? What did she learn? What relevance does it have to a wider humanity? Does love conquer all? 

None of these questions were satisfactorily answered for me; to my tastes this was a cynical and despairing read. I think I am not in the mood for these sort of trendy ideas these days -- if I want terrible and hopeless I'll just read the news. In a dystopian novel published in times like this, I want to see some sense of meaning. We can already see the terrible path we're on -- I want some vision of redemption, which I didn't get here at all. So, not my favourite read of the year.

In its inconclusive narrative, and the idea of civilization just petering out without much thought, it reflects another recent dystopia I've just read, Liz Harmer's The Amateurs. Both of these books miss their chance to say something powerful about humanity's survival, I feel. For a dystopia that is beautiful and still resonates with hope in a terrible time, I will still go with Station Eleven for my best bet. 

Corvus by Johnson

Corvus / Harold Johnson
Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, c2015. 
277 p.

I first read Johnson's The Cast Stone some years ago, and was always interested in finding a copy of this one as well, a novel which takes the collapse of the world's environment into 2084 to see the outcomes.

This year, with all the dystopian fiction I've been reading, I thought it was time to fit this one in! 

In this world, two wars over resources have been fought, and people have overwhelmingly moved north in search of water and soil that can still grow things. Most of the previous fertile soil of the prairie farmlands has been rendered into desert, dead earth, by the practices of chemical farming in the 20th/21st century. Water has dried up as the glaciers melted,  and the setting, the northern town of La Ronge, Saskatchewan, is no longer a small town of 3000 or so residents -- it's now quite a large city, with suburbs, a slum called Regis, and elite suburbs tethered in the sky above the massive storms that regularly hit these days. There's also an ashram just out of town, in which we find some of our main characters.

There's Lenore, a prosecutor and troubled war veteran, and George, a coworker who she has her eye on, who both live in La Ronge. The ashram gives us Richard, a war vet, and Katherine, a woman taken in by the ashram at 17 and who seems to be a natural, though unofficial, leader.

As the story opens George has a disappointment at work and ends up buying himself an expensive ORV (organic recreational vehicle). These are partly organic and partly tech - George buys himself a raven and takes to regular flights when he needs to think. In one storm, he crashes near an Indigenous settlement far from town. Experiencing their hospitality as he recovers, and the wisdom of an elder, Two Bears, changes the way he thinks about his life. 

Richard works on the land on the ashram and spends summers harvesting algae from the lake. He has a brief affair with Lenore before she settles on George and he settles on Katherine, but this links their stories throughout. 

Johnson tackles things that were issues in 2015, but in 2018 are scarily top of mind. Intrusive tech, government surveillance, the widening gap between rich and poor, climate change & its resultant extreme weather and soil/water conditions, valuing the economic story over the human one, and much more. He extends all of these things to likely outcomes, and it's quite plausible, and also alarming. But he uses creative storytelling to provide a way to take all this in, and includes brief segments from the viewpoint of Raven, giving an overview of history in a sense.  

There are many philosophical asides, which simultaneously are the point of the book and slow down the narrative. There is much Indigenous wisdom shared, in a natural way, during these asides. But the thing that most niggled for me was the role of Lenore and Katherine - their stories are dramatic and could have been explored much more deeply, but it's the men who get the guidance and insight here.The women are more valued for their ability to give life.  I'd hope that dynamic would have changed by 2084. There's also George's last case in which begins to think he should no longer punish people and take part of their lives away as a prosecutor - the circumstances of this crisis of faith didn't sit well with me at all. 

Still, this was a fresh take on a likely future if we keep going the way we are -- he points out that leadership is lacking politically in our world, that chasing the economy is destroying the earth and our relationship with it -- all quite resonant today. The story didn't so much build a world as explore our current world from a wider vantage point. The focus was on these characters and their existential journeys. It was intriguing, and a good addition to the world of  "Cli-Fi". He was ahead of his time in tackling this!

The Amateurs

The Amateurs / Liz Harmer
Toronto: Knopf Canada, c2018.
336 p.

Another book in my favourite genre this year, post-apocalyptic fiction. Why am I reading so many of these? Are there just more around? Do they just suit the end-of-the-world mood I seem to be feeling every time I watch the news?

In any case, I've found quite a few this year and they've all had their appeal. The Amateurs is a quieter apocalypse - no pandemic, no climate disaster, but even more frightening for its dailiness - massive tech firm PINA has created Ports. The Ports allow for nostalgic or adventurous daydreamers to travel through time: step through a Port and you will end up in the place you are dreaming of. The problem is that people are stepping through, and never coming back.

Turns out that the technology isn't as bug-free as promised, and the creators don't actually know how it works, except that Port seems to be alive, and enticing people into stepping through to a new life.

Why, and how? That's the question among those left behind in a tiny population decimated by mass disappearances. The story focuses on Marie, an artist in her 30s who is convinced that her ex-husband will return from the other side of PORT, and find her again. She still lives in her small apartment over her art store in Hamilton, even while the other 40-some people left around are rehoming themselves in the huge expensive mansions now left empty. They all gather daily at a local church though, keeping track of one another and their survival. The problem is, they are all amateurs -- they have no doctors, no engineers, no farmers. And winter is coming around again. Do they stay, connected to their city, or leave for warmer climes? It's a constant thread.

There's also another settlement across the continent, the fancy complex that houses PINA and its eccentric founder, Albrecht Doors. For some reason he never used his own Port technology, and now there is a circle of 100 or so PINA employees living in the compound with him. Brandon, his right-hand man, is beginning to have doubts about Doors' brilliance; he steals an electric car and heads cross-country to Hamilton to see if his mother is still on this side. There he meets Marie and her gang of survivors. 

The story has a great premise. And it's told well, with smooth and appealing writing. It has the feel of Station Eleven in its quietness and look at art and what makes life worth living. Where I felt it was a bit weaker is in its tendency to explain and set the scene, a lot, rather than get the action moving. It builds up Marie's obsession with ex-husband Jason, but when the crisis comes he seems to be an afterthought in the end. The end of the book is also unresolved, as if the story hasn't been carried to any conclusion. 

I found it really unsettling in a way that was slightly different from other books of this kind. It seems like the world is ending with a whimper, not a bang. The people we meet don't seem to have many practical survival skills, and I don't feel too much hope for them. Or from them, for that matter. The undertone of the book seems to be one of helplessness, of powerlessness in the face of this disaster, of a cosmic shrug instead of a sense of humanity gathering together in our urge to continue on. I think that was what was most striking about the mood of the book - I really believed after closing this that humanity was simply going to die out, without much more fuss. A hint toward the future or toward something positive, a sense of the potential of the new order, or something along those lines would have changed the impression I had of this book's pessimistic outlook. 

But that could be just my take - have you read it? What were your impressions of the zeitgeist of the story? Did you like it/dislike it/enjoy it/fling it across the room?

The Marrow Thieves

The Marrow Thieves / Cherie Dimaline  
Toronto: Dancing Cat Books, c2017.
234 p.

This is a YA novel that I've heard a lot about, so when it came into my library I snagged it.

It's an Indigenous dystopian novel; it's set sometime in the future, a time in which catastrophic climate events have altered the shape of the world. The population has been drastically reduced, and life is difficult. Most people have lost the ability to dream - not metaphorically, but real, night time dream - and the result is not great. People are unhappy, unable to  function well, and they really, really want to dream again.

Then it's discovered that a 'vaccine' of sorts can be created from the bone marrow of Indigenous people, where the ability to dream is encoded. The problem? The Indigenous person does not survive the process.

So in this world, Indigenous people are hiding, heading north to where they can find a safer space. Our main character, Frenchie, is alone after his parents and brother are all taken away by authorities. He starts walking north, and eventually stumbles on another small group who allow him to join them. Made up of a mix of Indigenous peoples from across the country, this circle becomes his new family.

They struggle to head far enough to find a permanent place to live, unthreatened by those who want their bone marrow. They encounter many dangers, some quite serious; they build relationships both familial and romantic; they share their 'coming to' stories about how they got to this point. I found these backstory excerpts really powerful and moving. Each of them is so different and has so much sorrow and strength in their stories.

The conclusion feels open-ended as well -- there is room for more story here. The group discovers a large settlement comprising a wide mix of Indigenous people rebelling and resisting the regime of hospital/prisons. One of these rebels is Frenchie's own father, lost long before. After a few years of wandering in the woods it's hard for them to readjust to a more regimented, larger living space, but it is the beginning of hope.

There were a few leaps of logic here -- how did the wider society organize their 'hospitals' and teams of agents tracking Indigenous people down when society was chaotic? What exactly did the bone marrow provide? But here is where the willing suspension of disbelief comes in; the story carries the reader forward despite these questions.

It's a really interesting take on the dystopian trend, incorporating many ideas and themes that are based in an Indigenous perspective, with white characters not present much at all. The characters are well drawn and the set up is different from other dystopian stories, so well worth exploring.

When The English Fall

When the English Fall / David Williams 
Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, c2017.
242 p.

This is a post-disaster novel with a difference; it is told from the point of view of an Amish family, who are already living without the modern conveniences that are propping up civilization -- and which lead to chaos when they fail.

Jacob narrates this story, in a series of diary entries. This structure allows for time to reflect and ponder, with room for philosophy and ideas to grow naturally. The author is a minister so there are also some theological discussions, but as the characters are Amish this also feels natural and believable.  

Jacob's daughter Sadie has been having seizures and seeing strange visions; this is Jacob and Hannah's biggest concern, until the day in which her visions of the English falling comes true. In a huge solar storm, the electrical grid around the world is knocked out. Planes fall from the sky; transportation fails, and so therefore does the food supply. Outside of this solid Amish community in Pennsylvania, denizens of the cities are getting desperate and hungry. Chaos begins to take hold, with people walking out of the cities trying to find a place to live and grow food. Armed gangs begin to roam, and danger grows.

But Jacob's community is not totally isolated. He has a relationship with a local man named Mike, who was the distributor of his handmade furniture, and who comes to Jacob for help once the troubles start. In this relationship with people outside of their faith community, the family's adherence to the principles of caring and empathy really shine. 

There are some terrible events in the story, but it never becomes graphic and horrible for the sake of it. And something else that is very different about this apocalyptic story which I really appreciated was the lack of misogyny. In this small community, people may have different roles, but Jacob repeatedly says how much he loves and respects his wife, and admires her for her character. The women talking together make many decisions for the community, and are treated as equal participants in their lives. This is quite refreshing in this genre. 

The writing is calm and thoughtful, and the story feels plausible because of the lack of hyperbole. There are a few loose ends and perhaps I'd have liked a little more detail. However, I read this very quickly but have been thinking about it ever since. Really interesting read. 

I picked this up from my library, but was inspired to do so through reading this essay written by the author, found via twitter, on finding out that his book was suggested as an alternative for Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 in a Florida school. It's a strong and moving essay about the value of reading to challenge us in our preconceptions. Well worth a look. 

Future Home of the Living God

Future Home of the Living God / Louise Erdrich
New York: HarperCollins, c2017.
267 p.

Oh, I was so looking forward to reading this book -- I love Erdrich's style, and the summary was so compelling: 

The world as we know it is ending. Evolution has reversed itself, affecting every living creature on earth. Science cannot stop the world from running backwards, as woman after woman gives birth to infants that appear to be primitive species of humans. Thirty-two-year-old Cedar Hawk Songmaker, adopted daughter of a pair of big-hearted, open-minded Minneapolis liberals, is as disturbed and uncertain as the rest of America around her. But for Cedar, this change is profound and deeply personal. She is four months pregnant.

But I just couldn't get into it. 

It was at times a fast and  exciting read; but then there were sections that dragged enormously. Both when Cedar hides out in her small, tucked away house early on, and when she is eventually discovered and locked up in the hospital, the story stalls with her inaction and focus on her internal life (that and her ever-loving fixation with her Catholic theology magazine that she still edits up until the last second possible even as the world descends into chaos). In between there are some intriguing threads but they just weren't followed up enough, for me. 

The whole premise of the book was simply stated but it wasn't developed enough. Who exactly is looking for pregnant women, and why? What exactly is happening to women and their babies? And what is the deal with the oblique mentions of white or ethnic births? I couldn't decipher which one was supposed to be more likely to non-evolve -- though with all else that was going on I am assuming the new theocracy thought white was better? Who knows, the intent was not clear in the narrative. 

It was as if the focus on Cedar's internal, philosophical and family concerns overrode any scientific rationale for the story -- evolution is going backwards because *wah wah wah* Charlie Brown Teacher voice. It just is, so you have to run with it as a reader. But I couldn't. I needed a bit more structure and explanation of the 'new world' to really buy into the scenario.

Also, the most interesting element of the story is Cedar's discovery of her birth family; when Erdrich is writing about them and their life on the reserve both before and after the big shift, there is life and humour and vitality. I'd have preferred to read about them and how their community was dealing with the political shift, I think there'd have been more to say from that perspective, at least more that I'd have found engaging. 

I suppose I'm just not all that interested in reading about the daily details of being pregnant and being tracked by a surveillance government -- they both involve a lot of anxiety and waiting around. 

Also, the book is putatively Cedar's diary to her unborn child, so the writing is diary-like and in Cedar's voice. Erdrich manages to stay 'in character', so to speak, but this means that her beautiful style is really cramped by writing in Cedar's style. There were a few golden moments, and some prescient, quotable bits to enjoy, but otherwise pretty functional writing.

So while I desperately wanted to read and love this book, I was in the end only mildly impressed. I enjoyed reading it overall, but there are so many questions left unanswered even in the vaguest ways that it was frustrating to try to figure it out after I'd finished. Also the conclusion was supremely unsatisfying for me. I hope there is a follow-up to this that can flesh out this world a little more, and give us the rest of Cedar's story.