Hive Book Bingo Category: An Unusual Book
Title: An Unkindness Of Ghosts
Author: Rivers Solomon
Published: 2017, Brooklyn, New York : Akashic Books
Pages: 349
Topics: Fiction, Science Fiction, Dystopian, Slavery, Racism, Equality, Space Travel, Generation Ship, LGBTQIA Diverse, Neurodiversity
I've picked this as my bingo choice for An Unusual Book, however it could just as easily have been my choice for A Book I Loved. This is one that sat on my To Be Read list for a long while. I'd heard good things about it and kept seeing it featured at my library, but I just never quite got around to actually reading it. When I did finally pick it up I kicked myself. It's so, so good.
The story takes place in a dystopian future, on board a huge multi-deck ship traveling through space. There's a real steampunk feel to the setting and the technology. The ship has been traveling for a long, long time - generations have passed while it carries it's passengers towards a new Earth. It is divided into decks, with a caste system that sees the dark skinned inhabitants of the lower decks enslaved to the upper decks. There's no punches pulled here. The upper deck inhabitants are all racist assholes and their abhorrent treatment of the lower decks is a normalised and encouraged part of the ship's culture.
The story is mostly told through the eyes of Aster. Her narrative indicates that she is black, non-binary, and has autistic traits. At times her words are very detached, descriptive but lacking emotion. I think if the story was told without Aster's lens the extreme examples of racism, violence, misogyny, homophobia, and sexual abuse would simply be too heavy. Even so, at times the story became a very hard slog and I found myself in tears and having to take a break.
Despite the heaviness, the story remains intriguing. There is a mystery at the heart of the book and the answers are revealed slowly throughout. Aster becomes aware of a possible link between the ship leader's sudden death and her mother's disappearance 25 years earlier. She must decipher the strange journals her mother left behind to find the clues.
While a huge part of the story focuses on simply surviving the atrocities dished out to the lower deck inhabitants, it also tackles themes such as friendship, family, love, self-acceptance, and self-actualisation. These are handled in a balanced way. There are some lovely moments, but there's a lot of hard moments too.
You might wonder why I say I liked a book filled with so much racism and violence. I liked it because it really made me think and it really made me feel. I'm impressed with the way the author handled all of these heavy topics. In many cases it wasn't the violent acts themselves that were most shocking, it was how normalised these acts had become for the perpetrators.
A recommended read if you like dystopian novels, but be prepared for the heavy topics covered.
Until next time,
@Sammie
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Original content created by @Sammie.