An Unkindness of Ghosts

This was such a wonderful story. Loved every page. So many emotions this book illicit. Loved the characters that needed to be loved and hated the ones that needed to be hated. Glad that ....just glad. 😁

I finished this book at night and I had to sleep on it before I could share my thoughts on this book. *Sigh* I was eager to read this book because I waited a while to get a copy of it from the library. I wanted to enjoy this book but I have a few gripes. Before I get into that I will address my bias. Sci-fi is not one of my preferred genres; I don’t gravitate towards it. I’m not against reading sci-fi, but it generally doesn’t pique my interest. With that said, this is very much a sci-fi novel and I was perfectly fine with that. However, for me, there were times when some of the science stuff was a little dense and I reread the passages several times to make sure I understood. Before I get into my gripes I want to address the things I do like about this book.My favorite characters are Aint Melusine and Theo/the Surgeon. I found Melusine’s character to be the most relatable. I understood her thinking and her behavior. Melusine is the women who didn’t desire children and didn’t want to care for them but you can’t escape your chosen family. She took Aster in after her mother passed and developed an affection for her. However, Melusine’s character also exhibits how women are expected/forced into nurturing roles because that is what’s expected of them even if they don’t want children otherwise. Melusine exemplifies the “mammie” caricature where she is a nanny to other people’s (white) children, she is the cook, and she’s the maid. She is expected to provide the best care for others at the expense her own autonomy. I loved the chapter told from Melusine’s perspective; that was when I was most engaged in the book.My other favorite character is Theo. He’s such a multi-dimensional character and I just found him to be interesting. He’s pious, he’s a dedicated physician, he cares for all of his patients regardless of there caste. However, he’s also white-passing and he occupies a position of power so he’s often complicit in the abuse and oppression that takes place on the ship due to his inaction. But Theo also experiences being forced into a role he doesn’t identify with. He doesn’t appear or identify as strictly masculine and he is looked down upon by the Guards because of this. I also liked the chapter told from Theo’s perspective because we got to learn a lot more about him.This brings me to other things I like about the book. The characters are complicated and dynamic and you can see that in some way they don’t fit the social norms that people in power have forced upon them. I like when authors depict characters who are multi-faceted and complicated because that’s how people are. Rivers Solomon, the author, has integrated a lot of social commentary into this world they have created. They reimagined issues such as police brutality, racism/colorism, gendered expectations, abuse, mental health, class stratification, and religiosity, and explored them in a different context. This what makes it a true sci-fi novel because the point of sci-fi is to examine current social issues through a futuristic lens. So many relevant topics are discussed in this book especially the abuse inflicted by people in power and racial stratification/discrimination. The world that Rivers constructed to address these issues is what makes this book compelling.Now onto my gripes; I’ll start with the biggest one. The ending is absolutely egregious. The ending is so rushed within the last few chapters that it’s a lot to wrap your head around. Also, the way it ended was totally unsatisfying. I did not like the ending at all. There is so much more that needs to be addressed.Another gripe I had was the pacing. Sometimes the pacing was awkward and I would kind of have mental whiplash like, “wait, when did that happen, when did she get here?” Sometimes the pacing would be slow then the main character would do something all of a sudden and it would set off a whole new chain of events. This overlaps with another gripe that I have which is Aster, the MC. I didn’t understand her decisions sometimes, she could be quite impulsive and I didn’t understand why she made those decisions. I just didn’t connect to her character.Another gripe was that overall I just had a slow time getting into this book. I had to really push myself to keep reading because in the beginning of the book I just wasn’t connecting to anything. The latter half of the book was more engaging because by then I wanted to know how everything would resolve but this book was hard to get into. I didn’t want to DNF it though because I waited a long time to read it.I finished this book initially with outrage and confusion, but after I mellowed out I really just had a lot of mixed feelings. Overall, the book addresses really important topics that are addressed creatively however, it was difficult to get into.

This was an engaging and intense SciFi. I felt like it was a dark mash-up of Wall-E and Snowpiercer. The story takes place aboard the spacecraft Matilda where the passengers have formed a Heavenly oriented society where those of darker skins live on lower decks. Those in lower decks are forced to live in servitude and the most demeaning roles on the ship. They also experience extremely harsh and inhumane discipline. It has queer neuroatypical characters. The MC is a healer from the lower decks, Aster, who is trying to figure out the mystery behind her mother's research and the truth of how she died. It's very dystopian and doesn't have a HEA. It's powerful and shocking, an intense commentary on society and the future of humanity.

“She had happened upon an erased chalkboard, and though she could see the unsettled dust of calcium carbonate, there was no putting together what had been written there before. Everything left a trace, but sometimes a trace was not enough.”Rivers Solomon’s debut novel An Unkindness of Ghosts has received critical acclaim and attention from all corners since its publication in late 2017, and I finally know why.It’s so unique!Now, sometimes “unique” doesn’t mean “great”, and I’ll admit to a little of that here. For the most part, though, I’m in awe of Solomon’s debut work and can’t wait to see what they come out with next. This is clearly just the start of a beautiful and moving career.In brief, Solomon sets the oft-visited generation ship vision against a challenging framework of classism, racism, and bald-faced oppression the back cover likens to the “antebellum south”. The resulting setting is ripe with an atmosphere I found inspiring and difficult in spades, and I’m awed by how skillfully Solomon builds this scaffolding and then weaves their story through it.As a non-stop fan of all things scifi (Star Wars is fantasy in space; don’t @ me) one of the joys of my life is seeking out the stories that inspired new fiction. I can safely say that I’ve read nothing quite like An Unkindness of Ghosts.I did struggle from just about page 1 with the characters. Historically I do struggle with more spare POV characters, so it should not be surprising that in this fairly dystopic environment we’d follow more spare characters. The narrative was so engaging that (aside from one stand-out exception) my personal struggle with the character didn’t interrupt my immersion in any meaningful way.The one exception, Giselle, (whom we meet almost immediately) was a constant struggle throughout the book. A full 1/3 of my notes for this book are just about how much I dislike her. HOWEVER, there are some important things to note about this! 1) Giselle’s character stay’s consistent throughout the book. So many times, authors write challenging characters when it’s convenient to the plot and tone them down unless their dysfunction is material to the scene. Serious respect to Solomon for not doing that. By keeping Giselle consistent(ly difficult), they make the character vitally real. 2) This story’s setting is unavoidably uncomfortable, being based in racism and classism, and Giselle definitely kept me on edge in a story for which that feeling seems really appropriate.Another notable factor that really struck me about An Unkindness of Ghosts was the interjection of non-standard English grammar and vocabulary. Now, while I don’t know this for certain I did gather that the vernacular Solomon used was inspired by AAVE. If true, this directly feeds into the calls in the setting to antebellum south. Where sometimes these interjections can be distracting, Solomon uses them consistently throughout the narrative to great effect.Finally, without betraying anything about the ending, I’m really impressed by where Solomon took their story. They sidestepped tropes and wrote a story that felt vital through to the end.Note: I was lucky enough to have received a copy of this book annotated by Rivers Solomon’s own hand via PageHabit.RIP PageHabit.

This book is much like one of the characters Giselle. It's harsh, cruel, and full of madness but you can't help but loving and caring for them anyways. The prose of this book manages to be clinical and poetic at the same time. It doesn't shy away from the utter ugliness of its setting but does so in a way that doesn't revel in it either. I wouldn't recommend this book to just anyone, the mentions of repeated sexual assault and racial violence would make this a difficult read for most people. But it is a fantastic book and I can't believe it's the author's debut novel.

Loved the book and charactersNeeded and epilogue or sequel though imo 🤔

OMG this book is sooooo gooood I was inseparable of it until I finished it.Me myself I'm not a religious person so I always thought that's very irrational and cruel to use God's name to impose fear and deliver punishment, and reading this book it revived my hate/indignation towards this part of religion.In overall it has an entrancing writing, I was hoping the whole time for Aster achieve their goals.Ps: if English is not your first language as well it contains some scientific, medical, mechanical and astronomical terms that might turn your reading a bit challenging.

Wow. It's so many things. A fast ride. A slow burn. Intense drama. A book that defies a genre, cause it's so much more than can be captured in one label. It's a tale of hope, love, despair, joy, anger. It's one of those unique books that I know I can pass around to people who'd never pick up a sci-fi novel, and they'll love it, cause the story has already happened, is happening now, could happen again. This touches so much of society's bleakness and weakness, and gives back so much power and sacrifice and majesty. How Rivers Solomon fit all this into these pages still confounds me, but I thank them deeply. This book is a gift for all of us.

This book pulled me along the whole way through. I thought that the worldbuilding was compelling and original, and engaged with history without being a historical narrative with a sci-fi skin put over it. The characters were unique and well-developed and the different cultures were interesting and believable. The writing style is also very compelling and the imagery used is haunting and adds depth to the main narrative. I would love to see this as a movie someday. My only criticism is that I think sometimes the gender identity politics were a little heavy-handed and jarred me out of the narrative, but it did not detract from the overall quality of the book.

I resisted reading this book because while I heard a lot of praise for it, the frequent appearance of words like 'harrowing' made me think it would be a hard slog through a world of injustice and misery. But An Unkindness of Ghosts is much more than that. Yes, the world Aster and Theo inhabit is deeply unjust, and they suffer a great deal over the course of the novel. But there is light and humour, too - Aster is a compellingly self-aware and nuanced character, often joking even in the midst of her pain, and her relationships with Giselle and especially Theo are so sensitively and beautifully drawn. The central mystery of the book, of what happened to Aster's mother and what it has to do with the generation ship's apparent malfunctions, is also masterfully unfolded. This was a beautiful, beautiful book, and I can't wait to see what the author does next.