Started: 25/08/20
Finished: 28/08/20
Spoilers: No
Though this novella is packed full of interesting ideas, it leaves me feeling somewhat confused and unfulfilled.
Characters
The first time we see Mokoya and Akeha, they are newborn babies. Then we see them at six years old, then again at nine, and witness the twins grow together, or grow apart through various stages of their lives. The last time we see them they’re in their mid-thirties. But considering the leap between childhood and adulthood, I really didn’t feel any growth in them. The way they read when they were teenagers felt exactly the same as when they were adults. Though the relationship between them was lovely, their individual development felt a little stationery.
One thing I didn’t totally understand was why Mokoya seemed so hurt and taken aback when Akeha announced himself as male. Fraternal twins exist. And considering Mokoya and Aeka didn’t have genders until their late teens, what’s Mokoya’s problem with Akeha being male? Just because he doesn’t want to be female doesn’t make him any less her twin. I found her reaction a little strange. She made the decision first to confirm herself as female, so really she was the one who made herself ‘different’ to Akeha.
I also found I didn’t care for either of their partners. Both Mokoya and Akeha fall in instalove, a trope I don’t enjoy under any circumstances. As readers, we need to be allowed the time to truly see what makes a character special and understand why an MC could fall in love with them. When instalove strikes, that much-needed exploration time is snatched away from us, making it difficult to share an MC’s feelings or understand why or how, or where this love came from. Love is a slow process dependant on many factors, and instalove is unrealistic, irrational, and immature.
Plot
As this story covers a good thirty-odd years of the characters lives, I’m going to say that being a novella hurt this book a lot. Too much is crammed into such a small book that each idea doesn’t have the time to fully develop, and the time jumps gave me whiplash. The ideas are there, and they’re fascinating. The potential for political intrigue here is insane, but again, there isn’t the time to explore this in as much detail as I would’ve liked.
If this story focused on a single plot point, rather than all the plot points, I think I would have had the time to truly invest myself in the plot and characters. It jumped so sporadically through time that the narrative felt almost manic at times and seemed to lack direction.
And then the tragedy that happens at the end felt completely random. It just sort of happens, almost as if it’s nothing more than a plot device to get Akeha back in the city. The reasoning for the tragedy felt...a little pointless tbh. A totally random act that, as far as I could tell, had no actual reason for happening. It just sort of happened, and when events like this occur it just feels like the plot is pushing the characters along, rather than the characters making conscious decisions to push the plot themselves.
Setting
The world-building started out so strong, exploring the idea of gender neutral children until they feel ready to decide their own gender. Great idea, right? Except the idea itself isn’t fully realised. I have more questions than answers, and the answers I got only generated more questions.
So the children are gender-neutral until their confirmation ceremony when they announce what gender they want to be. Then the doctors do some kind of magic to the children to reshape their bodies so they either develop a male or female body. Again, an interesting concept, but one that left me with too many unanswered questions. What if a child doesn’t feel male or female? I assume they can remain gender-neutral, but how would this affect their growth and development? DOES it even affect their growth or development? How does this body-shaping magic work? Does it affect/change the genitalia? Are children born with no genitalia until the body reshaping? Are they born with both, or simply on or the other, and this isn’t even considered important? Cause being a man or woman (or neither) isn't about what’s between your legs, right? So I really wanted to see this idea explored in greater detail.
Besides this aspect, the setting has a definite east-Asian vibe to it, which is why I picked up the book. I’m all about those east-Asian reads right now. But on whole, this book didn’t really provide what I wanted from it.
Writing Style
I have no complaints with the writing itself, and the ideas are great, but they could really do with a lot more time to breathe and full realise themselves. Basically this book needed to be a novel – not a huge novel – but it definitely needed to be bigger than a novella to express the ideas, politics, relationships and social dynamic of this world and its characters. It’s almost a little disappointing, cause I think with a lot more page time, exploration, world-building, and attention to detail, this could be a truly remarkable, even groundbreaking book. I’ve never read anything that tackles the idea and reversal of gender-normative children in this way, and I was excited to read something so different, but then the novel didn’t really expand of this at all. The idea fell a little by the wayside once the twins chose a gender.
Although lacking, the writing was made an easy, quick, and clean read
Final Impression
Look, this novella was okay. It was totally fine. The ideas and representation are fantastic and I would recommend giving it a read just for that, but overall, the story is severely undercooked. The general feeling for all the above categories was that I just wanted more. Each one brought something appealing to the table, but failed to fully explore it. It was, unfortunately, lacking.
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