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cahnSo I read some YA for the Lodestar.
Victories Greater than Death (Anders) - 3/5 - Girl grows up on Earth knowing she's not actually a human, but the avatar of a great alien hero who will someday go to space and be great and heroic. The one recognizable as YA because the fight against terrible evil etc. is just about as important as whether your crush likes you back. It was readable, unlike the last Anders where I quit about a third of the way through, and I liked it -- just very YA.
Iron Widow (Zhao) - 3/5 - Retelling of the rise of Empress Wu Zetian only with a bunch more giant robots. This is the one recognizable as YA because you can tell the good guys by the fact that they are the only ones spouting enlightened twenty-first century viewpoints, while everyone else is really, really into subjugating the wimmenfolk in archaic Bad Guy ways that are definitely not sympathetic at all, and if you ever feel the faintest inclination to sympathize with anyone who isn't one of the heroes, that's the signal for the narrative to make sure that person does something even worse. Meanwhile, the heroes also do bad things, but hey, it's just because people were mean to them first, and at least they're not subjugating women! (I do think this part is going somewhere and is not necessarily considered good by the narrative, but we won't see until the next book. Relatedly, I should mention it ends on a cliffhanger.)
I should say that this was a quite compelling book -- Zhao is not a bad writer, and this was not at all a bad first book in terms of plotting and pacing. But in terms of characterization and worldbuilding, what I wanted it to be was either She Who Became the Sun with giant robots, where everyone had more consistently period-ish viewpoints, or something that leaned into the giant robots part and had everyone be super with-it futuristic internet cyber personalities. Either would have been fine!
But what I actually got was some sort of weird mishmash of the two, where everyone clomped around with giant robots and internet social media, but also literal bound feet, and it was hard for my head to reconcile all of it. Even when you don't count the part where I kept getting thrown out that the good guys all sounded like they had come from tumblr and everyone else sounded like generic One-Note Bad Guys.
Chaos on Catnet (Kritzer) - 3++/5 - Sequel to Catfishing on Catnet, but with a much better title. Hijinks with Catnet's AI and their friends which rapidly turn into a thriller. This is the one recognizable as YA because the YA character downloads a completely random social media app in the first few chapters just because a classmate tells her to. (I have definitely done my share of dumb things as a teenager, so I could have rolled with this -- except that with Steph's and her mom's history, I cannot believe her mom never told her not to download random social media apps?? Without even clearing them with her first?? Like, my kids know they're not supposed to do that and we have never had someone after us, much less for years.)
Anyway, I loved this book, which continues to have the comfort-read strengths of Catfishing in a very strong friend group and a very strong celebration of friendship, both internet and otherwise, as well as is an extremely compelling thriller -- and adds more strengths in the varied and awesome adult characters, and I was so glad when Steph finally told her mom about what was going on. The book ended really abruptly, though! Not in a cliffhangery way at all, just in a "OK, we won over the big bad, now we'll have a couple of pages of epilogue to wrap up, the end!" and she had managed to ratchet the tension high enough (she's really good at that!) that my heart was still racing and I was still all "so is anyone still after them?? Is something else going to happen?? Oh... it's the afterword? Oh, I guess it must be all OK then."
Definitely I would recommend reading Catfishing first, so as not to spoil it; if you don't like Catfishing, there's no reason to pick this one up, as it's more of the same, but if you do, this one is good too! (with the mild caveats above)
Victories Greater than Death (Anders) - 3/5 - Girl grows up on Earth knowing she's not actually a human, but the avatar of a great alien hero who will someday go to space and be great and heroic. The one recognizable as YA because the fight against terrible evil etc. is just about as important as whether your crush likes you back. It was readable, unlike the last Anders where I quit about a third of the way through, and I liked it -- just very YA.
Iron Widow (Zhao) - 3/5 - Retelling of the rise of Empress Wu Zetian only with a bunch more giant robots. This is the one recognizable as YA because you can tell the good guys by the fact that they are the only ones spouting enlightened twenty-first century viewpoints, while everyone else is really, really into subjugating the wimmenfolk in archaic Bad Guy ways that are definitely not sympathetic at all, and if you ever feel the faintest inclination to sympathize with anyone who isn't one of the heroes, that's the signal for the narrative to make sure that person does something even worse. Meanwhile, the heroes also do bad things, but hey, it's just because people were mean to them first, and at least they're not subjugating women! (I do think this part is going somewhere and is not necessarily considered good by the narrative, but we won't see until the next book. Relatedly, I should mention it ends on a cliffhanger.)
I should say that this was a quite compelling book -- Zhao is not a bad writer, and this was not at all a bad first book in terms of plotting and pacing. But in terms of characterization and worldbuilding, what I wanted it to be was either She Who Became the Sun with giant robots, where everyone had more consistently period-ish viewpoints, or something that leaned into the giant robots part and had everyone be super with-it futuristic internet cyber personalities. Either would have been fine!
But what I actually got was some sort of weird mishmash of the two, where everyone clomped around with giant robots and internet social media, but also literal bound feet, and it was hard for my head to reconcile all of it. Even when you don't count the part where I kept getting thrown out that the good guys all sounded like they had come from tumblr and everyone else sounded like generic One-Note Bad Guys.
Chaos on Catnet (Kritzer) - 3++/5 - Sequel to Catfishing on Catnet, but with a much better title. Hijinks with Catnet's AI and their friends which rapidly turn into a thriller. This is the one recognizable as YA because the YA character downloads a completely random social media app in the first few chapters just because a classmate tells her to. (I have definitely done my share of dumb things as a teenager, so I could have rolled with this -- except that with Steph's and her mom's history, I cannot believe her mom never told her not to download random social media apps?? Without even clearing them with her first?? Like, my kids know they're not supposed to do that and we have never had someone after us, much less for years.)
Anyway, I loved this book, which continues to have the comfort-read strengths of Catfishing in a very strong friend group and a very strong celebration of friendship, both internet and otherwise, as well as is an extremely compelling thriller -- and adds more strengths in the varied and awesome adult characters, and I was so glad when Steph finally told her mom about what was going on. The book ended really abruptly, though! Not in a cliffhangery way at all, just in a "OK, we won over the big bad, now we'll have a couple of pages of epilogue to wrap up, the end!" and she had managed to ratchet the tension high enough (she's really good at that!) that my heart was still racing and I was still all "so is anyone still after them?? Is something else going to happen?? Oh... it's the afterword? Oh, I guess it must be all OK then."
Definitely I would recommend reading Catfishing first, so as not to spoil it; if you don't like Catfishing, there's no reason to pick this one up, as it's more of the same, but if you do, this one is good too! (with the mild caveats above)
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Date: 2022-07-11 03:55 pm (UTC)the literal bound feet in Iron Widow definitely struck me as off too, that degree of historical literalism doesn't fit with the vibes the book is going for otherwise and it threw me every time it was mentioned!
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Date: 2022-07-16 03:25 am (UTC)IDK, it definitely fit with the "let's make the non-hero characters as BLATANTLY MISOGYNISTIC as we possibly can, up to enforcing BOUND FEET in post-internet world!!" sort of philosophy, but, like. This does not actually work as a worldbuilding choice!