Orion

Oh no. This book was awful. It's terrible. 400 pages of the protagonist never making a decision or displaying any agency, pages and pages of clothing descriptions, and an entirely unchanged status quo at the end.
It feels like a student's reaction to the prompt “The Handmaid's Tale for Teens, but Fashion” or “What if Patriarchy, but Too Much.”
It could be interpreted as a commentary on the ultimate distillation of cis hetero patriarchy, but it never says much about it other than “hey, wouldn't it suck if they said the quiet part loud?”

SPOILERS FROM HERE ON

Nothing is revealed until the very end, but there are enough hints that the twists do not feel unexpected. The protagonist had no agency at any point in the plot. I kept reading, expecting her to make a decision, to take a stand on something, to discover something deep within herself that she cared about, but she didn't. It was a long book with excruciating detail, pages after pages of outfits and body angst, and a main character whose only motivation is to be liked, and who never expresses her opinion on the rare occasions when she can be bothered to think of one. Beyond that, we get the flimsiest bits of world building, ostensibly because the section of this dystopian society we're following is closed off, with no one on the inside knowing or caring about the world beyond. However, it comes across as careless, like a shaky explanation for how this world could ever exist. The author's justification is that climate change, combined with a sudden plague that killed all female embryos in the womb, drove the human race nearly to extinction, with populations in the low thousands. Humans constructed domes to live in, with fake wall screens for sky, and managed to live in a world devoid of plants and animals. Men create women in laboratories based on their ideals of womanhood, which are exaggerated 20th century stereotypes of vapid, vain people obsessed with clothes and social status. The girls are constantly subjected to propaganda about how unattractive and fat they are, and they are pitted against one another.
As previously stated, the main character does not make any independent decisions throughout the novel. She never had power and never sought it. She has a tragic ending that reveals she is just one of many troublemakers ultimately crushed by the society (although she never actually causes significant trouble). I suppose the author chose to show us a failed version of the YA dystopia girlboss, claiming that many will try and fail before one is cunning enough to succeed. That was the most charitable interpretation I could come up with for the ending's messaging, but there didn't really seem to be one.
Overall, it was a slog that triggered my eating disorder and left the status quo completely unchanged at the end of the book, which I would consider....a bad thing. A novel with no discernible plot. It says nothing insightful about the issues it raises.

I really wish I'd read this as a child - the Pern series would've been completely up my alley then. As an adult, this book was still fun, but nothing to really enthuse about.

Wish Lustig would focus a little less on negativity towards fat people as the absolute pinnacle of unhealthiness, although he does make the effort to bring up there are healthy fat people and unhealthy skinny people. Putting that aside, though, he wrote the most accessible explanation of dopamine, seratonin, and how they work with and against each other I've ever seen. I think this book is full of very useful and important information, once you get past the focus on weight. As someone with a history of disordered eating, the focus on weight was very uncomfortable for me, but Lustig's work to dispel the concept of ‘a calorie is a calorie', calories-in-calories-out mindset of weight loss, which is significantly less toxic than most diet advocates. Diet is in fact only a quarter of the answer to healthier minds and bodies in Lustig's opinion. I've recommended this book to several friends who frequently admit to seeking out easy hits of dopamine (via food, microtransactions in video games, whatever) without actually understanding what that means for their brains in the long-term - I'm guilty of it as much as anyone.

Incredibly abstract and difficult to grasp at first, but slowly the narrative begins to take shape. I feel I would benefit from a second reading as many other reviewers have stated, or perhaps should have taken more time on my first one. The ending felt incredibly abrupt.

It was good, but I'm torn between giving it three and four stars because I don't feel like I understood... the Point? It seemed interesting, but I'm not sure what it was trying to say. I got the impression it was trying to say something, but I'm not sure what.... what was the point. The ending was a little rushed, but it was probably my favorite part.

This book had some interesting worldbuilding, if heavy-handed with its descriptions - I would've given it a 3.5, maybe, for the clumsiness in the writing, until the pedophilia aspect started.
No thanks.

This book showed such promise at times that I trudged through it, but it never quite managed to redeem itself. I finished it feeling like nothing much had happened in the previous 500 pages, despite a story that spanned several continents and over a hundred years. I felt like all the interesting parts were told in summary, glossing over the details so we could get back to Alma's internal narrative and the verbose, florid dialogue that was incredibly hard to actually comprehend as people talking. Overall, I never cared much for any of the characters, and couldn't quite get myself invested in their stories – I mean, 27 years are glossed over as ‘and then Alma studied moss until she became an old woman', essentially. I applaud the author for what she tried to accomplish here, but it wasn't to my taste.

Atwood at her best. Reminiscent of “Year of the Flood” in the changing perspective between various female narrators. Aunt Lydia is one of the most interesting fictional characters I have ever encountered, so complex and conniving - she plays a longer game than any I've ever seen. The expectations were enormous for a sequel people have wanted for over 3 decades, and our esteemed author delivered on all counts! I cried, my heart ached for the untenable world these characters are searching for a way out of - and I binge-read the book in two days, mostly because I wanted to know how it ends, but also so I could return it to the library and let someone else read it ASAP!

This was a great, fun romp which perfectly matched the tone of the show.
I knocked a star off, however, due to a single joke being repeated like, four times, about both Cha0s and Wil Wheaton being at the con.
It was funny the first time.
But it got old.

Reminded me somewhat of The Red Tent by Diamant, but with a more complex and self aware feeling.

Wow, honestly amazing. I was looking for something like the Red Tent and this did everything I liked and nothing I disliked from that book. I love things that attempt to fill in the missing, marginalized perspectives from history.

Reminded me of “Rebecca”

Haunting, this book is unlike anything else I've ever read. Some parts are confusing and disjointed, you may feel frustrated and lost. That's part of the point. Keep going. You have to keep going, even when nothing makes sense and you can't see your way.

I adored this book until the last...40 pages or so. The ending made me want to scream and throw things. Why cure him of his autism and take away everything that made Lou him? As an autistic person, the treatment of this as a good thing (because look, now he can be an astronaut! It only requires he give up everything pleasurable and good in his life, and all his relationships!) Ugh. Still 4 stars, because of just how much I loved everything preceding, but just...ugh.

This book makes a lot of really good points and compelling arguments. However, it was to me a horrendous slog through the case studies. The number of names of people and organizations kept my head spinning, and after 2.5 weeks spent on this book for only 130 pages, I gave up. If you like case studies as a format, this will probably be better suited to you than it was to me.

An excellent overview of a topic that while not exactly under-researched, rarely considers the patient's point of view so prominently. The text does repeat itself at times but it's so short (138 pages, about a 3.5 hour read) I didn't really mind that much; sometimes it helps to read the same thing in a different context to help it really “click”, and non-aphasic readers need to remember this book is not meant exclusively for them, but for the actual people living with the condition as well. It is meant to tell them “you are not alone in your experiences”, and I think that's wonderful, especially in reproducing their words faithfully throughout the text.

Okay, here's the thing.
If you pick up this comic expecting it to have the emotional gravitas and depth of most of Margaret Atwood's work, you're going to be disappointed. I completely understand all the low reviews.
But that's not the point of this story. This story is fun. It's silly and it doesn't make much sense. The main character falls in love with a woman he's literally spoken like 6 words to. It's absolutely ridiculous, and I love it.