Arca

Hmm.... I think I wanted to like this book more than I did, so I think this warranted 3.5 stars more than 4 stars. I loved the kinda-retro-kinda-not art style, and the cover was especially striking. There's lots of playing with panel layouts, particularly later in the book, which I like to see.

Where it kind of fell a little flat for me was in the story. It's a fairly straightforward haves-exploiting-the-have-nots tale, with the narrative twist being that they're literal children being exploited to maintain the way of life for the adults who built the ship. They're forever dangling the 'when we get to Eden, everything will be paradise' carrot in front of the workers who maintain the ship, glossing over the fact that the graduates are never seen again and that they never seem to get to Eden. I thought the pacing of the story was a bit weak, things take a while to get going, and then towards the end some of the important plot points get glossed over or downplayed. One example of this specifically (story spoilers here) is when Effie and friends break their way into where the graduates are, and we're treated to the horror that they're being impregnated to bear the children to continue the cycle, and all we really get is a window scene looking in on them and some vague threatening dialogue and that's it. I feel like that moment could've been expounded on a bit more to make it hit home a bit harder. There are other smaller examples of reveals and such that I feel like would've had a bit more emotional impact if they were expanded out a bit more.

It's still a decent read, just one I expected to get more out of in the end.

I wasn't sure about this but then I felt that it touched on some classic science fiction and literary ideas: class struggle, how to deal with large problems and what solutions are acceptable, ‘traditions' should be questioned, etc.I also got [b:The Giver 3636 The Giver (The Giver, #1) Lois Lowry https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1342493368l/3636.SY75.jpg 2543234] elements, but not in a bad way.