Camp Zero

I think this was a really beautiful story with a feminist and anti-colonialist/anti-capitalist angle that was explored in such a unique way. Beautiful writing, beautiful imagery, and beautiful displays of greed and sisterhood.

However, one of the downsides of multiple POVs is that we all have favorites. I was never emotionally invested in Grant's story. And I also disliked his character, but maybe that was the point? Idk I just despise it when privileged people want to escape to another world to avoid acknowledging they have that privilege, only to realize everywhere else is a dump and they wanna go home to their daddy (but don't, just to prove him wrong). And once we (finally) got his backstory with Jane, I came to my own conclusion that he's just a shit guy who refuses to take responsibility for his own ego. He's always being rescued and knows there will always be someone to save him. My problem with this is i'm not sure if that characterization was on purpose. Are we supposed to be rooting for him? Are we meant to be blame his parents solely for Jane's death instead of him? Ya know, the one who refused to go to a secondary location before a bad storm against his girlfriends wishes, only to have his father save him during the thick of it and leave his girlfriend to die? I hope, if there is a sequel (this book surely deserves one), that Grant's ego and privilege is explored in a more realistic way that doesn't sugarcoat his ills.

The Blooms were so cool and I loved what we learn about their connection to White Alice at the end. I honestly didn't expect it. White Alice was definitely interesting, but was too fast paced and skipped so much time. I also struggled to keep timelines with them. I originally thought the book was too populated with them and they were not distinguished well enough from the Blooms. As the book continued, I had an easier time separating them. But in the beginning, there were moments where I genuinely forgot I was reading about one group when it was really the other. I think this is because there were just too many characters. I couldn't keep up. It's incredibly frustrating to be 40% the way in and still not be able to get anyone's names. And that's not to say you can't have a bunch of characters, you just have to make them memorable. For example, Willow was easy for me because her temperament and look was described as wildly different than the others. She was recognizable, not just a name on the page attached to dialogue.

I think the feminist angle was sometimes a bit plainly put, if that makes sense. It was trying to encapsulate the pains of women by very broadly accusing men of everything. Idk how to explain it (and this is coming from someone who, for a long while, basically considered themselves a misandrist). It just felt like the anger was not misDIRECTED, but oversimplified. I think that anger is valid and the environment they're in probably forced them to simplify it, but there are tons of women who engaged in the manipulation and murder going on in this book that were never spoken about. I just think the discussion of men is surface level and runs into territory of just being man-hating? I'm not totally opposed to it, you just run the risk of people not taking you seriously when it's simplified into “all men are murderers and rapists and we will never find peace because of them”. Now, this is honestly how I feel all the time!!!!! but there's a more nuanced explanation for it that could've been explored.

Ultimately though, I just got bored in the middle and that made pacing and certain details feel more annoying than they are! Great writing and the premise is super cool but I felt myself waiting for the ball to drop, for something exciting to happen. And it kind of did at the end with the plot twist. But it was so far in that I almost didn't care or notice it. The back and forth POVs just dissipated any momentum the story was working up. This soured the experience a bit but I still think this was awesome and courageous. I imagine it's incredibly difficult to weave these three groups together and it works out great. I hope Sterling is in the process of writing a sequel because she's set it up perfectly for one!!