Dangerous to Heal

DNF.

What initially drew my interest to this book was both the title and the artwork. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was hopeful as the synopsis also interested me when I read it. Long story short, I tried very hard to get invested in this book, but I couldn't. I managed to begrudgingly finish chapter 2, but at that point I was skimming. When I finally reached chapter 3, I decided I didn't want to continue.

I think one of the biggest fault I have with a lot of sci-fi is that it's not written in a way that feels plausible to me, and this book has that same fault. We don't get a real idea of what characters look like in this world, and I feel like details related to appearance are especially pertinent when we're describing alien beings. A big reason as to why I see this as an issue is because the details we do get, I can't tell if they're meant to be taken literally or metaphorically.

For example, in the prologue we get the line: “ “Don't worry,” the guard said. “We'll catch your friend.” Her viper hands were up and ready. In them were two tiny handguns.” This line alone brings up SO many questions for me, like are her hands literal vipers? Or is it a metaphor: viper quick. In most genres, I can just assume it's metaphorical because it if were literal, it wouldn't make sense for the setting. But in sci-fi, I have no reason to think this woman doesn't LITERALLY have snakes for hands, other than that it's kind of silly and hard to take seriously when the tone is clearly trying to craft something serious. My main argument being, if it was meant to be taken as “viper quick,” why didn't it just say viper quick? Further on in the third line from that excerpt..tiny handguns? How small are they? They aren't even described, so these could be regular human guns: but why would this alien prison be stocking human firearms? On the other hand, there's a character named Michal, so maybe this is earth? The fact that I was confused in the prologue didn't bode well for me when I continued reading.

If we don't get details about characters, I just tend to default to thinking these characters are human, which doesn't make sense when earth is described as an “obscure planet” in this book. These “alien” cultures just feel American, so when they mention earth as a little nobody planet, it feels even more apparent than if they felt authentically alien and new to the reader. If it felt foreign, then of course they wouldn't know a lot about earth, they wouldn't care either. For example, the previously mentioned character who refers to earth as an “obscure” planet, also owns a varsity jacket from their university ???? That's very American, and very human. And also very lazy. It's sci-fi, you can do anything you want! Why make it feel so human? Why not have another way to show school pride? Another question is very obvious: why? If this detail brings about so much thought and pauses the reader, why even add it? The varsity jacket isn't important to the story, it just seems like it was added because that's what human (American) universities do. Which brings me into my next point: things aren't thought through. They're just added or stated without wondering the consequences of adding that information.

Another issue I have regarding plausibility is the made-up words. I feel like making up words is a major part of sci-fi and fantasy because you need to make something feel human-adjacent (i.e., it makes sense to humans reading it) but also have it feel plausible, new, and foreign. An example of how the book fails at this, is that the default swear in this universe seems to be “crisp/crisping.” A lot of sci-fi gets ragged on for making up bad swear words and this is definitely high on my list. Oh my ketchup! What the bologna!? Make it baking make sense! There's also the term maemis, which I think means mom? But why? For the longest time, I just thought it was a characters name. But then the main character's mom is referred to as Maemi and then this line happens: “They cried and hung onto their maemis or their mamas or their mems.” What the breakfast is this trying to tell me? Why would the main character's friend be referring to the main character's mom as Maemi if it means mom? “Can't let Mom know.” Doesn't that imply they're related? Or is this just another example of Americanism making their way into an “alien” culture. The MC was oogling him not that long ago, I would sure hope they aren't related!

Finally, and you can argue that this point is moot because I didn't read past chapter 2, but I found it confusing to be jumping all over the place in this book. We have the prologue follow three characters in one place (prison?), then we get the first chapter that follows our actual main character in a completely different place, and then in the second chapter, we follow ANOTHER character in another new place. When I reached chapter 3 and realized we were following more new characters, I had to stop. I think that was a part of why I couldn't get invested, outside of the other issues mentioned above.

I really wanted to like this book. I did try to keep reading to see if it might grow on me, but I reached a point where I just wasn't enjoying myself and I couldn't suspend my disbelief to really get into the story. It almost read like a parody to me, and I could tell that wasn't what the author intended.