Well, Monday is here again and with it a new edition of Mark This Book(s) Monday!
I'm gonna start this week's review with a very nice surprise and discovery, even more since the sequel for this one comes out this Thursday!
Earth Girl by Janet Edwards
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
After reading the synopsis, I wasn't completely sure I was gonna love the book, but it sounded intriguing enough: humans have colonized the stars and can go anywhere instantly via portals, but some are born Handicapped and can't survive anywhere but old mother Earth. Something in their immune system reacts to other planets and they get severe anaphilactic shock, so babies have to be portaled to Earth right after birth to be able to survive. They are called "apes" and are considered inferior, and parents usually abandon them to the care of Hospital Earth, funded by all the colonies. The kids are raised in communal classes till they are 18, getting a ProMum and ProDad who look out for them but don't actually do any parental caring. There's an enormous stigma associated with having an "ape" baby, and couples usually blame each other's genes for it and divorce.
Jarra is an Earth Girl, she's Handicapped, an ape, and she's got a lot of anger and resentment about the ways most "normal" people, the ones born away from Earth, the ones that can portal from place to place. She wants to prove to the "exos"("ape" is considered a bad word, a demeaning word, "exo" is the equivalent to it used by the Handicapped to refer pejoratively to the normals that can portal) how an ape girl can be as good as any of them, and she wants to prove it going undercover, so to speak.
Jarra's biggest love is history, more precisely pre-history the period of human history before the invention of the portals and the massive Exodus of humankind to the stars. She wants to study History and pre-history and she wants to do it hiding the fact she's an "ape". All universities first courses for History have to take place in Earth, since the first year always focus on pre-history and that means Earth. She'll join an outer planet university and show all the exos that she can be as good as them.
Jarra's journey in this book is one from anger and resentment to acceptance and growin up. She does a lot of growing up in the book, because the exos are not the only ones with prejudices, Jarra is ready to hate everyone in her class just cause she thinks they'd hate her and belittle her for being an "ape". It really is a coming of age tale. Discovering who she is and dealing with it, dealing with the losses and the victories she's given, and learning to trust others and to actually see herself not for what she fears others will see, but for who she really is, not what.
There romance in the book does have a bit of an odd progression, slowly building in a way, but with some sudden stop/starts all intermingled with the plot, and since I want to keep this spoiler-free I don't want to dwell much on that. Fian is a sweet character and adds a lot to the way Jarra learns to deal with things and despite his less out there attitude, he does a great job at keeping Jarra grounded when she needs it the most.
There's a big focus on history and archeology in this book, and the love of Jarra for both subjects is contagious, even if I'm also a big lover of both subjects myself. Add the science fiction setting of it all, and this book had the right recipe for me to love it.
The story's ending is complete and even though I'm quite eager to continue reading about Jarra's story, it didn't end with a cliffhanger!
Very well deserved 4 stars!
View all my reviews
I'm gonna start this week's review with a very nice surprise and discovery, even more since the sequel for this one comes out this Thursday!
Earth Girl by Janet EdwardsMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
After reading the synopsis, I wasn't completely sure I was gonna love the book, but it sounded intriguing enough: humans have colonized the stars and can go anywhere instantly via portals, but some are born Handicapped and can't survive anywhere but old mother Earth. Something in their immune system reacts to other planets and they get severe anaphilactic shock, so babies have to be portaled to Earth right after birth to be able to survive. They are called "apes" and are considered inferior, and parents usually abandon them to the care of Hospital Earth, funded by all the colonies. The kids are raised in communal classes till they are 18, getting a ProMum and ProDad who look out for them but don't actually do any parental caring. There's an enormous stigma associated with having an "ape" baby, and couples usually blame each other's genes for it and divorce.
Jarra is an Earth Girl, she's Handicapped, an ape, and she's got a lot of anger and resentment about the ways most "normal" people, the ones born away from Earth, the ones that can portal from place to place. She wants to prove to the "exos"("ape" is considered a bad word, a demeaning word, "exo" is the equivalent to it used by the Handicapped to refer pejoratively to the normals that can portal) how an ape girl can be as good as any of them, and she wants to prove it going undercover, so to speak.
Jarra's biggest love is history, more precisely pre-history the period of human history before the invention of the portals and the massive Exodus of humankind to the stars. She wants to study History and pre-history and she wants to do it hiding the fact she's an "ape". All universities first courses for History have to take place in Earth, since the first year always focus on pre-history and that means Earth. She'll join an outer planet university and show all the exos that she can be as good as them.
Jarra's journey in this book is one from anger and resentment to acceptance and growin up. She does a lot of growing up in the book, because the exos are not the only ones with prejudices, Jarra is ready to hate everyone in her class just cause she thinks they'd hate her and belittle her for being an "ape". It really is a coming of age tale. Discovering who she is and dealing with it, dealing with the losses and the victories she's given, and learning to trust others and to actually see herself not for what she fears others will see, but for who she really is, not what.
There romance in the book does have a bit of an odd progression, slowly building in a way, but with some sudden stop/starts all intermingled with the plot, and since I want to keep this spoiler-free I don't want to dwell much on that. Fian is a sweet character and adds a lot to the way Jarra learns to deal with things and despite his less out there attitude, he does a great job at keeping Jarra grounded when she needs it the most.
There's a big focus on history and archeology in this book, and the love of Jarra for both subjects is contagious, even if I'm also a big lover of both subjects myself. Add the science fiction setting of it all, and this book had the right recipe for me to love it.
The story's ending is complete and even though I'm quite eager to continue reading about Jarra's story, it didn't end with a cliffhanger!
Very well deserved 4 stars!
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment
¡Muchas gracias por vuestros comentarios, leerlos me alegra el día!/ Thanks a lot for all your comments, reading them brightens my day!!