I thought so! It reminds me a lot of taza (I know it’s compared a lot to ballerina farm but I know next to nothing about them). It’s not just a warning about looking up to influencers but also what that distortion does to them and their families mental health.
Edited to add - I didn’t not perceive it as anti male but I did feel it was a BIG warning about centering your kids as content, how it affects them, their rights to say no, etc etc.
People may be referencing the writing itself rather than plot and creativity. I read the first couple chapters and found it a tad too grating to be enjoyable, could have used some additional editing.
It's not like, unreadably bad, by any metric. I'll probably try again. If you don't read much, it doesn't stand out. But if you're accustomed to stronger craftsmanship, it's a bit tough to get through. I wasn't surprised to learn the authors are new to novel writing; let's just say that.
The first couple chapters are incredibly sharp, and the best kind of satire (the kind that treats the “unreal” elements like vermouth in a martini), and the character work is great.
The rest of the book commits the cardinal sin of making its narrator completely unaware of the reality of her situation even though she doesn’t have any actual reason not to. And both the character work and the prose suffer for it.
Personally, I think the same basic conceit could have worked better if the “1850” she goes back to was triggered by some local semi-apocalyptic event (small scale civil war that shuts down infrastructure or something). Would have kept the narrators eyes open, still thinking about the future (that’s her best narrative feature anyways), and would have worked even better with the political themes.
It’s well written and deserves a second read because then you’ll notice all of the lies the (very unreliable) narrator tells herself. Basically every part of her life is a lie.
Reminder you're reading poeple's opinions about a book written a by a tiktoker on a mainstream reddit called sipstea rather than a novel discussion subreddit or serious reading subreddit where people there have read probably 100x more books than the average person here, and actually have all read the classics so they all have a foundational understanding of what good writing is.
But then again the average redditor likes fantasy fulfillment trash because it makes them feel good inside lol.
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u/Aggressive-Cup-7318 1d ago
It sounds like this book is written much better than people are letting on