Core

The more I think about this one the more I'm convinced that this book rules.

This book has been labelled dystopian, and although that is true on the surface, this book is less interested in exploring and warning of a potential future and more interested in the construction of identity. The premise is that forty people wake up in a cage with no memory as to how that came to be: specifically, thirty-nine women and one child. No one knows the child's parents; no one knows her name; she is only the Child, and she has no memory of the previous world: she only knows the cage, the thirty-nine women, and the (male) guards that watch over them but never speak. Those in the cage have no purpose, there is nothing to do, and their survival is guaranteed: when sick they are handed pills, when hungry they are given food. The novel begins as the Child begins to think, and is presented as her memoir. From the very beginning the Child understands herself as fundamentally different from every other human she can see: she is not like the other women in the cage, and she is not like the guards. The central question the novel is asking, then, isn't "how did this situation occur?"—the book tells you right off the bat that there will be no easy answers—it's "how does a person develop into a subject with no name, no gender, no mirror, no room for human activity, and no purpose?"

If that question sounds interesting to you I think this is absolutely worth a read. If you go in just based on the sci-fi premise however I think it'll be disappointing. But it's a short book, and after sitting on it for a few days I'm convinced I need to reread it. The author was a psychoanalyst and it shows, so I'm curious how much more I'd get out of this after deep-diving into psychoanalysis some more.

she really was back! a bit predictable but also a lot of fun. a lot of readers seem to hate Carrie and I think they simply don't get it. why didn't she and Nicki kiss though

Full review:

This was a fun one! Keeping up the TJR streak of fun enjoyable books for me (we're ignoring Malibu Rising).

This is a book about tennis, but it's really a book about desire. The premise is that of Carrie Soto as a world-renowned tennis star—the best there ever was—whose status as The Best suddenly becomes threatened, making her return to the sport despite her old age (for tennis... she's in her late thirties), with her dad as her coach. So in one sense, this is an underdog story: the entire world assumes she can't come back. In another sense it really isn't, as Soto's goal initially isn't to take back her title, it's to keep it. This alone makes Carrie an abrasive character: she has already proved herself, and what she's fighting for isn't to prove herself, not really, she's already done that: her impetus to come back is to stop someone else from overshadowing her legacy. More than that, she insists on bluntly stating what she believes (i.e. that she is The Best), and she will use any advantage she can get her hands on to win. This all makes following her comeback a lot of fun! I also never found her unlikable, though a lot of readers seem to.

Although on the surface it shares characteristics with sports anime of all things (and a hint of Marty Supreme, if it was actually about ping pong), it's really a grounded story. For me, that comes down to her relationship with her dad Javier (who is also her coach), which acts as the gravitational pull of the novel. We get the play-by-play of many tennis matches (and it is exciting! at least if you like tennis), but I think each and every one really characterises and reflects Carrie, Javier, and their relationship. (There is nominally a romance here, too, albeit a boring one.)

TJR ranking: Atmosphere > Daisy Jones & the Six > Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo > Carrie Soto is Back > Malibu Rising

This series just fell off a cliff. Every issue I had with ARC 1 was ratcheted up to 11.

ARC 1 ends on a cliffhanger. I had some problems with that ending—it was quite abrupt and underwritten—but it at least did a good job setting up higher stakes for the next volume, right? Right?? Not if the main character decides "well that seems scary" and completely abandons every. single. story thread from the previous book in favour of wandering the countryside. I think there are two reasons this happened. (1) In the afterword the author says this was mostly a worldbuilding exercise for him, and from that perspective this makes sense. We get to see more of the world! Unfortunately the rest of the world is utterly lifeless and boring, just Generic Medieval Village #327 followed by Generic Medieval Village #328. Riveting!! And (2) I'm making an assumption, but I do not think the author knew where the plot was going at this point. He'd written himself into a corner and web serial disease set in because it still had to get updates.

Here's what an average chapter of Mother of Learning ARC 2 feels like:

I decided to visit the Sneezing Tiger web. We spent three weeks negotiating, but eventually they gave me a list of other webs that could be interested: The Fluffed Pillows, the Tasty Snacks, the Spears of Destiny, and the Dingleberry Dunces. I had some time to kill in the meantime, so I just kinda wandered around and explored the dungeon. In the dungeon I found a [LONG BORING LIST].

I can't be bothered to make up another list. Why does this book seem to think I want long lists so bad?!? My eyes are glazing over!

A new villain gets introduced in this volume, to replace the one that had been set up and then completely ignored from ARC 1. (Maybe you could say he "haunts the narrative". I think that's giving too much credit.) When I say introduced I mean he finally gets a speaking role about 70% of the way in... and he talks like an anime villain. And then he goes magic berserk mode and guess what: he talks like EVEN MORE of an anime villain. This is not a believable person; this is a miserable bag of tropes. If you want to read this, you will have to accept that it has some of the most uninspired villains you'll ever read.

When we hit the last two chapters, the plot chases after the main character and DEMANDS that something interesting happens, so we get an extremely abrupt lead-up to an ending cliffhanger. Yippee! The last two chapters did not need the 26 preceding chapters to happen—sure, there is some cause and effect, but it's deeply inelegant and inefficient. This reveal/cliffhanger should have happened halfway through the book, if not earlier: the only things stopping it from happening were the vague power level of the protagonist, and whether the protagonist would stop being an idiot. (In the end he is forced to stop being an idiot.)

This volume is an utter failure of serial writing. To set up so many plot threads—to build some momentum to carry the reader forward!—only to totally abandon them in favour of exploring a totally different area of the world that feels totally lifeless: why? And then, when we finally get to see some familiar environs, still nothing happens: this restart I'm learning X; now I'm learning Y; why? There is no plan. There is no momentum. There is no real plot: things are just happening. I do not understand the acclaim this book gets online; the standards are significantly lower for web serials, sure, but I don't really think anyone actually preferred the total aimlessness of this volume. This really could have been good—all the pieces were there—if only it had actually been edited for publication, so that a red pen could have cut 80% of this.