On the Edge of Gone

So, so good. I know this is a standalone, but I wish there was a sequel coming because I'd totally read it. Full review to come.

REVIEW:

I love YA Sci-Fi, and On the Edge of Gone was soooo different from any other YA Sci-Fi I've read and it was awesome. Usually apocalyptic-type books are post-apocalyptic, but On the Edge of Gone starts right before a massive comet strikes Earth and obliterates everything, then continues on in the days afterward and people try to survive and Denise tries to get her family safely off-planet.

Denise struggles with a lot—her autism makes everything she experiences more difficult for her to handle, all the while she resents people knowing about her disability (particularly when she isn't the one to reveal it), and because she's Black in a very white area that comes up as a subtle obstacle several times too. At the same time, her Dutch mother is an addict, and her mother's struggle with addiction and how it affects Denise and her family plays a major role in the book. Plus trying to survive on a dying planet. Plus trying to find Denise's missing sister, Iris. Plus trying to get her family aboard the ship bound for the stars.

On the Edge of Gone was fascinating and totally captivating. I really connected to Denise and felt her highs and lows while reading, the characters were really complex and interesting, and honestly the whole thing just felt like something that could really happen, which made it a tad chilling, too.

All in all, I very much enjoyed this book, and I can't wait to see what Corinne Duyvis has for us next. Super recommended if you like YA Sci-Fi and are looking for something different, or would like to read an authentic portrayal of an autistic protagonist, or just want to read a great book.

Diversity note: As the author puts it, “The protagonist is an autistic, biracial, part-Dutch part-Surinamese Black girl. The story also features a prominent bisexual trans Black girl, as well as lesbian, Muslim, and Jewish characters, among others.” The author is also autistic, so that part is #ownvoices.

The main character was well-handled, as was her trans sister, and it's great to have an autistic protagonist written by an autistic author. But I did feel that the actions of the secondary characters were mainly driven by the plot, rather than by plausible individual motivations. There were attempts at other types of diversity, with Muslim and physically disabled side characters, but these felt rather awkwardly handled, with references to their faith and disabilities shoehorned in rather than thoroughly considered. And the plot felt a bit back-and-forth, rather than a clear arc. Many of the things I didn't love about this book are things I dislike about YA in general, though, so if you're a fan of YA then you'll probably enjoy this more than I did.

What if the doomsday preppers were right and the end of the world was nigh? Corinne Duyvis' On the Edge of Gone takes place in the Netherlands about 20 years in the future, and at the beginning of the novel, we join teenager Denise and her mom as they (and the rest of the world) are getting ready for a comet to strike the planet. The very wealthy have left Earth via spaceship, and so have some of the very lucky, who won lotteries for spots on those ships. The remaining population have been assigned to shelters to ride out the strike and immediate aftermath. Denise, her sister Iris, and her mother are in the latter group, but when the appointed day comes and Iris is nowhere to be found, Denise and her mother find themselves running late to get to their shelter in time. On their way, they come across one of Denise's former teachers and her partner who have had an accident, and are permitted to take shelter aboard the spaceship they've been assigned to in return for helping them get there.

Once she's on the ship, Denise immediately starts trying to figure out how to stay...wouldn't anyone want to explore the stars instead of try to survive in the kind of post-apocalyptic situation that killed the dinosaurs? The rest of the plot unfolds from there: Denise's quest to find her sister and secure herself and her family room on the ship. When I was reading it, I kept expecting the ship taking off to be when the plot would really start, and it took me until about a quarter of the way through to figure out that wasn't the point. The point are the questions the scenario raises; most poignantly, how do you figure out who should live and who should die? What kinds of skills are really necessary anyways? We can all agree on doctors, cooks, and engineers, but who's more important: artists or lawyers? Young people or experienced people?

There's a movement out there centered around the idea that we need diverse books. I agree. I'm never going to be one to go on a deliberate spree to only read books by or about a particular gender or racial category (my favorite author is White Man Jeffrey Eugenides), but I think a lot of people's...fear or resistance or whatever it is, exactly, that makes them suspicious of others who aren't like them is based on a lack of exposure. It's easy to demonize gay people, or trans people, or people of color, to think of the world as Us v. Them, when you don't know any of Them. Once you get to know Them, it turns out they're people, just like you, with the same kind of hopes and dreams and bills and taxes that you have. Even literature can be an important bridge to build empathy...a book implicitly asks you to care about these people on the page, to imagine yourself in their shoes. Which is why it matters that Denise and Iris are mixed race, that Denise is autistic (as is the author), that Iris is transgender. Those aren't the kind of people you normally read books about. And this book in particular is well-crafted, with a story that draws you in and makes you ask yourself how you would deal with the situations that are presented therein. Definitely worth and read and a think.

For a while I've been stuck between either 2 or 3 stars, but eventually decided on the former. Characters can either make or break a certain book for me, but in this case I'd say they broke it.

The story is about an apocalypse, happening in 2035. It takes place before, during and after, and it's about a teenage girl and her family (her mom and sister) trying to survive by getting on a generation ship which will leave Earth in order to start anew.

That is basically the gist of the entire story. Denise, our protagonist, finds ways to get the generation ship's captain to allow her on board, and then also tries to find ways to get her family on board. There's not a whole lot of interesting story there, so you have to really care about the characters in order to make it gripping. But unfortunately it wasn't really.

The perspectives, and the characters themselves, are interesting in theory. Denise is autistic, and this being in first-person, we really get a good look inside her thoughts. The problem though was that she just came across as very whiny and self-absorbed, and I had a really hard time trying to root for her when it seemed like everyone else in that world was weirdly civil about things. Unlikable traits can work in characters, but I didn't find her character very compelling and it all ultimately felt flat and incredibly frustrating and I didn't care if she won this particular battle or not, especially when there were other people that were much more deserving of it. (And don't even get me started on the mom, ugh).

As for good notes, I thought the narration was excellent (at times maybe even TOO good, because the “panic-y” voice just annoyed me after a few times), and I love that the story is set in The Netherlands (with mentions to Belgium) and that there's a few Dutch names and place names. The idea is pretty cool too, and I could imagine the world like how it's described. I just wish it was from a different perspective than the one we got.