Some Desperate Glory

I loved this book so much! I knew that it had a ton of high ratings, but I was still a little skeptical since I haven't felt like reading sci-fi for quite a while, and I also have been burned by highly rated books that everyone else is talking about. But I adored everything about it. I don't know what people are talking about with the main character, because I loved her from the beginning. Everyone was like "Oh I hated her but then I began to root for her as she developed and became a better person," and I was just like "Nah she's great, give me more" the whole time. But I do also like my characters with a shitty edge as long as there's something I can connect to in them and as long as they develop past how they started.

The plot was fantastic—I love space and dystopia and people seeing through the dystopia for what it really is, and I love found family, which we got a lot more of in the second half of the novel. All the revelations just made me keep turning the page to find out more. It only took me so long to finish the book because I was also playing a lot of BG3 at the time lol. Some of the things that happened were things I did not expect but also totally worked, and I loved that. Every time I figured, "Okay, now X is going to happen," the book completely pivoted to Y, but it didn't feel contrived. The author just didn't follow a bunch of common tropes and I love her for it.

(Of note, I didn't understand some of the fake science, but that's fine, I just skimmed over some of those explanations and didn't feel like I lost anything.)

And then everything that happened in the last third of the book was perfect. The alternate universe, the Sparrows coming together, the way that Kyr faced off against the main dictator/cult leader, and the ending of the book itself. By the end of the book, we had gone on such a twisty turny journey that I didn't even recognize the beginning of the same novel.

Anyway, everyone keeps comparing this to the Locked Tomb series, so I should probably get on that...soon.

Content warning for lots of topics including on-page suicide, fantasy and graphic violence, mass catastrophe events, genocide, on and off-page sexual violence, bioessentialism and homophobia, manipulation, and related topics. Overall, I enjoyed this novel. There's a lot of really interesting worldbuilding, especially with the inclusion of textbook-like excerpts. There's a really well executed plot twist that I didn't see coming at all. Unfortunately, when I think critically, there are some issues. This book undertakes crazy big topics, but I don't think it has the nuance that it would have needed to be successful. The bad guys are very bad, this is wrong and this is right, and so forth. I also don't know if it can rightly be called a queer book. Yes there are gay characters, but there are no on-page romance scenes and it's very tropey and one note. But the main character has a really good character arc! She came so far in her opinions and principles beyond what she had been taught/brainwashed to believe.