I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. I enjoy stories of people who share consciousness and purpose, like Sense8 or Escape to Witch Mountain, and I think this is likely one of the early influences of those stories.

CONTENT WARNING:

Spoiler

child abuse, mind control, mental health crises, loss of a child, loss of a partner

Things to love:

-The writing. This does not feel at all like the standard pulpy "golden age" scifi read. It's considered, experimental, and sort of urbanely "rustic" a la Tennessee Williams.

-The characters. This is NOT AT ALL what I was expecting, and just goes to show that we don't have to accept writers who wrote bad things because "that's how it was then." In this book we have people with mental health disabilities, people of color, strong women, people who've suffered various abuses, and all of it felt...kind. Even when bad things are happening or terrible people are saying terrible things, we are left to understand that the author has lived through this hurt with the characters, is demonstrating something with it, and thinks we ought to do better.

-The messages. This can be read on its own as a story about shared consciousness and telepathy and such, but we keep coming back to such human things that I think it's more a reflection on society, on what it means to be an individual, what it means to be moral, and how wrong we get it even when you try so hard.

Things I didn't love:

-A bit haphazard. The plot has a sort of meandering, dreamy quality to it so you accept what happens next, but there are odd breaks in this for a certain stream of consciousness meta analysis of the characters and their lives that gets a bit too convoluted or Jungian or something for me to follow entirely.

-Could have. A pet peeve of mine is people writing the contraction form of the modal verb (could have/ should have, would have) with "of" instead of 've. I think the author was doing it intentionally to show vernacular, but gosh it was annoying.

-Still a savior story. Even with all the women whom the characters admire, respect and cherish, we're still led to believe that the men are the brains of the operation and will save everyone. This was just a minor pout really as like I said I feel this book was more thoughtful in its characterization overall, so I don't think that was the intent, but this is my review and I get to huff about a quibble if I want.

-Ending. A bit abrupt. I wanted a bit more polish here to match the quality at the beginning.

All in all, this is a well told, complex story I'm glad to have read. Quick, insightful and fascinating.