By Lindsay Ellis.
Previous book here.
This is a really, really, really dark book, and I'm not just referring to the "this book talks about suicide" warning at the start.
Cora, our main character of the first book, has whopping cases of PTSD/depression/nightmares/panic attacks/anorexia, pretty much everything. She's suicidally depressed after living through what she should not have lived through. The girl is a broken bird. She is in desperate need of an enormous level of help that probably can't be provided enough, given her "I'm an alien translator, more or less" situation. Her alien partner Ampersand tries and is certainly working on it at the start of the book (and that's very sweet), but everything derails when one of Ampersand's syphyles (...family members, more or less?....) lands on Earth, looking for the two of them to die together as last survivors, more or less. Also, this is because the ah...head alien group...has found out about humanity being the other species in the universe, they're coming here in five years, and they will basically wipe out humanity for being a threat. And someone Cora reasonably thought was gone from the world turns out not to be, so that's also traumatizing AF.
Meanwhile, the Earthlings are debating whether or not to consider aliens "people" or go with a "Third Option" along the lines of oh, remember that whole 3/5 of a people thing during slavery? It's one of those things where you know the right thinking people will be all "hell no" to this, but the bad guys are going to get their way about it and all things will go to hell on Earth. When two of the aliens ask for asylum, who knows what'll happen with that, either.
The second alien, originally dubbed "Enola Gay" in the media and later renamed Nikola, takes more of a center stage in this novel, along with Kaveh, a famous journalist who decides to befriend Nikola and Cora to find out the real truth. Kaveh has connected with Cora's shitty dad Nils in the past, but this isn't as big of a deal in this book as you might think. (Shitty dad stays in Germany, thank goodness.)
Ampersand spends most of the book in some kind of "blue screen of death" state and frankly, isn't available to do much or help for a lot of it. And Cora's so freaking traumatized by everything that it's horrifying. Therefore, the budding adorable friendship between Nikola and Kaveh takes center stage. While it doesn't become a whole literal bond thing between the two, Nikola's calling Kaveh "dear clever creature" is darned cute and I really enjoyed them together, even if NIkola's not listening to Kaveh about "no, seriously, don't go down there and meet the people" goes extremely poorly. Kaveh becomes more of a narrator since frankly, Cora's not really in the shape to do it and reading her unrelieved in this book would probably be unbearable.
I admit, I am probably confused a good chunk of the time as to what is going on with the aliens. They are extremely alien aliens and at times I just don't think I get what they have going on. That might just be me, I don't know, I'm not very technical. There's a fine line to walk between "REALLY ALIEN ALIENS" and having them humani-ish enough for the likes of me to get it, which is where this series goes.
That said, I really enjoyed the discussions of "personhood" in this, both in the "Third Option" sort of way and in the "how the amygdalines define a person" way, which is why Ampersand created the bond with Cora that he did. Very intriguing.
Kaveh made the book for me. He makes this work, he is a positive light in this world (along with Nikola to some degree, who's balancing between "the Earthlings are doomed and yet I am very interested in this species, is there anything I can do about this?"). On the one hand, he's a bit unreally perfect in the "I happen to be a rich genius journalist and I'm handsome and well-meaning and my family is full of nice people who made me the confident guy I am today" way. On the other hand, he's a recovering alcoholic, his brother killed himself and it really messed him up, and he behaved in a manner that ended a relationship very badly. But Kaveh has been in the dark places and gotten himself out of it, which is something really needed in this book since Cora is so far down the hole.
Kaveh and Cora become boyfriend and girlfriend. This is a bit controversial for me given the age difference and power differential (she's 21 and traumatized, he's 35 and see above), BUT he is utterly supportive of her and caring and she NEEDS THAT since literally nobody else in her world is doing that for her AT ALL. I seriously wondered if it was ethical for them to get into a sexual relationship, even though as far as both Kaveh and I can tell, she definitely consented to such and even though Cora's a wreck, she seems to be into the relationship as much as she can be. Even Kaveh himself is deeply concerned and has doubts about whether or not this is a good idea, but plugs along anyway? They are also bonded in the "we are the only two people in the world who are close to aliens" sort of way, as well. Kaveh gets that on some emotional level, if not a sexual partner level, Cora loves Ampersand--and he can deal with that. Hooray!
Before I go further, let's have Kaveh's Quote Corner:
- "Welcome to Earth. I'm not going to punch you in the head."
- "Goddamn but this situation got more and more fucked-up every second. There was no right or wrong thing to do, no way to un-fuck this, only the path of least harm, and he could only hope that whatever he did from here on in fell on that path."
- "I'm not particularly threatened by him. Like, there are some things about being human he is never going to get. Like, he's never going to understand why 'Dick in a Box' is funny."
- "If he is a part of the package that is you...then okay. I can roll with it. We're in uncharted territory. But that's kind of fun in its own right. I said I know you're in love with him, that doesn't mean you don't love me. I know you love me differently than you love him."
...........
And then, the ending. The ending pretty much ruined everything for me. It's not quite the level of "aliens wipe out Earth" (YET, I'm sure that's where book 3 goes if there is a book 3) level of depressing, but a certain thing happened that bummed me out so much that I don't think I will be able to continue reading if there's a third book. On a not-terribly-related note, I am a huge fan of Seanan McGuire and have NOT been able to make myself read "Where The Drowned Girls Go" because literally everything about it sounds horrifying, depressing and sad--and that's about where this book I just read here ends. I don't think I can take experiencing more things going to hell after this. I'm really sad. I'm too sad to even spoiler space discuss this. Things end on a very dark and depressing place and I'm not sure if I want to know where it goes from there, sigh. Or if I can take that while living in the already-nightmare 2020's. That may just be me, though.
I read this interview with the author (note: while I'm not spoiling the ending, this interview does towards the bottom) and I note this quote:
Also, I wrote much of this book during COVID, which I guess is pretty obvious considering it’s just a bunch of people arguing over how to deal with this slow-moving disaster. I don’t want to write a narrative where the solution is hopeless. But the longer this goes on, it’s harder to make a case for any type of human cooperation.
....Agreed.
Three and a half stars.