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Sons and Ones
Jan. 23rd, 2026 09:28 pmSon of Sin by Omar Sakr is a queer Muslim coming-of-age story, following Jamal, who is raised in an abusive household, constantly terrified of all the sins his family warns him about committing. It tracks his late adolescence and early adulthood, as he travels to various parts of the world, seeking a family connection and a potential relationship with several other young men.
It's beautifully written, though the poetic prose is interspersed with quite a lot of swearing, explicit sexual content and crudeness, which is a bit odd. It's also relentlessly depressing, with Jamal continually facing rejection, violence, and homophobia. It did keep me reading, but I didn't hold out much hope for any kind of positive ending. The final image of the book will definitely stay with me - and not in a good way.
The One by John Marrs is a near-future thriller about a world where scientists have discovered a gene that connects each person to their perfect romantic match. It's split into five completely separate narratives, following different people's lives as they are affected in various ways by being matched. It's entertaining and pulled me along effectively - but it was also pretty disappointing in terms of lack of diversity amongst the protagonists (all under 40, attractive, able-bodied, white, and ostensibly straight). There was also some repetition of plot points across more than one story, and the directions each thread took were less interesting than some of the reported instances of matches gone wrong that are mentioned along the way. So, it was a fun enough listen, but didn't make as much of the premise as it could have done.
It's beautifully written, though the poetic prose is interspersed with quite a lot of swearing, explicit sexual content and crudeness, which is a bit odd. It's also relentlessly depressing, with Jamal continually facing rejection, violence, and homophobia. It did keep me reading, but I didn't hold out much hope for any kind of positive ending. The final image of the book will definitely stay with me - and not in a good way.
The One by John Marrs is a near-future thriller about a world where scientists have discovered a gene that connects each person to their perfect romantic match. It's split into five completely separate narratives, following different people's lives as they are affected in various ways by being matched. It's entertaining and pulled me along effectively - but it was also pretty disappointing in terms of lack of diversity amongst the protagonists (all under 40, attractive, able-bodied, white, and ostensibly straight). There was also some repetition of plot points across more than one story, and the directions each thread took were less interesting than some of the reported instances of matches gone wrong that are mentioned along the way. So, it was a fun enough listen, but didn't make as much of the premise as it could have done.
