Inspection
Jul. 3rd, 2022 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearInspection by Josh Malerman is about a social experiment, conducted by a husband and wife, who have decided that knowledge of the opposite sex is what stunts humanity from reaching its intellectual potential. So, they take 26 male babies (Alphabet Boys) and 26 female babies (Letter Girls) and raise them separately in towers deep in the woods, with no knowledge that the other sex even exists.
The girls aren't revealed as being present until exactly the halfway point, but the blurb on the back of the book gives it away immediately, which is a shame. Then, we switch to their tower and, while in some ways it feels the girls are short-changed by not getting as much page-time, it also feels very repetitive to go to their tower and get basically the set-up all over again.
Of course, discoveries are made and bad things happen.
But - at no point is it mentioned that any of the kids could potentially harbour same-sex attraction, or be non-binary or trans.
And, considering the idea is that the kids will be encouraged in scientific innovation, the fact that they're raised never to question authority or their surroundings surely wouldn't fuel a spirit of enquiry...
So, a couple of major flaws there!
I was engage at the start, but that rapidly waned after the halfway point - though I did like the fact that it was the girls who did all the exploring, discovering, revealing and rescuing.
Overall, though, not a great book, in my opinion.
The girls aren't revealed as being present until exactly the halfway point, but the blurb on the back of the book gives it away immediately, which is a shame. Then, we switch to their tower and, while in some ways it feels the girls are short-changed by not getting as much page-time, it also feels very repetitive to go to their tower and get basically the set-up all over again.
Of course, discoveries are made and bad things happen.
But - at no point is it mentioned that any of the kids could potentially harbour same-sex attraction, or be non-binary or trans.
And, considering the idea is that the kids will be encouraged in scientific innovation, the fact that they're raised never to question authority or their surroundings surely wouldn't fuel a spirit of enquiry...
So, a couple of major flaws there!
I was engage at the start, but that rapidly waned after the halfway point - though I did like the fact that it was the girls who did all the exploring, discovering, revealing and rescuing.
Overall, though, not a great book, in my opinion.
