the radiant dark by alexandra oliva
Today, or rather tonight, I have another review for a book I received from NetGalley. Anyone who follows along for my reviews will probably sense a pattern with this one, but it's another SF novel with big ideas about what it means to exist. Also family stuff. I've never read anything by this author before and this was a kind of whim request, as they usually are, but I enjoyed it despite everything. The multiple POV situation helped—I really am a sucker for books written in multiple character perspectives.
I wrote about this in my smaller summary review on my personal Bookwyrm profile, but this book took me a long time to read. Part of that was simply that I've been busy adjusting to a new life schedule, but a lot of it wasn't that. Instead what largely held me back with this book was its very excellent theme and the connection that theme has to my personal life. This is an SF novel that contemplates the possibility of contact from intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, yes, but I think even more than that, it's a book about family and the traumas we face because of and in spite of the actions of our loved ones.
I think many of us have complicated relationships with the people we're apparently supposed to feel the closest to, and the relationships Carol, the character we're first introduced to in the novel, has with her children and other members of her family struck a little close to home for me. I don't think there's any reason to go into details about my personal life or exactly what happens in the book (since some of it is pretty significant spoilers), but even though the author's nuanced approach to relationships is what made this book so great, it also made it a little too hard for me personally.
Nonetheless, I like what the author did with the set up and seeing how the characters evolved (or didn't...) was a worthwhile exercise and I think without my own baggage this would have been a truly wonderful read. I went into this book expecting some kind of first contact situation, and instead got intense analysis of family dynamics with lots of science going on in the background. It's hard to complain about that unless you really only care about the outer space stuff and not so much for the humanity stuff.
This one isn't for the aliens or the space exploration. This one is definitely for the girls. Keep that in mind when deciding if you want to pick this one up or not. It'll make it all the more worth the while.
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