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Meeks: A Novel (2010)

by Julia Holmes(Favorite Author)

3.06 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1931520658 (ISBN13: 9781931520652)

languge

English

genre

Science Fiction

publisher

Small Beer Press

review 1: I read some of the other Goodreads reviews of this book, and, frankly, I'm a little surprised. (Espcially at the book's own proofreader, who gave it a negative review. Isn't that a conflict of interest? Bad business ethics? Talking smack in a public forum about a product put out by a company that also signs your checks? Eh, freelancers.) Yes, I can see how this isn't a book for everyone - it's a dystopia, not a utopia. Probably not headed for a happy ending, here. But it's imaginative and well-written - one of my favorite sentences is, simply: "I kicked my boot heel against the rock and knocked free the pressed tread of snow." Economical, poetic, evocative. "Meeks" is full of just this sort of precise, eloquent detail. And yes, it's somewhat Kafka-esque, with sh... moreades of Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. LeGuin, too. In all honesty, I picked this up because the author's brother-in-law is one of my boyfriend's best friends, and I figured I'd better have something to comment on if we all ended up at a shindig together. But I kept reading because it's damn good. Color me impressed.
review 2: As a guy who loves depressing books, it's kind of bizarre to hear myself say this but... this book was actually too depressing, even for the dystopian fiction genre. But the bigger problem with it is that unlike 1984, Brave New World, etc., the society in which the story takes place and the "historical context" that produced this society are never made sufficiently palpable to allow the reader to feel completely engaged with the characters and the plot-- the atmosphere is too murky and dim to make it all comprehensible. However, considering that this is the author's first novel, written in 2010, and not a perennial classic of Modern English Lit written by Orwell or Huxley, I suppose it's solid enough for what it is. If you're a fan of dystopian fiction in general, this is probably worth a read. Otherwise, don't bother-- it'll just make you want to pull the covers over your head and stay in bed forever. less

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