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Noumena #2
Truth of the Divine
17 hrs and 18 mins
Truth of the Divine is the new alternate history first contact novel from the instant New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and LA Times best-selling video essayist Lindsay Ellis.
The human race is at a crossroads; we know that we are not alone, but details about the alien presence on Earth are still being withheld from the public. As the political climate becomes more unstable, the world is forced to consider the ramifications of granting human rights to non-human persons. How do you define “person” in the first place?
Cora Sabino not only serves as the full-time communication intermediary between the alien entity Ampersand and his government chaperones, but also shares a mysterious bond with him that is both painful and intimate in a way that neither of them could have anticipated. Despite this, Ampersand is still keen on keeping secrets, even from her, which backfires on both of them when investigative journalist Kaveh Mazandarani, a close colleague of Cora’s estranged whistleblower father, witnesses far more of Ampersand’s machinations than anyone was meant to see.
Since Cora has no choice but to trust Kaveh, the two must work together to prove to a fearful world that intelligent, conscious beings should be considered persons, no matter how monstrous-looking, powerful, or malicious they may seem. Making this case is hard enough when the public doesn’t know what it’s dealing with, and it will only become harder when a mysterious flash illuminates the sky, marking the arrival of an agent of chaos that will light an already unstable world on fire.
Truth of the Divine is the new alternate history first contact novel from the instant New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and LA Times best-selling video essayist Lindsay Ellis.
The human race is at a crossroads; we know that we are not alone, but details about the alien presence on Earth are still being withheld from the public. As the political climate becomes more unstable, the world is forced to consider the ramifications of granting human rights to non-human persons. How do you define “person” in the first place?
Cora Sabino not only serves as the full-time communication intermediary between the alien entity Ampersand and his government chaperones, but also shares a mysterious bond with him that is both painful and intimate in a way that neither of them could have anticipated. Despite this, Ampersand is still keen on keeping secrets, even from her, which backfires on both of them when investigative journalist Kaveh Mazandarani, a close colleague of Cora’s estranged whistleblower father, witnesses far more of Ampersand’s machinations than anyone was meant to see.
Since Cora has no choice but to trust Kaveh, the two must work together to prove to a fearful world that intelligent, conscious beings should be considered persons, no matter how monstrous-looking, powerful, or malicious they may seem. Making this case is hard enough when the public doesn’t know what it’s dealing with, and it will only become harder when a mysterious flash illuminates the sky, marking the arrival of an agent of chaos that will light an already unstable world on fire.
17 pages, Audible Audio
First published October 12, 2021
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July 11, 2024
A very good sequel to Axiom's End. I think I actually preferred this to the first book, but...there were some things that I found a bit troubling.
Cora's story and her involvement with the aliens and various government bodies continues pretty much from where it left off in Axiom's End. We get a new POV character, Kaveh, who is a delightful addition, although (of course) he has problems too. Also new aliens, which are always interesting.
But the story did make for some uncomfortable reading. Cora is overwhelmed, her mental and physical health deteriorating at an alarming rate, and it's hard to mutely follow a character who is so obviously falling apart at the seams. The world of politics is also in turmoil, which I have seriously had enough of in real life already. Plus, the aliens? Still lots of issues there, the main one usually being death. While I loved Kaveh's character, I also felt extremely conflicted about his relationship with Cora, for so many reasons.
All of this unrelenting conflict and turmoil created a feeling that there was no escape, and an overwhelming sense of drowning. As a reader, too much despair can be an exhausting experience. It's not that I expected this to be a feel-good book, it's just dangerously close to feeling totally hopeless.
Maybe there will be some hope sprinkled into book 3?
Cora's story and her involvement with the aliens and various government bodies continues pretty much from where it left off in Axiom's End. We get a new POV character, Kaveh, who is a delightful addition, although (of course) he has problems too. Also new aliens, which are always interesting.
But the story did make for some uncomfortable reading. Cora is overwhelmed, her mental and physical health deteriorating at an alarming rate, and it's hard to mutely follow a character who is so obviously falling apart at the seams. The world of politics is also in turmoil, which I have seriously had enough of in real life already. Plus, the aliens? Still lots of issues there, the main one usually being death. While I loved Kaveh's character, I also felt extremely conflicted about his relationship with Cora, for so many reasons.
All of this unrelenting conflict and turmoil created a feeling that there was no escape, and an overwhelming sense of drowning. As a reader, too much despair can be an exhausting experience. It's not that I expected this to be a feel-good book, it's just dangerously close to feeling totally hopeless.
Maybe there will be some hope sprinkled into book 3?
August 20, 2021
I'm very careful about requesting Advance Reader's Copy books. I try and request only those I am pretty sure I'll like based on previous knowledge of an author or the marketing copy provided. I thought I had a winner with this selection as I had read the first book in the series, Axiom's End, and enjoyed it. Alas, this book was not up to par with Axiom's End. It brought in new focal characters--usually not a bad thing--but sidelined the main alien that was so integral to the story in the first book. This is a dark book and deals with topics not everyone will like to read about. The author even gives a warning at the start of the book. I didn't find the topics off putting; what got me was the very slow pace of the book and the repetition. It seemed to me that the author kept restating in exhaustive detail the same points over and over again. And did I mention slow pace? Yes, this book seemed to take me forever to get through to the point where I set goals for number of pages read before I could take a break. I was determined to finish it and I admit, I did get invested enough in the new characters to want to find out what happened to them.
The book opens with a theme that is pivotal to the story: what constitutes the definition of being human and what rights these aliens have. Cora is suffering from PTSD from an encounter in the first book and Ampersand is trying to help her. Then a light appears in the sky and a new alien appears on Earth to join Ampersand. It also happens that a Pulitzer prize winning journalist, Kaveh, is near and Cora gives him one of her ear buds so he can communicate with this new creature he dubs Nikola. The story then centers on the three of them with a lot of time given over to the budding relationship between Kaveh and Cora. Proof is given to the world that there are aliens being harbored by the U. S. Government and right-wing conspiracy groups and leftist human rights groups are formed. The battle begins.
What made Axiom's End so engrossing, the story line of first contact, is missing from this book. Although Nikola and Kaveh go through the same learning process in getting to know one another, their story is just a restatement of what Cora and Ampersand have already gone through. Same story, different characters. This book could have done so much more with the Alien-Human relationships, but didn't. I did enjoy the theoretical discussion of person-hood and human rights and the controversy it caused. I also liked the alternate history angle although I thought the President should have played a larger role. Indeed, he wasn't heard from at all!
Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC in return for an honest review. The publication date is October 12, 2021.
The book opens with a theme that is pivotal to the story: what constitutes the definition of being human and what rights these aliens have. Cora is suffering from PTSD from an encounter in the first book and Ampersand is trying to help her. Then a light appears in the sky and a new alien appears on Earth to join Ampersand. It also happens that a Pulitzer prize winning journalist, Kaveh, is near and Cora gives him one of her ear buds so he can communicate with this new creature he dubs Nikola. The story then centers on the three of them with a lot of time given over to the budding relationship between Kaveh and Cora. Proof is given to the world that there are aliens being harbored by the U. S. Government and right-wing conspiracy groups and leftist human rights groups are formed. The battle begins.
What made Axiom's End so engrossing, the story line of first contact, is missing from this book. Although Nikola and Kaveh go through the same learning process in getting to know one another, their story is just a restatement of what Cora and Ampersand have already gone through. Same story, different characters. This book could have done so much more with the Alien-Human relationships, but didn't. I did enjoy the theoretical discussion of person-hood and human rights and the controversy it caused. I also liked the alternate history angle although I thought the President should have played a larger role. Indeed, he wasn't heard from at all!
Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC in return for an honest review. The publication date is October 12, 2021.
October 22, 2021
Truth of the Divine is the second book in Lindsay Ellis' Noumena series. My thoughts on the first novel, Axiom's End, were fairly straightforward: a sub-par book written by an author with big ideas who'd found herself with a publishing network that so badly wanted to wring money out of her name and audience.
I feel the bizarre trajectory that the review took around the Internet is important context to this review. It was far more popular than I thought it would be. Popular enough that, among other things, it was drawn into some weird spat between the author and alt-right personality Sargon of Akkad. No, I don't get it either. How do people who live and breathe the Internet not understand the Streisand Effect still?
Anyway, before I get into the meat of this novel, as thin and stringy as it is, I'm going to do some Proper Goodreads Reviewer Chic and drop a .gif in here. Ellis, if you are reading this, and I know that you are because you read the previous one:
The novel opens with a lengthy authorial note about traumatic situations, the responsibility of the artist when depicting things like self-harm and suicide, a fairly exhaustive list of potential trigger warnings within the text and the implied superiority of Ellis' work to the wildly successful and critically well-received 2018 movie A Star is Born.
Like most well-meaning notes of that type from authors of Ellis' calibre, it reads more as a self-effacing attempt to stress how mature their novel is before the reader's had a chance to judge it ("especially given the relatively light tone of the first instalment of this series") than any attempt to actually act as a trigger warning. I can see why Ellis or her publisher felt such a warning was necessary because this novel does like suddenly springing some pretty wild stuff on the reader, but such occurrences struck me more as bizarre and laughable than dark and unsettling. Like being disturbed by the ludicrously over-the-top gore in Amazon's Invincible series. Still, it does raise the thought: is this a dark and mature sequel? Is this Axiom's End's Empire Strikes Back?
Let's see.
First, there's the matter of the 'prologue.' A fairly typical epistolary document insert that some genre authors use to try and get around fitting exposition into the story itself. But here's the thing, and I raise this only because it's advice I've heard from editors, why are you opening your novel with this boring dry textbook-esque exposition instead of just leaping into the story?
Anyway, the novel has four of those, and two of them are straightforward excerpts from United Nations documentation. Is this an academic essay or a story? Oh, and that's just the ones at the start of the novel.
The first part of Truth of the Divine--hereafter TotD--is "It's A Fool Who Plays It Cool" which might be a perfect summary of the book but not in the way the author intended. The book is divided into four parts in total, and each has a title that lands well short of the profundity it's shooting for.
The story itself is similar to the first as far as prose is concerned. I commented on the weak, amateurish prose in my review of the first novel and so won't go too much into it this time. The second novel's text may be slightly better, credit to Ellis, but it certainly isn't good. On the very first page of the story itself, we get the following: "The fluorescent lights in this conference room were the frequency of knives."
Knives don't have a frequency in either meaning of the term (unless, perhaps, there's a stylish knife block atop the conference room table.) What Ellis means to say is something like 'The hum of the fluorescent lights was like a knife in Cora's brain.' Unfortunately, the same paragraph explains that Cora is in a 'mind fog' implying boredom, tiredness or disinterest which doesn't really gel with the painful knife metaphor--but, hey, who's counting awkward prose at this point?
Even shuffling so much exposition into those documents has done nothing for the actual story, the first few chapters are a clunky mess that practically recounts the events of the first novel and the worldbuilding contained therein. Cora is the sole intermediary between the aliens and they don't want to talk with the government. Meanwhile, people wonder whether human rights can apply to non-human beings with all the intelligence and perceptive wit of a middle school humanities debate. It all sets the tone of the whole novel. The plot plods along, interspersed with panic attacks and navel-gazing about human rights, and there were more than a few sections I had to read more than once to make sure I understood what was being said and/or be sure I hadn't missed anything. By the end of it, I wasn't sure anything had really happened.
Anyway, the Transformers inspiration remains clear, too. I know some people, including the author herself, have taken umbrage with reviews that point this out. I know, specifically, that the comparison to Michael Bay's Transformers has made a lot of people wail and gnash their teeth and call me a psychopath. But here's the thing--it isn't a hard comparison to draw, and it's very apparent in the first few chapters of TotD, too.
See, Cora Sabino essentially operates in the same position as Sam Witwicky does in the Michael Bay films, that is, she's the sole liaison between humanity and an alien species which seemingly cooperates with the government at their own volition. What Ellis has written feels like--and I can't believe I'm saying this--gender-swapped AU fixfic.
Where Bay took the interesting tack of making Witwicky's status an irrelevant joke that can't even help him get an office job, Ellis' attempt at the same idea lacks any kind of subversive edge and she veers between being bored about her security clearance job and terrified that they'll take it away from her. Instead of Witwicky's entitlement and toxic masculinity driving him into psychotic break culminating in killing someone he thinks is his romantic rival, we get maudlin panic attacks and a relationship (sorry, "fusion bond") between a woman and an alien that feels far creepier than the author intended it. "Dear one, come to me," Ampersand says like he's trying to lure Cora into an unmarked van. And just how many times is Cora going to get injected with a syringe?
As the story went on, I was also reminded of a particular episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Measure of a Man, when the humans meet with two members of the Fremda group. But, like the Transformers inspiration, the scene felt derivative instead of feeling like it's commentating on whatever inspired this work, which is kind of my big issue with TotD. Like, there's been a wealth of media about personhood, aliens, robots, and how humanity can relate to such things and if human rights depend on some statistical range of human capability. I remain baffled whenever an author dives into such a thoroughly explored ravine with thoughts that amount to, well, we can't call them by white people names because the world will think we're white supremacists. I don't think Ellis really has any serious arguments for or against these themes which is why it's just prosaic pabulum after prosaic pabulum. I feel like you could write a whole critique of this novel just based on how Americentric this text is, this novel that says America represents the whole of humanity.
I really don't want to say too much, if only because I'm repeating myself and don't really have much to say that I haven't already said and if I don't cut myself off I'll be yanking on every single thread in the tapestry--plot, character, themes, and worldbuilding. Truth of the Divine is Axiom's End 2 for everything that means. As mentioned, Ellis' writing is actually a bit better in the sense it's not so obviously bad, but it's not a distinct, marked improvement. The mental anguish Cora goes through as a consequence of the events of the first novel is more melodramatic than anything else, and it's exacerbated by that authorial note which makes you wonder if the author thinks it is incredible writing. The usage of things like Facebook posts, fake news articles, text messages, and email chains as worldbuilding and secondary plot telling is fairly unbearable. Any kind of sci-fi multidimensional theorizing remains pat and bland where you're not sure if the author skimmed Wikipedia while writing the sections in question or didn't and thinks they're onto something original and thought-provoking.
As an aside, and I bring this up only because of that authorial note about responsibility, but I found the times Kaveh would bring up globalists, anti-Semitism, or whatever else that was intended to make the novel 'relevant' a choice that I'm not sure is really that responsible. I'm reminded of the web serial Worm where the protagonist, Taylor, would display an exhaustive knowledge of Nazi beliefs and iconography, some of it quite obscure, despite frequently not understanding really basic things. This is seemingly done to enlighten the audience to the secret messages they use, educating them in ways those types cloak themselves, yadda yadda--but all you really get out of it is, like, an introductory lesson/primer in neo-Nazi iconography and beliefs. So, Kaveh will reflect 'When they say globalists, they mean Jews, this is anti-Semitism' in the same page he wonders like, oh, maybe they don't get that they're fascists. Is this novel dealing with the reactionary elements of 2007 or 2021? Does the author comprehend the difference? While not quite as odious as the first novel, TotD continues the trend where it's unclear why this novel was set in 2007 in the first place. Somehow Bay's Transformers series provides more interesting commentary on that era by making the Autobots tools of American hegemony who blow up Middle Eastern nuclear research operations and also the Pyramids while talking about how freedom is everyone's right.
Speaking of Kaveh, he's actually somewhat more interesting than Cora, although the fact it feels like he and Nikola are repeating the first novel was a big letdown. And the kinda-sorta love triangle between him, Cora and Ampersand is... an odd choice. I don't mean in practice--the second book in most YA series introduces a love triangle, of course. But it's more...
Look, yet again, a sci-fi author dabbles with something transgressive and weird then walks it back to something safe. You end up with a message that's basically, hey, it might be fun to fool around with one of those aliens-we're-using-as-a-metaphor-for-other-ethnicities, but... The one thing I hoped to get from this novel is the one thing I hope to get from Transformers, a weird-ass relationship between a human and a bizarre lifeform. Oh well!
Earlier, I raised the idea that the novel was setting itself up as The Empire Strikes Back--dark and gritty and mature. Upon reflection, I think it's closer to The Last Jedi. Better than the film that preceded it but certainly not good and not so much a failure of the text in question as it is the compounding failure of the previous instalment it was built upon. A text that seems profound but is just kinda banal, where it feels like the author is unaware of the wider corpus of fiction that's handled similar themes. Ellis' writing is better than the first novel, true, but still short of what I'd consider passable. If Axiom's End was one star, Truth of the Divine is about one and a half. My impression is a novel that'll do nothing to sway people who didn't like the first and will surely alienate a number of people who enjoyed the first.
My curiosity into Ellis' creative skill is sated. I will not be reading the third. It's nice to see Ellis put out a better book than her first, whether that stems from increased editorial oversight or more attention on her own craft, but so much of it feels like it's tied up in a desire to be taken seriously as a mature writer who writes about trauma and not space aliens but with the same energy and intensity as someone who writes 'mature' fanfiction on ao3. There's no truth in this supposed divinity and certainly no insight.
Ultimately, whatever support the editorial staff gave Ellis for this book is what they owed her for her debut novel.
I feel the bizarre trajectory that the review took around the Internet is important context to this review. It was far more popular than I thought it would be. Popular enough that, among other things, it was drawn into some weird spat between the author and alt-right personality Sargon of Akkad. No, I don't get it either. How do people who live and breathe the Internet not understand the Streisand Effect still?
Anyway, before I get into the meat of this novel, as thin and stringy as it is, I'm going to do some Proper Goodreads Reviewer Chic and drop a .gif in here. Ellis, if you are reading this, and I know that you are because you read the previous one:
The novel opens with a lengthy authorial note about traumatic situations, the responsibility of the artist when depicting things like self-harm and suicide, a fairly exhaustive list of potential trigger warnings within the text and the implied superiority of Ellis' work to the wildly successful and critically well-received 2018 movie A Star is Born.
Like most well-meaning notes of that type from authors of Ellis' calibre, it reads more as a self-effacing attempt to stress how mature their novel is before the reader's had a chance to judge it ("especially given the relatively light tone of the first instalment of this series") than any attempt to actually act as a trigger warning. I can see why Ellis or her publisher felt such a warning was necessary because this novel does like suddenly springing some pretty wild stuff on the reader, but such occurrences struck me more as bizarre and laughable than dark and unsettling. Like being disturbed by the ludicrously over-the-top gore in Amazon's Invincible series. Still, it does raise the thought: is this a dark and mature sequel? Is this Axiom's End's Empire Strikes Back?
Let's see.
First, there's the matter of the 'prologue.' A fairly typical epistolary document insert that some genre authors use to try and get around fitting exposition into the story itself. But here's the thing, and I raise this only because it's advice I've heard from editors, why are you opening your novel with this boring dry textbook-esque exposition instead of just leaping into the story?
Anyway, the novel has four of those, and two of them are straightforward excerpts from United Nations documentation. Is this an academic essay or a story? Oh, and that's just the ones at the start of the novel.
The first part of Truth of the Divine--hereafter TotD--is "It's A Fool Who Plays It Cool" which might be a perfect summary of the book but not in the way the author intended. The book is divided into four parts in total, and each has a title that lands well short of the profundity it's shooting for.
The story itself is similar to the first as far as prose is concerned. I commented on the weak, amateurish prose in my review of the first novel and so won't go too much into it this time. The second novel's text may be slightly better, credit to Ellis, but it certainly isn't good. On the very first page of the story itself, we get the following: "The fluorescent lights in this conference room were the frequency of knives."
Knives don't have a frequency in either meaning of the term (unless, perhaps, there's a stylish knife block atop the conference room table.) What Ellis means to say is something like 'The hum of the fluorescent lights was like a knife in Cora's brain.' Unfortunately, the same paragraph explains that Cora is in a 'mind fog' implying boredom, tiredness or disinterest which doesn't really gel with the painful knife metaphor--but, hey, who's counting awkward prose at this point?
Even shuffling so much exposition into those documents has done nothing for the actual story, the first few chapters are a clunky mess that practically recounts the events of the first novel and the worldbuilding contained therein. Cora is the sole intermediary between the aliens and they don't want to talk with the government. Meanwhile, people wonder whether human rights can apply to non-human beings with all the intelligence and perceptive wit of a middle school humanities debate. It all sets the tone of the whole novel. The plot plods along, interspersed with panic attacks and navel-gazing about human rights, and there were more than a few sections I had to read more than once to make sure I understood what was being said and/or be sure I hadn't missed anything. By the end of it, I wasn't sure anything had really happened.
Anyway, the Transformers inspiration remains clear, too. I know some people, including the author herself, have taken umbrage with reviews that point this out. I know, specifically, that the comparison to Michael Bay's Transformers has made a lot of people wail and gnash their teeth and call me a psychopath. But here's the thing--it isn't a hard comparison to draw, and it's very apparent in the first few chapters of TotD, too.
See, Cora Sabino essentially operates in the same position as Sam Witwicky does in the Michael Bay films, that is, she's the sole liaison between humanity and an alien species which seemingly cooperates with the government at their own volition. What Ellis has written feels like--and I can't believe I'm saying this--gender-swapped AU fixfic.
Where Bay took the interesting tack of making Witwicky's status an irrelevant joke that can't even help him get an office job, Ellis' attempt at the same idea lacks any kind of subversive edge and she veers between being bored about her security clearance job and terrified that they'll take it away from her. Instead of Witwicky's entitlement and toxic masculinity driving him into psychotic break culminating in killing someone he thinks is his romantic rival, we get maudlin panic attacks and a relationship (sorry, "fusion bond") between a woman and an alien that feels far creepier than the author intended it. "Dear one, come to me," Ampersand says like he's trying to lure Cora into an unmarked van. And just how many times is Cora going to get injected with a syringe?
As the story went on, I was also reminded of a particular episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Measure of a Man, when the humans meet with two members of the Fremda group. But, like the Transformers inspiration, the scene felt derivative instead of feeling like it's commentating on whatever inspired this work, which is kind of my big issue with TotD. Like, there's been a wealth of media about personhood, aliens, robots, and how humanity can relate to such things and if human rights depend on some statistical range of human capability. I remain baffled whenever an author dives into such a thoroughly explored ravine with thoughts that amount to, well, we can't call them by white people names because the world will think we're white supremacists. I don't think Ellis really has any serious arguments for or against these themes which is why it's just prosaic pabulum after prosaic pabulum. I feel like you could write a whole critique of this novel just based on how Americentric this text is, this novel that says America represents the whole of humanity.
I really don't want to say too much, if only because I'm repeating myself and don't really have much to say that I haven't already said and if I don't cut myself off I'll be yanking on every single thread in the tapestry--plot, character, themes, and worldbuilding. Truth of the Divine is Axiom's End 2 for everything that means. As mentioned, Ellis' writing is actually a bit better in the sense it's not so obviously bad, but it's not a distinct, marked improvement. The mental anguish Cora goes through as a consequence of the events of the first novel is more melodramatic than anything else, and it's exacerbated by that authorial note which makes you wonder if the author thinks it is incredible writing. The usage of things like Facebook posts, fake news articles, text messages, and email chains as worldbuilding and secondary plot telling is fairly unbearable. Any kind of sci-fi multidimensional theorizing remains pat and bland where you're not sure if the author skimmed Wikipedia while writing the sections in question or didn't and thinks they're onto something original and thought-provoking.
As an aside, and I bring this up only because of that authorial note about responsibility, but I found the times Kaveh would bring up globalists, anti-Semitism, or whatever else that was intended to make the novel 'relevant' a choice that I'm not sure is really that responsible. I'm reminded of the web serial Worm where the protagonist, Taylor, would display an exhaustive knowledge of Nazi beliefs and iconography, some of it quite obscure, despite frequently not understanding really basic things. This is seemingly done to enlighten the audience to the secret messages they use, educating them in ways those types cloak themselves, yadda yadda--but all you really get out of it is, like, an introductory lesson/primer in neo-Nazi iconography and beliefs. So, Kaveh will reflect 'When they say globalists, they mean Jews, this is anti-Semitism' in the same page he wonders like, oh, maybe they don't get that they're fascists. Is this novel dealing with the reactionary elements of 2007 or 2021? Does the author comprehend the difference? While not quite as odious as the first novel, TotD continues the trend where it's unclear why this novel was set in 2007 in the first place. Somehow Bay's Transformers series provides more interesting commentary on that era by making the Autobots tools of American hegemony who blow up Middle Eastern nuclear research operations and also the Pyramids while talking about how freedom is everyone's right.
Speaking of Kaveh, he's actually somewhat more interesting than Cora, although the fact it feels like he and Nikola are repeating the first novel was a big letdown. And the kinda-sorta love triangle between him, Cora and Ampersand is... an odd choice. I don't mean in practice--the second book in most YA series introduces a love triangle, of course. But it's more...
Look, yet again, a sci-fi author dabbles with something transgressive and weird then walks it back to something safe. You end up with a message that's basically, hey, it might be fun to fool around with one of those aliens-we're-using-as-a-metaphor-for-other-ethnicities, but... The one thing I hoped to get from this novel is the one thing I hope to get from Transformers, a weird-ass relationship between a human and a bizarre lifeform. Oh well!
Earlier, I raised the idea that the novel was setting itself up as The Empire Strikes Back--dark and gritty and mature. Upon reflection, I think it's closer to The Last Jedi. Better than the film that preceded it but certainly not good and not so much a failure of the text in question as it is the compounding failure of the previous instalment it was built upon. A text that seems profound but is just kinda banal, where it feels like the author is unaware of the wider corpus of fiction that's handled similar themes. Ellis' writing is better than the first novel, true, but still short of what I'd consider passable. If Axiom's End was one star, Truth of the Divine is about one and a half. My impression is a novel that'll do nothing to sway people who didn't like the first and will surely alienate a number of people who enjoyed the first.
My curiosity into Ellis' creative skill is sated. I will not be reading the third. It's nice to see Ellis put out a better book than her first, whether that stems from increased editorial oversight or more attention on her own craft, but so much of it feels like it's tied up in a desire to be taken seriously as a mature writer who writes about trauma and not space aliens but with the same energy and intensity as someone who writes 'mature' fanfiction on ao3. There's no truth in this supposed divinity and certainly no insight.
Ultimately, whatever support the editorial staff gave Ellis for this book is what they owed her for her debut novel.
June 19, 2024
*AUGUST 23rd, 2020*
I want to very calmly and respectfully ask for this book to
COME OUT IMMEDIATELY WHERE IS IT I NEED IT NOW HOW DARE THE UNIVERSE NOT HAVING IT READY TO BUY AND DEVOUR YET THE DISRESPECT
Anyway.
I am very much looking forward to this.
*June 5th, 2022*
So... I finally read the sequel to "Axiom's End". And it wasn't what I thought it was going to be.
If you've read the first book, it had a certain kind of tone, a bit on the lighter side but nonetheless appropriately serious. It had it's more intense, sad and scary moments, but it was also goofy at times.
The focus of the first book was heavily on the 'First Contact' side of things, Amygdalines and Humans meeting for the first time, the CIA reacting to it, getting some backstory for the Amygdalines.
The second book, however, is something very different. Sure, it has lots of scenes regarding the politics of Human and Amygdaline contact, it gives us multiple scenes of the two species interacting, and it gives us deep insights into the philosophy of what makes a person a person and if Amygdalines could ever be that.
But that's only half of the book. The other half deals a lot with trauma. The fallout of what happened at the end of book one. Cora is dealing with PTSD, as is Ampersand. Both of them deal with it in different but not less destructive ways.
And one of the ways Cora is dealing with it is attaching herself to the one human that is showing her some kindness.
The relationship between those two characters is uncomfortable. Not because it was badly written, but because of what is going on inside of Cora, her thoughts, her symptoms. There were quite a few moments where I thought that their relationship was not healthy, despite not necessarily anything being wrong with it.
But I do believe that was the point.
I don't have an issue with the direction Lindsay Ellis chose to take this series. In fact, I appreciate her raw portrayal of trauma. But I can't help but wish that the scenes of the love story could have been cut a little or be incorporated in some of the story about the Amygdalines. Because that was what drew me into the first book in the first place.
I'm really glad I finally got to read this book and I am extremely excited for where this story is going to go, though we have no news of a potential third book yet.
I hope Lindsay Ellis is doing alright for her own sake, I hope she gets to set her own rules of how she wants to navigate this day and age going forward. I wish her all the best.
(BUT I also wish myself a continuation of the story, egotistical as it might be. Please, Lindsay Ellis. I'm begging. You can't leave it there.)
So, how do I rate this book? Is it 4 stars? Is it 3 stars? I liked it, and some parts of it I actually loved, but at the same time it happened to go in a direction at times that I didn't expect and made me uncomfortable. Especially knowing how it turns out, was this story really necessary to tell?
But I think Lindsay Ellis has a plan, and I'm willing to trust her with whatever is going to come next.
*June 19th, 2024*
Just finished my re-read of book one and two to be prepared for book three. In general, I stand by my original review, except that I feel like there was more scenes about the concept of First Contact and the fallout dealing with that than I gave it credit for.
The relationship between Cora and Kaveh didn’t have as much “screen time” as I thought I remembered. That isn’t to say there being less scenes with them was a good thing, especially since I appreciated their scenes together much more than I did the first time around, just that back when I read TotD the first time I probably expected mostly First Contact content, less so human relationship content.
However, this reread also comes with new criticism. The mentions of a certain entity in the Middle East and the lack of criticism regarding it when one POV character comes from a Muslim family is… Certainly a choice, one I hope stems from ignorance, rather than malice. Especially since Right Wing Conspiracy Theorists spouting their theories about said entity is used to critique Anti-Semitism. Said entity being equated with Judaism is a thing we should definitely leave in 2023, if not back in the 1940s.
Since I find Lindsay Ellis to be an intelligent and generally educated person, I hope the next installment won’t suffer from a similar bitter aftertaste.
I want to very calmly and respectfully ask for this book to
COME OUT IMMEDIATELY WHERE IS IT I NEED IT NOW HOW DARE THE UNIVERSE NOT HAVING IT READY TO BUY AND DEVOUR YET THE DISRESPECT
Anyway.
I am very much looking forward to this.
*June 5th, 2022*
So... I finally read the sequel to "Axiom's End". And it wasn't what I thought it was going to be.
If you've read the first book, it had a certain kind of tone, a bit on the lighter side but nonetheless appropriately serious. It had it's more intense, sad and scary moments, but it was also goofy at times.
The focus of the first book was heavily on the 'First Contact' side of things, Amygdalines and Humans meeting for the first time, the CIA reacting to it, getting some backstory for the Amygdalines.
The second book, however, is something very different. Sure, it has lots of scenes regarding the politics of Human and Amygdaline contact, it gives us multiple scenes of the two species interacting, and it gives us deep insights into the philosophy of what makes a person a person and if Amygdalines could ever be that.
But that's only half of the book. The other half deals a lot with trauma. The fallout of what happened at the end of book one. Cora is dealing with PTSD, as is Ampersand. Both of them deal with it in different but not less destructive ways.
And one of the ways Cora is dealing with it is attaching herself to the one human that is showing her some kindness.
The relationship between those two characters is uncomfortable. Not because it was badly written, but because of what is going on inside of Cora, her thoughts, her symptoms. There were quite a few moments where I thought that their relationship was not healthy, despite not necessarily anything being wrong with it.
But I do believe that was the point.
I don't have an issue with the direction Lindsay Ellis chose to take this series. In fact, I appreciate her raw portrayal of trauma. But I can't help but wish that the scenes of the love story could have been cut a little or be incorporated in some of the story about the Amygdalines. Because that was what drew me into the first book in the first place.
I'm really glad I finally got to read this book and I am extremely excited for where this story is going to go, though we have no news of a potential third book yet.
I hope Lindsay Ellis is doing alright for her own sake, I hope she gets to set her own rules of how she wants to navigate this day and age going forward. I wish her all the best.
(BUT I also wish myself a continuation of the story, egotistical as it might be. Please, Lindsay Ellis. I'm begging. You can't leave it there.)
So, how do I rate this book? Is it 4 stars? Is it 3 stars? I liked it, and some parts of it I actually loved, but at the same time it happened to go in a direction at times that I didn't expect and made me uncomfortable. Especially knowing how it turns out, was this story really necessary to tell?
But I think Lindsay Ellis has a plan, and I'm willing to trust her with whatever is going to come next.
*June 19th, 2024*
Just finished my re-read of book one and two to be prepared for book three. In general, I stand by my original review, except that I feel like there was more scenes about the concept of First Contact and the fallout dealing with that than I gave it credit for.
The relationship between Cora and Kaveh didn’t have as much “screen time” as I thought I remembered. That isn’t to say there being less scenes with them was a good thing, especially since I appreciated their scenes together much more than I did the first time around, just that back when I read TotD the first time I probably expected mostly First Contact content, less so human relationship content.
However, this reread also comes with new criticism. The mentions of a certain entity in the Middle East and the lack of criticism regarding it when one POV character comes from a Muslim family is… Certainly a choice, one I hope stems from ignorance, rather than malice. Especially since Right Wing Conspiracy Theorists spouting their theories about said entity is used to critique Anti-Semitism. Said entity being equated with Judaism is a thing we should definitely leave in 2023, if not back in the 1940s.
Since I find Lindsay Ellis to be an intelligent and generally educated person, I hope the next installment won’t suffer from a similar bitter aftertaste.
August 16, 2021
Truth of the Divine, the sequel to Axiom’s End, continuing the story of first contact with extra-terrestrials and a reminder that not all such Meet-ups are cutesy E.T. Stories. Moreover, these two books warn us that the extraterrestrials we meet may not be as concerned with us as they are with each other. We might just be in the way. These books explore communication between species and bonding with them and the chance that we might be an annoying anthill or wasp’s nest to them. As interesting as the first book in the duo was, the second one is in dire need of a sharp editor’s pen. It has all these interesting concepts and ideas, but they get lost in a sea of expositions that seem to head off in every direction.
November 3, 2021
This book is unforgivingly bleak compared to its predecessor. It’s depressing enough to ask, beyond the pandemic and the current political climate: Lindsay, hon, are you okay?
It also needs a trim as badly as I do (my post pandemic hair hangs down into my butt crack).
I started getting some Heinlein vibes here too, and not in a good way. You know the parts of Heinlein’s books that just focus on his political views; just pages of diatribe that, because of their length and placement get in the way, not only of the characters and action, but of his actual message. Lots of that happening in this book.I’m as liberal as an expatriate American can be, and even I found it a bit overwrought.
Also the exploration of PTSD/panic attacks/intrusive thought—I think it might be harmful. I get that she puts a warning in the preface of the novel, saying that those of us with these conditions who might not yet be in a place to deal with the content should refrain from reading it. However, I kind of wonder if there is a place any of us with PTSD can be in, no matter how healthy, that this isn’t going to be a bleak as hell trigger fest.
A real disappointment.
It also needs a trim as badly as I do (my post pandemic hair hangs down into my butt crack).
I started getting some Heinlein vibes here too, and not in a good way. You know the parts of Heinlein’s books that just focus on his political views; just pages of diatribe that, because of their length and placement get in the way, not only of the characters and action, but of his actual message. Lots of that happening in this book.I’m as liberal as an expatriate American can be, and even I found it a bit overwrought.
Also the exploration of PTSD/panic attacks/intrusive thought—I think it might be harmful. I get that she puts a warning in the preface of the novel, saying that those of us with these conditions who might not yet be in a place to deal with the content should refrain from reading it. However, I kind of wonder if there is a place any of us with PTSD can be in, no matter how healthy, that this isn’t going to be a bleak as hell trigger fest.
A real disappointment.
November 16, 2020
Obviously this book has not yet been released and won't be for another year. TBH I haven't even read the first one yet.
I just saw that some people had rated it 1 star without there being any possible way they could had read it and I thought that was a kind of dick move so I wanted to throw a 5 star out there to balance the scales a bit.
Maybe I'm just feeling petty.
Don't hate-rate books you've not read. It's a sucky move all round.
That is all. Thank you very much. Goodnight.
I just saw that some people had rated it 1 star without there being any possible way they could had read it and I thought that was a kind of dick move so I wanted to throw a 5 star out there to balance the scales a bit.
Maybe I'm just feeling petty.
Don't hate-rate books you've not read. It's a sucky move all round.
That is all. Thank you very much. Goodnight.
October 28, 2021
Just finished reading this and damn. Wow. Ok.
Spoilers ahead!
This was so heavy, I definitely recommend people reading the content warning in the begining of the book.
Anyway I cant do sentences, heres bulletpoints:
- I didnt know what I was expecting from the sequel to axioms end. It was not THIS, and yet Im blown away.. and so so hurt. I cried a lot throughout this because the way Lindsay handled topics of mental health and self harm hit so close to my core..
- I love Kaveh but it took me a while to accept that he in fact is just a kind person who wants the best for cora. I was awaiting a betryal somewhere in there, because damn, he was "too perfect" for what cora needed in this book.. That in the end he died was expected therefor, because apparently our dear cora cant have anything good in this world.
- It took me a huge chunk of the book to accept and not be uneasy about coras and kavehs relationship. Just like the characters themselves, I also internally struggled about this whole age difference and power dynamic in literally every shape and form, but I believe Lindsay handled this really well because throughout their interactions, and the gentleness kaveh showed cora, and the slow but sure blooming of feelings, and the support he gave her, I, just like cora and kaveh themselves, came to accept this relationship. This is the first book I've read that handled the differences (and "taboos"?) of such kind of relationship well.
- I have to admit being in coras POV was painful everytime, I was happy to read from kavehs POV.
- I didnt even scratch the surface of the politics in this book: Im not from the US , but I believe the happenings in the book to be a realistic portrayal of how media would handle aliens (and therefor not just aliens, but also humans of different backgrounds.). Kavehs POV was really interesting to read, the way he navigates through life with his profession and his iranian background, it seemed super authentic! (from a white persons POv at least, cant wait to hear iranian people's thoughts of this character)
- Nikola good
- I want more ampersand in the next book, thanks
- Fuck Nils
Spoilers ahead!
This was so heavy, I definitely recommend people reading the content warning in the begining of the book.
Anyway I cant do sentences, heres bulletpoints:
- I didnt know what I was expecting from the sequel to axioms end. It was not THIS, and yet Im blown away.. and so so hurt. I cried a lot throughout this because the way Lindsay handled topics of mental health and self harm hit so close to my core..
- I love Kaveh but it took me a while to accept that he in fact is just a kind person who wants the best for cora. I was awaiting a betryal somewhere in there, because damn, he was "too perfect" for what cora needed in this book.. That in the end he died was expected therefor, because apparently our dear cora cant have anything good in this world.
- It took me a huge chunk of the book to accept and not be uneasy about coras and kavehs relationship. Just like the characters themselves, I also internally struggled about this whole age difference and power dynamic in literally every shape and form, but I believe Lindsay handled this really well because throughout their interactions, and the gentleness kaveh showed cora, and the slow but sure blooming of feelings, and the support he gave her, I, just like cora and kaveh themselves, came to accept this relationship. This is the first book I've read that handled the differences (and "taboos"?) of such kind of relationship well.
- I have to admit being in coras POV was painful everytime, I was happy to read from kavehs POV.
- I didnt even scratch the surface of the politics in this book: Im not from the US , but I believe the happenings in the book to be a realistic portrayal of how media would handle aliens (and therefor not just aliens, but also humans of different backgrounds.). Kavehs POV was really interesting to read, the way he navigates through life with his profession and his iranian background, it seemed super authentic! (from a white persons POv at least, cant wait to hear iranian people's thoughts of this character)
- Nikola good
- I want more ampersand in the next book, thanks
- Fuck Nils
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 31, 2021
Wow, so disappointing.
After the first novel I was excited to jump into this and see how the connection evolves between Cora and Ampersand. It turned out to be a mishmash on alien factions, the nature of "humanity," introduction of new love interest Kaveh, what names we give the aliens, and the devastating impact of mental illness.
Instead of writing about President Dick Cheney using government research branches to imprison and interrogate intelligent alien life, putting them on trial to prove they deserve "human" rights, and ignorant American citizens trying to kill them, why can't authors write about the world as they think it should be? Let's see what that looks like, for a refreshing change of pace... unless it's too hard to imagine; too much work.
I'm so irritated by this book I don't even feel like giving a synopsis. However, I want to mention how fantastic the voice narrators were - particularly Abigail Thorn as Cora.
After the first novel I was excited to jump into this and see how the connection evolves between Cora and Ampersand. It turned out to be a mishmash on alien factions, the nature of "humanity," introduction of new love interest Kaveh, what names we give the aliens, and the devastating impact of mental illness.
Instead of writing about President Dick Cheney using government research branches to imprison and interrogate intelligent alien life, putting them on trial to prove they deserve "human" rights, and ignorant American citizens trying to kill them, why can't authors write about the world as they think it should be? Let's see what that looks like, for a refreshing change of pace... unless it's too hard to imagine; too much work.
I'm so irritated by this book I don't even feel like giving a synopsis. However, I want to mention how fantastic the voice narrators were - particularly Abigail Thorn as Cora.
August 17, 2023
3.5
the first book was so fun, like just a girl running around with an alien but i feel like this book was mostly just 300 pages of cora and her anxiety? which is fine but it’s just not what i expected from the first book? still really good ending tho
the first book was so fun, like just a girl running around with an alien but i feel like this book was mostly just 300 pages of cora and her anxiety? which is fine but it’s just not what i expected from the first book? still really good ending tho
August 31, 2021
Ok, full (spoilery) disclosure? I liked the first book better than this one. Yes, I was still interested in the story and what was gonna happen but I was let down by the POV change in this one. I wanted more of Cora and Ampersand. I get that this was probably a way of doing the whole "show, not tell" thing, but I really wanted to be in Cora's head while she was dealing with her PTSD, grief and separation from Ampersand. (Maybe that's the masochist in me but I really wanted to be IN her head for the whole book.) Instead we mostly saw Cora's mental deterioration through the perspective of a male love interest...a much OLDER male love interest. Now, I did like Kaveh, but not at the expense of Cora's POV. I might have liked it more if the book had alternated between them for every chapter, not start off with Cora and then basically have Kaveh take over until almost the end.
I'm gonna have to give this one a 2.5 because I had more gripes than praises. I will read the third book, but I'm not on the edge of my seat waiting for it.
I'm gonna have to give this one a 2.5 because I had more gripes than praises. I will read the third book, but I'm not on the edge of my seat waiting for it.
July 21, 2021
The best thing about Truth of the Divine is the cover.
Now, the cover *is* absolutely gorgeous. Truly, truly beautiful. And I wanted so badly to find within its (digital) binding a book worthy of that cover. Unfortunately, Truth of the Divine isn’t it.
Truth of the Divine (by Lindsay Ellis) is the sequel to Axiom’s End and the second in a planned “Noumena” trilogy. Axiom’s End was a 2020 release and Ms. Ellis’s first novel, and that inexperience came through in that first effort; the writing was uneven, characters frequently thin, and the story could be called “tropey.” Nevertheless, I gave it three stars, and I hoped that the next volume would both see Ms. Ellis improve as a writer and flesh out some of the interesting threads found in Axiom’s End. However, after supposedly working on Axiom’s End for several years, her writing pace picked up (with this book 2 coming out in summer 2021 and book 3 coming in summer 2022) and the storyline suffered.
I read a digital ARC of Truth of the Divine, provided for free by NetGalley. Because this is an ARC, I’ll assume that the typos and grammatical errors will be fixed before full release, but that won’t solve the troubles of Truth of the Divine. I’m going to try and avoid too many
____
SPOILERS, but I will say that the book goes right back to the First Contact well, swapping in a new (male) character as the main human point-of-view for much of the story, along with a new alien companion to go with him. As for our heroine from book one, most of her storyline consists of her struggling with severe trauma following the events of the last book. Perhaps that struggle could have been compelling if well-portrayed, but mostly it made the story a big bummer. The new male character’s interactions with the heroine are also extremely troubling; ultimately, while there are certainly plenty of characters to dislike, there are really very few people to root for in this book. Nils (the heroine’s absent father) remains a completely unlikeable, larger-than-life character, whose name comes up time and time and time again but who ultimely does very little. As to the overarching storyline, it’s clear that the humans’ interaction with aliens are a ham-fisted metaphor for how we treat others of different cultures—especially since the author has numerous characters make that same point multiple times—but there’s nothing new or interesting there, just variations on what we already saw in the last book.
I could go on, but I think it suffices to say that I kept waiting for it to get good, and I’m still waiting. The book was really just a bummer, and it failed to offer rewarding tidbits to balance out that sense of general disappointment. As beautiful as this cover is, I won’t be getting a copy for myself, and I expect I’ll be skipping book 3.
Now, the cover *is* absolutely gorgeous. Truly, truly beautiful. And I wanted so badly to find within its (digital) binding a book worthy of that cover. Unfortunately, Truth of the Divine isn’t it.
Truth of the Divine (by Lindsay Ellis) is the sequel to Axiom’s End and the second in a planned “Noumena” trilogy. Axiom’s End was a 2020 release and Ms. Ellis’s first novel, and that inexperience came through in that first effort; the writing was uneven, characters frequently thin, and the story could be called “tropey.” Nevertheless, I gave it three stars, and I hoped that the next volume would both see Ms. Ellis improve as a writer and flesh out some of the interesting threads found in Axiom’s End. However, after supposedly working on Axiom’s End for several years, her writing pace picked up (with this book 2 coming out in summer 2021 and book 3 coming in summer 2022) and the storyline suffered.
I read a digital ARC of Truth of the Divine, provided for free by NetGalley. Because this is an ARC, I’ll assume that the typos and grammatical errors will be fixed before full release, but that won’t solve the troubles of Truth of the Divine. I’m going to try and avoid too many
____
SPOILERS, but I will say that the book goes right back to the First Contact well, swapping in a new (male) character as the main human point-of-view for much of the story, along with a new alien companion to go with him. As for our heroine from book one, most of her storyline consists of her struggling with severe trauma following the events of the last book. Perhaps that struggle could have been compelling if well-portrayed, but mostly it made the story a big bummer. The new male character’s interactions with the heroine are also extremely troubling; ultimately, while there are certainly plenty of characters to dislike, there are really very few people to root for in this book. Nils (the heroine’s absent father) remains a completely unlikeable, larger-than-life character, whose name comes up time and time and time again but who ultimely does very little. As to the overarching storyline, it’s clear that the humans’ interaction with aliens are a ham-fisted metaphor for how we treat others of different cultures—especially since the author has numerous characters make that same point multiple times—but there’s nothing new or interesting there, just variations on what we already saw in the last book.
I could go on, but I think it suffices to say that I kept waiting for it to get good, and I’m still waiting. The book was really just a bummer, and it failed to offer rewarding tidbits to balance out that sense of general disappointment. As beautiful as this cover is, I won’t be getting a copy for myself, and I expect I’ll be skipping book 3.
October 15, 2021
This instalment is tragic, and shows the evolution and the cost of the relationships Cora has with Ampersand, and the relationship the ROSA group has with the aliens dubbed the Amygdalines.
The book begins as Cora is experiencing crippling anxiety, which she is attempting to conceal at work, as her contributions to the alien program is increasingly minimized by those in charge. Her already shaky self image is crumbling rapidly, and she has no one but Ampersand for any kind of support.
The relationships amongst the aliens is also a cause for much confusion and consternation amongst the humans confining them, and this is brought up repeatedly, as another of the Amygdalines, an associate of Ampersand, arrives rather chaotic on Earth throwing an already difficult situation into a tailspin.
Enter a new human inducted into the very small circle of those with contact with aliens: Kaveh Mazandarani, a respected journalist, who is also on Sol Kaplan’s sh*t list.
Cora and Kaveh connect, and begin working together and romantically involved. As the only two humans functioning as alien interpreters places them in a tiny exclusive club. And the stress and strain upon Cora just keeps getting worse, unsurprisingly, as she finds out Ampersand has not been entirely forthcoming about, well, a lot of things.
Meanwhile, much like our own world, people are reacting with fear and worry, and debating the personhood of aliens—as if a different body shape and different culture immediately connote inferiority compared to a dominant culture! Oh wait…..it does in real life, unfortunately, as we see all around us.
This was a terrific bit tough instalment to get through. Everything about the situations is painful and difficult, and getting worse for Cora, and for the aliens, legally. It's difficult not to think of our own world when Kaveh expresses his concerns about the diminishing legal and other protections for individuals in this fictional world, based on the maneuvering of politicians.
Though I said it was difficult, I still could not put this book down. I loved how Ellis dealt with the mental health of individuals in a pressure cooker situation, and the malleability of truth to everyone involved in this situation.
The ending was a little shocking, but in some ways, considering how Cora and Ampersand have been dealing with things in this book, it's not that surprising that they would make the decision they do at the end. Which means, I want to know what happens next!
Thank you Netgalley and to St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for my review.
The book begins as Cora is experiencing crippling anxiety, which she is attempting to conceal at work, as her contributions to the alien program is increasingly minimized by those in charge. Her already shaky self image is crumbling rapidly, and she has no one but Ampersand for any kind of support.
The relationships amongst the aliens is also a cause for much confusion and consternation amongst the humans confining them, and this is brought up repeatedly, as another of the Amygdalines, an associate of Ampersand, arrives rather chaotic on Earth throwing an already difficult situation into a tailspin.
Enter a new human inducted into the very small circle of those with contact with aliens: Kaveh Mazandarani, a respected journalist, who is also on Sol Kaplan’s sh*t list.
Cora and Kaveh connect, and begin working together and romantically involved. As the only two humans functioning as alien interpreters places them in a tiny exclusive club. And the stress and strain upon Cora just keeps getting worse, unsurprisingly, as she finds out Ampersand has not been entirely forthcoming about, well, a lot of things.
Meanwhile, much like our own world, people are reacting with fear and worry, and debating the personhood of aliens—as if a different body shape and different culture immediately connote inferiority compared to a dominant culture! Oh wait…..it does in real life, unfortunately, as we see all around us.
This was a terrific bit tough instalment to get through. Everything about the situations is painful and difficult, and getting worse for Cora, and for the aliens, legally. It's difficult not to think of our own world when Kaveh expresses his concerns about the diminishing legal and other protections for individuals in this fictional world, based on the maneuvering of politicians.
Though I said it was difficult, I still could not put this book down. I loved how Ellis dealt with the mental health of individuals in a pressure cooker situation, and the malleability of truth to everyone involved in this situation.
The ending was a little shocking, but in some ways, considering how Cora and Ampersand have been dealing with things in this book, it's not that surprising that they would make the decision they do at the end. Which means, I want to know what happens next!
Thank you Netgalley and to St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for my review.
July 29, 2021
UPDATE: Having read the book (thanks St. Martin's) I can say, with utmost humility, that I hate it when I'm right.
First book was so formulaic to the point it ripped off other, better, stories. Second book (this one) tried so hard, and failed, to do something new that it fell so flat that it put its own, two dimensional characters, to shame.
At this rate the third book will just be an index of all the references she wants to use.
Too bad she wasn't cancelled for writing this piece of flammable garbage. It would be more than justifiable. She can't humblebrag her way out of this trash heap.
Better luck next time, fanboys.
Original Post (In which I made people rage so hard they deleted their comments):
Hopefully it's better than the first book, but then any book sold in the strength of a YouTuber's audience numbers never bodes well.
Still, I have been wrong before.
First book was so formulaic to the point it ripped off other, better, stories. Second book (this one) tried so hard, and failed, to do something new that it fell so flat that it put its own, two dimensional characters, to shame.
At this rate the third book will just be an index of all the references she wants to use.
Too bad she wasn't cancelled for writing this piece of flammable garbage. It would be more than justifiable. She can't humblebrag her way out of this trash heap.
Better luck next time, fanboys.
Original Post (In which I made people rage so hard they deleted their comments):
Hopefully it's better than the first book, but then any book sold in the strength of a YouTuber's audience numbers never bodes well.
Still, I have been wrong before.
June 4, 2024
Reread review: absolutely fantastic, better than the first time around. Its strange, since reading this my life has mirrored Cora’s a lot (sans the alien interpreter aspect, unfortunately lol). I’ve had mental health crises, found someone who loves me and helps me work through them, etc. Now I just need to find my alien…
Original review: A masterful continuation to Axiom’s End. Truly, Ellis is an amazing author for me (even tho I did struggle to get into AE initially). She has made a really sympathetic character with Cora, she’s introduced a great foil and supporting character with Kaveh (should I pronounce it to sound similar to coffee: kah-vey, or more like ka-vey-ah, I have no clue), and gives us another look into the Amygdilines (sp) with Nikola, who is also a good contrast for Ampersand/Jude. The themes of humanity/personhood, suffering/overcoming trauma, love (and what forms of it are acceptable), and political division are evergreen, but especially poignant now. I cannot wait to see where Ellis will take the series.
Original review: A masterful continuation to Axiom’s End. Truly, Ellis is an amazing author for me (even tho I did struggle to get into AE initially). She has made a really sympathetic character with Cora, she’s introduced a great foil and supporting character with Kaveh (should I pronounce it to sound similar to coffee: kah-vey, or more like ka-vey-ah, I have no clue), and gives us another look into the Amygdilines (sp) with Nikola, who is also a good contrast for Ampersand/Jude. The themes of humanity/personhood, suffering/overcoming trauma, love (and what forms of it are acceptable), and political division are evergreen, but especially poignant now. I cannot wait to see where Ellis will take the series.
November 1, 2021
Wow I have... thoughts. This book was confusing to me on so many levels, and I've got to say I was utterly engaged and really connected to what was happening the whole way through, so this book does NOT commit the cardinal sin of being boring, I'll give it that much. I'd much rather read something like this, that had some stuff I wasn't happy with at all, but at least kept my interest, as opposed to something boring but perhaps more altogether competent.
Lindsay Ellis is a writer I trust when it comes to her film criticism. In fact, I trust her so much, I know her to be such a smart and thoughtful person, that I think I actually made the experience of this book worse for myself in a lot of ways by assuming she had some clever idea that would make certain aspects of this story make sense, and then when it turned out I was wrong, the disappointment hit all the stronger. The main aspect I'm talking about here is Cora and Kaveh's nauseatingly stupid romantic relationship. I could not stomach a single second of these two falling in love or whatever.
I really like Kaveh. I think he's a cool interesting character with a new perspective, bringing some badly needed fresh eyes to the situation. I even liked the idea of Cora and Kaveh forming an intense and complicated bond because of the absolutely bizarre and unprecedented situation they found themselves in. I was completely on board for watching this weird friendship grow over the course of the book. Even the idea of Cora having a crush on Kaveh I thought was amusing and made sense. After all, she's young and under a lot of stress, and has essentially been abandoned by every support system she's ever known.
But when it comes to their actual... "romance"? It was so bland and unspecific and uncomfortable and honestly felt completely unnecessary. The story could have hit the exact same beats without making anything between them romantic or sexual. I felt convinced by Kaveh and Cora as two complex human beings, as friends, as people who would have a great need for each other under unimaginable stresses. But I found the idea of them falling in love completely unconvincing the way it was presented here.
Then there's the big ending spoilers, which I'll hide...
I should be fair and say that part of why this book disappointed me is that I wanted it to be something it was never trying to be. The personhood debate and all the ways in which the various government agencies were trying to make decisions, meanwhile the aliens had their own priorities and relationship drama, that was the stuff that was by far the most interesting to me. When we got to see glimpses of the senate hearing about the "third option" question of assigning personhood to non-alien beings, I sat up straighter in my seat. I wanted a whole damn transcript of that shit. I love seeing Lindsay work out a debate on a serious philosophical topic through her prose, even if those prose aren't the strongest in the world.
But instead, the book was a lot about Cora's inner emotional life, and her romance with Kaveh, and... well... I just didn't find that stuff nearly as compelling. I did admire the way Ellis wrote Cora's trauma and panic attacks, I thought it was effective and pervasive, but I kept wanting to turn back to the political and social commentary aspect of the novel.
At the same time, reading that ending article by Kaveh was a tough pill to swallow in today's world. I don't think Lindsay said anything about humanity's tendency towards bigotry or nationalism or jingoism that hasn't already been talked to death, and then the novel ends on this uncomfortable downer of a note that provides no real solutions for the future. I know this is a function of a series, that this isn't where we're going to leave this world or this story, but it was still not exactly a pleasant reading experience there at the end, nor did it feel like it was treading particularly new ground.
One last note - I found the woman who read Cora's parts in the audiobook to be pretty fucking unbearable. Kaveh's voice did the normal audiobook thing of acting out the emotions but in a muted way that more accurately mimics the rhythm of a person reading to themselves, which I liked. The Cora voice was, by contrast *so* overacted. The shrill, harsh breathing during the panic attack scenes in particular was just... so grating to hear through headphones and completely pulled me out of the rhythm of the text. It's just overdone and needed to be pulled back by a good 50% almost the whole way through, in my opinion. I also remember this from the first book, that her voice takes on this weird sense of incomprehension or incredulity in moments that make no sense. It's hard to describe but perhaps if someone reads this they'll be able to say it better. There will be a sentence like... "Cora couldn't breathe." And the performance will make it sound like: "Cora... couldn't... brEATHE?!?!?" almost turning it into this disbelieving question or something. Super obnoxious.
I might need to read future books as hard copies, which annoys me since I tend to pick series and then either do all physical copies, or all audio, and now this one's all messed up for me. But that's a me problem, to be honest!
So yeah, I think this book gets only three stars from me because I had higher hopes for its theming, since I love Lindsay so much. I think this book is better written than the first, I think the author has become stronger in her prose and more confident in taking risks with the narrative. But honestly, the first book in the series had more of the stuff I liked, the political drama, the in and outs of the government's systems, the alternate history spinning off from this remarkable first contact point of diversion... this sequel contained all of those aspects too, which is why I was still gripped and wanted to know what came next. But the personal romance plot, the oft-belabored psychological effects of trauma on Cora's mind, etc. etc. all overshadowed the things I loved best, and it made the book a worse experience, at least for this reader.
Lindsay Ellis is a writer I trust when it comes to her film criticism. In fact, I trust her so much, I know her to be such a smart and thoughtful person, that I think I actually made the experience of this book worse for myself in a lot of ways by assuming she had some clever idea that would make certain aspects of this story make sense, and then when it turned out I was wrong, the disappointment hit all the stronger. The main aspect I'm talking about here is Cora and Kaveh's nauseatingly stupid romantic relationship. I could not stomach a single second of these two falling in love or whatever.
I really like Kaveh. I think he's a cool interesting character with a new perspective, bringing some badly needed fresh eyes to the situation. I even liked the idea of Cora and Kaveh forming an intense and complicated bond because of the absolutely bizarre and unprecedented situation they found themselves in. I was completely on board for watching this weird friendship grow over the course of the book. Even the idea of Cora having a crush on Kaveh I thought was amusing and made sense. After all, she's young and under a lot of stress, and has essentially been abandoned by every support system she's ever known.
But when it comes to their actual... "romance"? It was so bland and unspecific and uncomfortable and honestly felt completely unnecessary. The story could have hit the exact same beats without making anything between them romantic or sexual. I felt convinced by Kaveh and Cora as two complex human beings, as friends, as people who would have a great need for each other under unimaginable stresses. But I found the idea of them falling in love completely unconvincing the way it was presented here.
Then there's the big ending spoilers, which I'll hide...
I should be fair and say that part of why this book disappointed me is that I wanted it to be something it was never trying to be. The personhood debate and all the ways in which the various government agencies were trying to make decisions, meanwhile the aliens had their own priorities and relationship drama, that was the stuff that was by far the most interesting to me. When we got to see glimpses of the senate hearing about the "third option" question of assigning personhood to non-alien beings, I sat up straighter in my seat. I wanted a whole damn transcript of that shit. I love seeing Lindsay work out a debate on a serious philosophical topic through her prose, even if those prose aren't the strongest in the world.
But instead, the book was a lot about Cora's inner emotional life, and her romance with Kaveh, and... well... I just didn't find that stuff nearly as compelling. I did admire the way Ellis wrote Cora's trauma and panic attacks, I thought it was effective and pervasive, but I kept wanting to turn back to the political and social commentary aspect of the novel.
At the same time, reading that ending article by Kaveh was a tough pill to swallow in today's world. I don't think Lindsay said anything about humanity's tendency towards bigotry or nationalism or jingoism that hasn't already been talked to death, and then the novel ends on this uncomfortable downer of a note that provides no real solutions for the future. I know this is a function of a series, that this isn't where we're going to leave this world or this story, but it was still not exactly a pleasant reading experience there at the end, nor did it feel like it was treading particularly new ground.
One last note - I found the woman who read Cora's parts in the audiobook to be pretty fucking unbearable. Kaveh's voice did the normal audiobook thing of acting out the emotions but in a muted way that more accurately mimics the rhythm of a person reading to themselves, which I liked. The Cora voice was, by contrast *so* overacted. The shrill, harsh breathing during the panic attack scenes in particular was just... so grating to hear through headphones and completely pulled me out of the rhythm of the text. It's just overdone and needed to be pulled back by a good 50% almost the whole way through, in my opinion. I also remember this from the first book, that her voice takes on this weird sense of incomprehension or incredulity in moments that make no sense. It's hard to describe but perhaps if someone reads this they'll be able to say it better. There will be a sentence like... "Cora couldn't breathe." And the performance will make it sound like: "Cora... couldn't... brEATHE?!?!?" almost turning it into this disbelieving question or something. Super obnoxious.
I might need to read future books as hard copies, which annoys me since I tend to pick series and then either do all physical copies, or all audio, and now this one's all messed up for me. But that's a me problem, to be honest!
So yeah, I think this book gets only three stars from me because I had higher hopes for its theming, since I love Lindsay so much. I think this book is better written than the first, I think the author has become stronger in her prose and more confident in taking risks with the narrative. But honestly, the first book in the series had more of the stuff I liked, the political drama, the in and outs of the government's systems, the alternate history spinning off from this remarkable first contact point of diversion... this sequel contained all of those aspects too, which is why I was still gripped and wanted to know what came next. But the personal romance plot, the oft-belabored psychological effects of trauma on Cora's mind, etc. etc. all overshadowed the things I loved best, and it made the book a worse experience, at least for this reader.
November 2, 2021
Such a disappointment. I gave a rave review of book 1 and couldn't wait to start book 2. But it was a drag.
1) Where's Cora's mom? Family? It's ridiculous that she just moves in with a random guy she met and was afraid of. Yes, I know they were never in the picture to support her a lot but still, completely not around? After all she's been through? Makes no sense. It looks like a crude plot instrument to leave more voice and time to Kaveh, speaking of which...
2) Why such a big pivot from the original book's main voice, Cora? Imagine Harry Potter Book 2 with a Harry who's completely dependent to Cho Chang all of a sudden. It is really hard to care much about Kaveh. First, it's tiresome to see characters who seem queer but then pivot to a straight relationship in books. Second, a 35 year old man who literally has nothing to gain from being in a relationship with Cora who just does things for her. It makes zero logical sense that they are dating and he starts "loving" her within months. Who is Kaveh? Why and how is he able to insert himself into the plot like that? Why did he become the main character of the book? Why is he even allowed to communicate with the aliens? Once the earpieces are discovered, why do Cora and Kaveh still have dibs on communication? The plot truly stopped making sense to me. Cora lost all her appeal, character traits that made her a heroine and she became this meek, loser of a kept woman.
3) The same can be said about the aliens where Ampersand is almost completely out of the picture and we have to contend with Enola's random thoughts.
4) The final Kaveh essay? Yes, we all want to hear (!?) Kaveh's personal thoughts on human civilization and not what he actually knows about these aliens everyone is dying to learn more about.. What a mess of an ending.
Overall, really disappointed. Not sure I'll read the next installment.
1) Where's Cora's mom? Family? It's ridiculous that she just moves in with a random guy she met and was afraid of. Yes, I know they were never in the picture to support her a lot but still, completely not around? After all she's been through? Makes no sense. It looks like a crude plot instrument to leave more voice and time to Kaveh, speaking of which...
2) Why such a big pivot from the original book's main voice, Cora? Imagine Harry Potter Book 2 with a Harry who's completely dependent to Cho Chang all of a sudden. It is really hard to care much about Kaveh. First, it's tiresome to see characters who seem queer but then pivot to a straight relationship in books. Second, a 35 year old man who literally has nothing to gain from being in a relationship with Cora who just does things for her. It makes zero logical sense that they are dating and he starts "loving" her within months. Who is Kaveh? Why and how is he able to insert himself into the plot like that? Why did he become the main character of the book? Why is he even allowed to communicate with the aliens? Once the earpieces are discovered, why do Cora and Kaveh still have dibs on communication? The plot truly stopped making sense to me. Cora lost all her appeal, character traits that made her a heroine and she became this meek, loser of a kept woman.
3) The same can be said about the aliens where Ampersand is almost completely out of the picture and we have to contend with Enola's random thoughts.
4) The final Kaveh essay? Yes, we all want to hear (!?) Kaveh's personal thoughts on human civilization and not what he actually knows about these aliens everyone is dying to learn more about.. What a mess of an ending.
Overall, really disappointed. Not sure I'll read the next installment.
April 24, 2022
Here's an SF book that I didn't expect to go the direction it did. And then it really committed to it.
I'm actually rather impressed.
So it's still taking place about 15 years ago in an alternate where Bush Jr was ousted and Cheney took over, aliens are walking amongst us, and whereas the previous book really pushed the linguistics and the rather nasty terror aspects of being played by both sides (human and alien) in a strange all or nothing game of rights, this sequel focuses almost entirely on mental illness.
I loved it. I mean, yes, there was politics and the proposals of limited rights for the aliens, some of which ask for asylum, but it's the mental health of our young MC and the somewhat broken alien that has linked itself emotionally to her that takes over most of the page-space.
As the author says in the beginning, this book might trigger anyone who suffers from PSTD, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and even anorexia. I think it's worth noting that it's done very well, gives us all the right amount of anxiety and the horrors of power-differentials in relationships, and let's not forget the despair.
The fact that it mostly happens to our human MC doesn't overshadow the fact that the alien has it, too, and I think the whole thing worked very well. I was invested throughout the novel and the plot was solid with increasing stakes, but in the end, I thought it was mostly all about character development.
I'm actually rather impressed.
So it's still taking place about 15 years ago in an alternate where Bush Jr was ousted and Cheney took over, aliens are walking amongst us, and whereas the previous book really pushed the linguistics and the rather nasty terror aspects of being played by both sides (human and alien) in a strange all or nothing game of rights, this sequel focuses almost entirely on mental illness.
I loved it. I mean, yes, there was politics and the proposals of limited rights for the aliens, some of which ask for asylum, but it's the mental health of our young MC and the somewhat broken alien that has linked itself emotionally to her that takes over most of the page-space.
As the author says in the beginning, this book might trigger anyone who suffers from PSTD, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and even anorexia. I think it's worth noting that it's done very well, gives us all the right amount of anxiety and the horrors of power-differentials in relationships, and let's not forget the despair.
The fact that it mostly happens to our human MC doesn't overshadow the fact that the alien has it, too, and I think the whole thing worked very well. I was invested throughout the novel and the plot was solid with increasing stakes, but in the end, I thought it was mostly all about character development.
December 20, 2021
Full review pending because this book was such a disappointment that I actually feel compelled to write one for once.
---
Review (contains spoilers):
I don't tend to write reviews for books. I'm not a particularly analytical reader, I read because I like to and I read specifically for stories and characters that I'll enjoy. I'm generally pretty forgiving of a book's flaws as long as I'm enjoying the story being told. This book, however, was deeply disappointing.
The way we as readers interact with and enjoy books is heavily informed by our personal experiences, therefore I feel it is important here to say that I am an asexual woman with a severe anxiety disorder. These things were a major factor in how this series reads for me as an individual.
I loved Axiom's End. I loved the dynamic between Cora and Ampersand so very much, I loved that we got to see them slowly gain trust in each other, build a friendship, and even have the beginnings of romantic feelings for each other. I loved that their relationship wasn't a sexual one, that it grew solely out of their getting to know each other. The newness and weirdness of feeling affection for an alien (for both of them) was so delightful to read, and Truth of the Divine ruined all of that buildup in the very first chapters.
I quickly pivoted from excitement about reading more of their story together to disappointment as their dynamic took a backseat, which eventually turned to disgust as Cora developed a sexual relationship with Kaveh. It made my skin crawl. It felt predatory. It read so much like my previous relationships as an ace woman, forcing myself into situations I didn't actually want and that were not at all good for my mental health or psyche, because I felt broken, and because I wanted to feel normal, and because I thought that I wasn't loveable otherwise. Because I was lonely. Every single sexual encounter she has with Kaveh, while not exactly nonconsensual, read as uncomfortable, forced, and creepy. They're in a strange gray area. I spent each of these chapters wondering if there was a critique in here somewhere about how sex doesn't heal trauma, but I couldn't help but read them as an earnest message that sex is magic and healing. Even as Kaveh acknowledges to himself a few times that this is not healthy, he continues the relationship and eventually things between them become... Fine? I guess? I find this incredibly damaging. This sort of mentality leads to toxic relationships for so many people (ace or not) and it was so disappointing to see it coming from this author.
On a related note, Lindsay Ellis had previously posted an author's note (no idea if it's still up) for Axiom's End that Luciana is asexual (maybe it was demisexual. Either way.), and I have to say: I don't know what she thought she was doing with this, but it is a piss poor excuse for representation, especially when the one sexual relationship so far in the series reads like *this* one does.
This was honestly the point at which I had to put the book down for several days. Not the suicide attempt, or the panic attacks, but the deeply troubling relationship between Cora and Kaveh that is somehow, still, being presented as a positive. I don't know that I can forgive it.
The tone shift from the first installment is jarring as well. I don't mind reading difficult topics, but after reading the authors note at the beginning I was immediately wary. There are books that I feel cover heavy topics such as those listed in the note quite well. This book is not among them. It tries so hard to be an exploration of trauma and mental health and it utterly fails. I think Lindsay has gone a little too far into the need to write things as they would "really happen" (this extends to the geopolitical aspects as well). This is just too bleak. It's hopeless, helpless, and few readers will enjoy that level of bleakness for very long. Certainly not this long.
I've never actually been angry with an author I had previously liked after finishing a new book, until now.
---
Review (contains spoilers):
I don't tend to write reviews for books. I'm not a particularly analytical reader, I read because I like to and I read specifically for stories and characters that I'll enjoy. I'm generally pretty forgiving of a book's flaws as long as I'm enjoying the story being told. This book, however, was deeply disappointing.
The way we as readers interact with and enjoy books is heavily informed by our personal experiences, therefore I feel it is important here to say that I am an asexual woman with a severe anxiety disorder. These things were a major factor in how this series reads for me as an individual.
I loved Axiom's End. I loved the dynamic between Cora and Ampersand so very much, I loved that we got to see them slowly gain trust in each other, build a friendship, and even have the beginnings of romantic feelings for each other. I loved that their relationship wasn't a sexual one, that it grew solely out of their getting to know each other. The newness and weirdness of feeling affection for an alien (for both of them) was so delightful to read, and Truth of the Divine ruined all of that buildup in the very first chapters.
I quickly pivoted from excitement about reading more of their story together to disappointment as their dynamic took a backseat, which eventually turned to disgust as Cora developed a sexual relationship with Kaveh. It made my skin crawl. It felt predatory. It read so much like my previous relationships as an ace woman, forcing myself into situations I didn't actually want and that were not at all good for my mental health or psyche, because I felt broken, and because I wanted to feel normal, and because I thought that I wasn't loveable otherwise. Because I was lonely. Every single sexual encounter she has with Kaveh, while not exactly nonconsensual, read as uncomfortable, forced, and creepy. They're in a strange gray area. I spent each of these chapters wondering if there was a critique in here somewhere about how sex doesn't heal trauma, but I couldn't help but read them as an earnest message that sex is magic and healing. Even as Kaveh acknowledges to himself a few times that this is not healthy, he continues the relationship and eventually things between them become... Fine? I guess? I find this incredibly damaging. This sort of mentality leads to toxic relationships for so many people (ace or not) and it was so disappointing to see it coming from this author.
On a related note, Lindsay Ellis had previously posted an author's note (no idea if it's still up) for Axiom's End that Luciana is asexual (maybe it was demisexual. Either way.), and I have to say: I don't know what she thought she was doing with this, but it is a piss poor excuse for representation, especially when the one sexual relationship so far in the series reads like *this* one does.
This was honestly the point at which I had to put the book down for several days. Not the suicide attempt, or the panic attacks, but the deeply troubling relationship between Cora and Kaveh that is somehow, still, being presented as a positive. I don't know that I can forgive it.
The tone shift from the first installment is jarring as well. I don't mind reading difficult topics, but after reading the authors note at the beginning I was immediately wary. There are books that I feel cover heavy topics such as those listed in the note quite well. This book is not among them. It tries so hard to be an exploration of trauma and mental health and it utterly fails. I think Lindsay has gone a little too far into the need to write things as they would "really happen" (this extends to the geopolitical aspects as well). This is just too bleak. It's hopeless, helpless, and few readers will enjoy that level of bleakness for very long. Certainly not this long.
I've never actually been angry with an author I had previously liked after finishing a new book, until now.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 11, 2023
I don’t have it in me right now to talk about this book in the way that it deserves. This is a book that explores the fallout from First Contact (and the fallout from covering up First Contact) in practically every way possible. There was so much going on in this book (and all of it done well), I don’t even know how to start summing it up. I’m tempted to just do the bullet points thing. In fact, you know what, fuck it. I’mma do that.
Here are some bullet points:
*Humanity being total shitbirds and people having existential crises about it.
*Interspecies friendship.
*Interspecies love.
*Intense philosophical ideas.
*Cool as heck aliens.
*Exploration of complex PTSD and codependency.
*An age-gap romance that is fully aware of its own problematic nature.
*Scawwy. 😫
*Everything is nuanced.
*Beautiful writing, beautiful ideas. Sadness.
*If book three doesn’t have some sort of happy ending for Cora and Ampersand and Nikola (and maybe humanity) I will destroy everything.
Anyway, this series is great, sorry if you can’t tell from this review. Here’s a quote:
Here are some bullet points:
*Humanity being total shitbirds and people having existential crises about it.
*Interspecies friendship.
*Interspecies love.
*Intense philosophical ideas.
*Cool as heck aliens.
*Exploration of complex PTSD and codependency.
*An age-gap romance that is fully aware of its own problematic nature.
*Scawwy. 😫
*Everything is nuanced.
*Beautiful writing, beautiful ideas. Sadness.
*If book three doesn’t have some sort of happy ending for Cora and Ampersand and Nikola (and maybe humanity) I will destroy everything.
Anyway, this series is great, sorry if you can’t tell from this review. Here’s a quote:
“In that way, America is synecdoche for humanity as a whole—capable of such feats of wonder, such innovation, such compassion, but also such greed, such exploitation, such consumption, such empire, and such cruelty. Are these truly traits of our shared human nature? Is this an inexorable, inescapable state of our being? Or is this all the result of a shared construct that we have erroneously agreed is a necessary evil of civilization, a fiction agreed upon, one that might be changed? If it is the latter, then perhaps we might be saved, but if it is the former, if our self-destructive tendencies arise not from construct but from our innate natures, then I truly believe that we will not survive. After a point, it is not even a question of surviving First Contact; outside intelligences need not be our own undoing if we can take care of our own destruction ourselves.”
June 21, 2024
Alright, *sigh*, I finished this last week and said I'd write a review. I wasn't feeling like it, this book was honestly a slog. You often hear books 2 in trilogies are cursed and are usually not as good as the first and final books, so I'm hoping it's just that.
Axiom's End, book 1 of the Noumena series, was a first contact novel in which aliens showed up on Earth. Our main character Cora happened to meet one of them and they became connected (speaking simply). It's all a mess - Ampersand (the alien) is running away from bad aliens and she's dealing with her messy life (+ daddy issues) and now the FBI.
Truth of the Divine continues around where we left off as Cora becomes the official interpreter for Ampersand, since he refuses to talk to anyone else. Cora and Ampersand are dealing with their own PTSD and blablabla. And I'm not trying to poke fun at the heavy focus on mental health in this book. I love books that feature mental health and different struggles, but this was absolutely anticlimactic coming from book 2.
I was just so confused: this is a sci-fi book. Aliens are coming to Earth. Governments across the Globe are challenged by the question of what it means to have human rights and protection now that they have a group of refugee aliens. And what do we get? Cora befriends a regular human (who also has a connection with an alien), and the book is just: Cora's mental health and her relationship with Kaveh. Like. I'm sorry? What just happened?
And Kaveh's bit of the story was interesting but... it was just the same thing we had with Cora and Ampersand in book 1. I didn't need this again.
Where's the politics? Where are the aliens? What is going on?
If this book was 300 pages long instead of 550+ my review would be slightly different. I understand the relevance Cora's mental health has in how the story may develop. And, let's face it, she's gone through a lot. But this book was just too long. It just went on and on about the same stuff.
So, intrinsically, while I do like books about mental health and character healing, this isn't what I want when I pick up the sequel to a book about intergalactic conflict. Maybe 200 pages of it would have been enough and then 360 pages could have been about something else? I'm not sure. It just felt like a very big change that I wasn't expecting at all, and I tried liking it but I couldn't.
I'm probably not going to finish the series. I love the covers of these books, but I can just tell I'm going to DNF or skim around the next one. I was just very disappointed, and I was already coming from giving Axiom's End 3 stars so I was seeking for the conflict and pacing to pick up rather than just completely and entirely halt the way it did.
Axiom's End, book 1 of the Noumena series, was a first contact novel in which aliens showed up on Earth. Our main character Cora happened to meet one of them and they became connected (speaking simply). It's all a mess - Ampersand (the alien) is running away from bad aliens and she's dealing with her messy life (+ daddy issues) and now the FBI.
Truth of the Divine continues around where we left off as Cora becomes the official interpreter for Ampersand, since he refuses to talk to anyone else. Cora and Ampersand are dealing with their own PTSD and blablabla. And I'm not trying to poke fun at the heavy focus on mental health in this book. I love books that feature mental health and different struggles, but this was absolutely anticlimactic coming from book 2.
I was just so confused: this is a sci-fi book. Aliens are coming to Earth. Governments across the Globe are challenged by the question of what it means to have human rights and protection now that they have a group of refugee aliens. And what do we get? Cora befriends a regular human (who also has a connection with an alien), and the book is just: Cora's mental health and her relationship with Kaveh. Like. I'm sorry? What just happened?
And Kaveh's bit of the story was interesting but... it was just the same thing we had with Cora and Ampersand in book 1. I didn't need this again.
Where's the politics? Where are the aliens? What is going on?
If this book was 300 pages long instead of 550+ my review would be slightly different. I understand the relevance Cora's mental health has in how the story may develop. And, let's face it, she's gone through a lot. But this book was just too long. It just went on and on about the same stuff.
So, intrinsically, while I do like books about mental health and character healing, this isn't what I want when I pick up the sequel to a book about intergalactic conflict. Maybe 200 pages of it would have been enough and then 360 pages could have been about something else? I'm not sure. It just felt like a very big change that I wasn't expecting at all, and I tried liking it but I couldn't.
I'm probably not going to finish the series. I love the covers of these books, but I can just tell I'm going to DNF or skim around the next one. I was just very disappointed, and I was already coming from giving Axiom's End 3 stars so I was seeking for the conflict and pacing to pick up rather than just completely and entirely halt the way it did.
January 25, 2022
Truth of the Divine picks up just after the events in the first book, Axiom's End. So, Truth of the Divine is still really a closely continued first contact story. Less Science Fiction and more metaphysical and theological pondering, but with non-humanoid aliens and their own beliefs thrown in. There is a lot of information from and references to events in Axiom's End that Ellis doesn't rehash, so going into this really does require the reader to have read the first book.
We still get Cora Sabino's perspective, but the other point of view comes from a new character, Kaveh Mazandarani, an author and journalist who has unfortunately worked with Cora's outlaw father Nils before. Cora, who acted as an intermediary for the main alien being, Ampersand, in Axiom's End is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder here, and dealing with it badly.
At first, I was rather reluctant to add Kaveh to the mix; I'm not someone who loves a story with a roundtable of narrators. However, my reluctance proved to be unwarranted — as at some parts I liked Kaveh's point-of-view to the point of preferring his chapters. Cora, on the other hand, and her PTSD was a little draining. Ellis carefully managed this in a way that was rather distressing and impactful, but never felt exploitative or like a fill-in-the-blank disorder. I think the main issue with Cora's trauma is just part of the main issue with this second book, overall.
Not wholly suffering from second book syndrome, Truth of the Divine is just over a hundred pages longer than Axiom's End — and it feels every bit of it. Ellis has given herself more room here, but the pacing doesn't keep up. It's a bit too plodding and the plot's timeline is surprisingly slow — covering a really short amount of time for most of the book. This is where Cora's trauma gets a bit too weighed down, while also somehow encouraging a quickly-paced romantic entanglement. Also, there's not enough Ampersand, but there is more Enola/Nikola, the new alien being in town, an amygdaline like Ampersand and the others from Axiom's End. Kaveh ends up acting as Nikola's interpreter/intermediary and Nikola has a lot to say and share. This only proved to be another spot that, while holding a plethora of interesting connections and ideas, could've stood a paring down. And while large swaths of Truth of the Divine were rather skimmable, this book does delve a satisfying amount into the timely and appropriate question for its own narrative: What constitutes a being to be defined as a person?
I'm definitely invested enough to come back next year for the finale in this trilogy. I'm not sure where Ellis is going to take this one, but I'm excited to see what she has for the end of it.
P.S. If no other book I read this year contains any reference to Occam's razor, I will be thankful — that and the also-overused Schrödinger's cat references. I'm calling it; that's enough.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This affected neither my opinion of the book, nor the content of my review.
We still get Cora Sabino's perspective, but the other point of view comes from a new character, Kaveh Mazandarani, an author and journalist who has unfortunately worked with Cora's outlaw father Nils before. Cora, who acted as an intermediary for the main alien being, Ampersand, in Axiom's End is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder here, and dealing with it badly.
At first, I was rather reluctant to add Kaveh to the mix; I'm not someone who loves a story with a roundtable of narrators. However, my reluctance proved to be unwarranted — as at some parts I liked Kaveh's point-of-view to the point of preferring his chapters. Cora, on the other hand, and her PTSD was a little draining. Ellis carefully managed this in a way that was rather distressing and impactful, but never felt exploitative or like a fill-in-the-blank disorder. I think the main issue with Cora's trauma is just part of the main issue with this second book, overall.
Not wholly suffering from second book syndrome, Truth of the Divine is just over a hundred pages longer than Axiom's End — and it feels every bit of it. Ellis has given herself more room here, but the pacing doesn't keep up. It's a bit too plodding and the plot's timeline is surprisingly slow — covering a really short amount of time for most of the book. This is where Cora's trauma gets a bit too weighed down, while also somehow encouraging a quickly-paced romantic entanglement. Also, there's not enough Ampersand, but there is more Enola/Nikola, the new alien being in town, an amygdaline like Ampersand and the others from Axiom's End. Kaveh ends up acting as Nikola's interpreter/intermediary and Nikola has a lot to say and share. This only proved to be another spot that, while holding a plethora of interesting connections and ideas, could've stood a paring down. And while large swaths of Truth of the Divine were rather skimmable, this book does delve a satisfying amount into the timely and appropriate question for its own narrative: What constitutes a being to be defined as a person?
I'm definitely invested enough to come back next year for the finale in this trilogy. I'm not sure where Ellis is going to take this one, but I'm excited to see what she has for the end of it.
P.S. If no other book I read this year contains any reference to Occam's razor, I will be thankful — that and the also-overused Schrödinger's cat references. I'm calling it; that's enough.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This affected neither my opinion of the book, nor the content of my review.
May 12, 2021
I received an arc.
I don’t really have the capability to review this properly right now, but I’ll do my best for now so I can get points for this book for my reading challenge.
Mild spoilers below, nothing plot specific.
The first book teases, through the annoying perseverance of Cora’s father, that “truth is a human right” and that the alien existence on earth should be something everyone is fully privy to.
The second book expands on that ideology while constantly showing the weakness of this demand, laying out the darkest tendencies of humanity that show “truth” can always be distorted when humans give into their worst instincts.
I loved new additions to this. The POV for Kaveh worried me at first, wanting to spend all my time in Cora’s head. But Cora’s head isn’t a fun place in this book, and the reprieve is actually nice when Kaveh isn’t being a total man about things (some of his scenes are not fun to read and he is not a perfectly angelic character, but he’s human). His POV offers a more experienced look into the propaganda machine that Cora’s father is so fond of, and his proximity to Cora in this creates more layers. Plus he’s very charismatic and nice.
There’s a character named Nikola in this that acts as an antagonist for a lot of the book, but I can’t help loving them. Nikola exists in such a different tone than Ampersand, humor and childlike curiosity leading to great moments. Even when Nikola’s desires were completely opposite of what Cora (and I) want, I understood their motivations and couldn’t hate them for disagreeing.
The last 100 pages of this book, along with some parts scattered throughout, were really hard for me to read. There is a content warning at the beginning of this, so when it it published I highly recommend people check that out before they start reading. It was trust in the author from her opinions in videos that kept me confident the book would be worth its dark moments, and I was right.
And now to suffer as I wait for the next book. More of a review when I can handle discussing more, probably around release since I don’t want to spoil anything for people!
I don’t really have the capability to review this properly right now, but I’ll do my best for now so I can get points for this book for my reading challenge.
Mild spoilers below, nothing plot specific.
The first book teases, through the annoying perseverance of Cora’s father, that “truth is a human right” and that the alien existence on earth should be something everyone is fully privy to.
The second book expands on that ideology while constantly showing the weakness of this demand, laying out the darkest tendencies of humanity that show “truth” can always be distorted when humans give into their worst instincts.
I loved new additions to this. The POV for Kaveh worried me at first, wanting to spend all my time in Cora’s head. But Cora’s head isn’t a fun place in this book, and the reprieve is actually nice when Kaveh isn’t being a total man about things (some of his scenes are not fun to read and he is not a perfectly angelic character, but he’s human). His POV offers a more experienced look into the propaganda machine that Cora’s father is so fond of, and his proximity to Cora in this creates more layers. Plus he’s very charismatic and nice.
There’s a character named Nikola in this that acts as an antagonist for a lot of the book, but I can’t help loving them. Nikola exists in such a different tone than Ampersand, humor and childlike curiosity leading to great moments. Even when Nikola’s desires were completely opposite of what Cora (and I) want, I understood their motivations and couldn’t hate them for disagreeing.
The last 100 pages of this book, along with some parts scattered throughout, were really hard for me to read. There is a content warning at the beginning of this, so when it it published I highly recommend people check that out before they start reading. It was trust in the author from her opinions in videos that kept me confident the book would be worth its dark moments, and I was right.
And now to suffer as I wait for the next book. More of a review when I can handle discussing more, probably around release since I don’t want to spoil anything for people!
July 30, 2023
Okay. This is a book with a lot of content warnings (there's a note in the beginning that describes them). It's heavy, it's drenched in despair and it describes Cora's struggles with repeated trauma (and existential depression/ anxiety re; the fate of the Earth) in painful detail. It's not an easy read. But it rather worked for me.
In the end, this is kind of a book about a codependent relationship (I'm not judging, I had a lot of compassion for what was going on) that also has some aliens in there. I thought it was very interesting in the way it examined why age gap relationships are plagued by imbalanced power dynamics, even if the older person has all the best intentions. And I think that's useful! But it can also be uncomfortable to read. I found it interesting, though.
The beginning was fun and had some nice horniness. Quite appreciated the new characters, Kaveh and Nikola. I hope the third one comes out soon.
In the end, this is kind of a book about a codependent relationship (I'm not judging, I had a lot of compassion for what was going on) that also has some aliens in there. I thought it was very interesting in the way it examined why age gap relationships are plagued by imbalanced power dynamics, even if the older person has all the best intentions. And I think that's useful! But it can also be uncomfortable to read. I found it interesting, though.
The beginning was fun and had some nice horniness. Quite appreciated the new characters, Kaveh and Nikola. I hope the third one comes out soon.
December 30, 2021
Since I don’t see any reviews talking about the racism at the core of this book, here’s my take.
SPOILERS AHEAD
CW: racism, predatory relationship, rape
The first book was decent. Super advanced aliens come to earth. All of them present themselves as a threat and the “good” alien, Ampersand, refuses to communicate with anyone except for Cora, a young woman who is in over her head. He makes sure she knows the other aliens are very likely to exterminate humans in the near future and that human intelligence is basically comparable to the intelligence of animals for us.
The second book was a doozy of a disappointment. We’ve established this handful of aliens as a huge threat to humanity as a whole. Even Ampersand has made huge shows of force and lashed out when he felt Cora was threatened.
But for some reason, the government trying to contain this threat is a problem for Cora! (It’s because she wants to bone the alien, who she describes as deer-like on several occasions, and who views her as roughly as intelligent as we would view a dog, according to the last book.)
Throughout the book, this author compares containing the alien threat to things like Japanese internment during WWII and slavery. Cora and another character have a conversation about how not giving aliens full human rights is akin to the three-fifths compromise. And this isn’t one offhand comment; it’s the entire premise of the book, so the comparisons between genocidal aliens and marginalized people of color are pervasive.
And on top of that, there’s a romanticized predatory age gap relationship between Cora and her dad’s old college friend who sees how vulnerable Cora is and takes advantage of that to appease his boner. Not to mention he’s a journalist who can ruin her life in a heartbeat if she pisses him off, so he holds that power over her, and he decides to take on the role of therapist and mentor/teacher, adding a whole other layer of creepy. (He literally assigns her essays to write and tells her she has to be completely open with him about everything so he can fix her, and then gets mad at her when he finds out she didn’t tell him all the *classified* government information that she could have been prosecuted for spilling to a journalist.)
There’s also scene we’re this old man graphically rapes Cora before we find out everything is Totally Fine because it was just a dream. This scene serves no purpose to the narrative. I don’t know what kind of audience that was included for, and I hope I never find out.
SPOILERS AHEAD
CW: racism, predatory relationship, rape
The first book was decent. Super advanced aliens come to earth. All of them present themselves as a threat and the “good” alien, Ampersand, refuses to communicate with anyone except for Cora, a young woman who is in over her head. He makes sure she knows the other aliens are very likely to exterminate humans in the near future and that human intelligence is basically comparable to the intelligence of animals for us.
The second book was a doozy of a disappointment. We’ve established this handful of aliens as a huge threat to humanity as a whole. Even Ampersand has made huge shows of force and lashed out when he felt Cora was threatened.
But for some reason, the government trying to contain this threat is a problem for Cora! (It’s because she wants to bone the alien, who she describes as deer-like on several occasions, and who views her as roughly as intelligent as we would view a dog, according to the last book.)
Throughout the book, this author compares containing the alien threat to things like Japanese internment during WWII and slavery. Cora and another character have a conversation about how not giving aliens full human rights is akin to the three-fifths compromise. And this isn’t one offhand comment; it’s the entire premise of the book, so the comparisons between genocidal aliens and marginalized people of color are pervasive.
And on top of that, there’s a romanticized predatory age gap relationship between Cora and her dad’s old college friend who sees how vulnerable Cora is and takes advantage of that to appease his boner. Not to mention he’s a journalist who can ruin her life in a heartbeat if she pisses him off, so he holds that power over her, and he decides to take on the role of therapist and mentor/teacher, adding a whole other layer of creepy. (He literally assigns her essays to write and tells her she has to be completely open with him about everything so he can fix her, and then gets mad at her when he finds out she didn’t tell him all the *classified* government information that she could have been prosecuted for spilling to a journalist.)
There’s also scene we’re this old man graphically rapes Cora before we find out everything is Totally Fine because it was just a dream. This scene serves no purpose to the narrative. I don’t know what kind of audience that was included for, and I hope I never find out.
July 15, 2021
It's a struggle to review this because I can't reach for pithy analog. This isn't Twilight: New Moon meets The Host. This isn't E.T. or District 9. Lindsay's distinct voice has carved an entirely new path, and it is not fun.
This book takes the tension from the ending of Axiom's End and draws it across all 57 chapters. Like Uncut Gems, I had several moments where I struggled to breathe, where I was hoping for a break in suffering, in the pain.
That's the other struggle I have - it's exceptionally well written. Even as I keep hoping for relief, I can't help but admire the craft that made it so hard to endure in the first place. Like dragging myself across broken stained glass, it was beautiful and unpleasant all at once.
If you can handle anxiety, if you have ways to cope when the very words are pouring into you and filling your lungs, if you want to see if Cora and Ampersand make any headway, then I heartily recommend this book. Don't wait for paperback.
Be careful if you can't. Do not pretend you haven't been warned, especially in a spiteful one star review.
I also confess, I may not have been in Cora's shoes, but I *have* been in the shoes of another person, added in this book, when helping someone who has more trauma and PTSD than they know what to do to help. The feeling like everything you do is wrong, that you're trying to bail out a lifeboat with a thimble. It hit me personally, and it cements my opinion that whether from experience or research, Ellis has done the legwork to bring these people to life.
Truth of the Divine is not for everyone, but it was for me.
This book takes the tension from the ending of Axiom's End and draws it across all 57 chapters. Like Uncut Gems, I had several moments where I struggled to breathe, where I was hoping for a break in suffering, in the pain.
That's the other struggle I have - it's exceptionally well written. Even as I keep hoping for relief, I can't help but admire the craft that made it so hard to endure in the first place. Like dragging myself across broken stained glass, it was beautiful and unpleasant all at once.
If you can handle anxiety, if you have ways to cope when the very words are pouring into you and filling your lungs, if you want to see if Cora and Ampersand make any headway, then I heartily recommend this book. Don't wait for paperback.
Be careful if you can't. Do not pretend you haven't been warned, especially in a spiteful one star review.
I also confess, I may not have been in Cora's shoes, but I *have* been in the shoes of another person, added in this book, when helping someone who has more trauma and PTSD than they know what to do to help. The feeling like everything you do is wrong, that you're trying to bail out a lifeboat with a thimble. It hit me personally, and it cements my opinion that whether from experience or research, Ellis has done the legwork to bring these people to life.
Truth of the Divine is not for everyone, but it was for me.
February 21, 2022
Such an excellent follow up to Axiom's End. I am still emotionally shocked by that ending and I don't think I'm able to come to terms with what happened yet.
August 3, 2021
Wow 🤯 what an incredible book. I’m not sure where to start with this review because this book defies its genre, I learned more about mental health and the human condition than I did about outer space. This was a huge step up from the first book and was MUCH more intense. The character development is so rich and their relationships were expertly and deeply portrayed. This really can’t compare to anything I’ve read recently, I’m fumbling for other things to say that don’t spoil the plot because so much of the plot is dependent on the issues the characters and society grapples with. I’ll try to add more once I’ve digested this story.
Big thank you to the publisher for this ARC.
Big thank you to the publisher for this ARC.
January 28, 2022
**A big thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.**
Because it's an honest review that I've agreed to give, I'm sorry to say that I just did not like this book as much as I thought I would, or actually, at all.
I watched Linday's Q&A video about the release of this book and I do remember her saying that she went in an entirely different direction and that if you liked Axiom's End, you probably wouldn't like Truth of the Devine, which was absolutely the case for me. I don't know what the logic is for creating the second book in a series for a different audience, but here we are.
Axiom's End was the monster boyfriend book that I expected from Lindsay, and Truth of the Devine was an unpleasant surprise from start to finish even after the lengthy content warning she set at the beginning.
Truth of the Devine has an agonizingly slow pace, and long-winded side tangents that take over the entire plot. For those who complained that Axiom's End was too formulaic, Truth of the Devine does nary hit a story beat at all. Instead, we get a story that is more than twice as long as it needs to be. Half of the book takes the form of heavy-handed political allegories and woke hot takes. And the other half is just description after description and page after page of our leading lady having panic attacks. I understand that she's experienced trauma. I understand that this is a serious condition that plagues many people. But at some point, you have to reign in this peculiar self-indulgence and MOVE. THE. PLOT. FOREWARD.
It took me two months drag myself across the finish line, and as much as I liked Axiom's End, I think this is a good place for me to part ways with the series. I love Lindsay's video essays, and her debut was stunning. But this my friends, this ain't it.
Because it's an honest review that I've agreed to give, I'm sorry to say that I just did not like this book as much as I thought I would, or actually, at all.
I watched Linday's Q&A video about the release of this book and I do remember her saying that she went in an entirely different direction and that if you liked Axiom's End, you probably wouldn't like Truth of the Devine, which was absolutely the case for me. I don't know what the logic is for creating the second book in a series for a different audience, but here we are.
Axiom's End was the monster boyfriend book that I expected from Lindsay, and Truth of the Devine was an unpleasant surprise from start to finish even after the lengthy content warning she set at the beginning.
Truth of the Devine has an agonizingly slow pace, and long-winded side tangents that take over the entire plot. For those who complained that Axiom's End was too formulaic, Truth of the Devine does nary hit a story beat at all. Instead, we get a story that is more than twice as long as it needs to be. Half of the book takes the form of heavy-handed political allegories and woke hot takes. And the other half is just description after description and page after page of our leading lady having panic attacks. I understand that she's experienced trauma. I understand that this is a serious condition that plagues many people. But at some point, you have to reign in this peculiar self-indulgence and MOVE. THE. PLOT. FOREWARD.
It took me two months drag myself across the finish line, and as much as I liked Axiom's End, I think this is a good place for me to part ways with the series. I love Lindsay's video essays, and her debut was stunning. But this my friends, this ain't it.
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