Starglass by Phoebe North
My rating: 5/5 cats
jews in space!!
so let’s get one thing straight. yes, yes, this is phoebe north’s book. as in goodreads-phoebe north. and sometimes, when you read a book that a fellow goodread(s)er has written, there is a tendency to bump the rating up to avoid potential awkwardness.
but the joke’s on you, because we are only the most casual goodreads-acquaintances. it’s more of a one-sided “i am in awe of her and read her reviews the way i read blair’s and aerin’s and i just kind of admire them from afar” relationship, although one time we bonded over a book that wasn’t very good, but she was too classy to talk about it out in the open. and that led to her sending me this book to read.
this book that is the bee’s knees. and i don’t even like science fiction, which shows you how damn good she is.
because it is sci-fi, obviously—it is on a freaking spaceship after all, and while there are all sorts of science-fiction-y elements with biology and botany and genetics, which she writes very well, it is also a story about a girl on the verge of womanhood trying to find a place for herself in a society that chooses everything for its people.
the spaceship asherah is populated by the post-terrestrial jewish preservation society, whose goal is to preserve jewish culture and bloodlines. it left earth 500 years ago, when an asteroid was about to hit the planet, and people started rioting and it all went bad. since then, it has been making its way towards zehava, a planet believed to be inhabitable. everything within asherah is carefully monitored, and all disease has been eliminated.
there is somewhat of a caste-system in place, with council members on the top, followed by a specialist class, merchants, laborers and artisans. ostensibly, you are placed in the profession for which you show the most aptitude on vocation day, which occurs when an individual turns sixteen, but there are of course political factors at work. no one’s really going to rise up out of their family’s position in the pecking order. citizens are allowed to choose their spouse, provided the blood tests pan out, and that is also generally done at the age of sixteen. each couple is required to have exactly two offspring; one boy and one girl, but these are not carried in the womb, but are grown outside the body in a hatchery in egg-like containers after the parent’s dna is all smooshed together and left to ferment. (phoebe north is much better at writing science than i am)
everything about this book is excellent: the world-building is perfectly, densely created, the characters are all heartbreakingly real, and most importantly, our heroine terra behaves the way someone would behave given her situation; having lived her entire life within closed quarters surrounded by a strictly-regulated society. she is not infallible. she doesn’t know arcane ninja fighting styles. she isn’t the beautiful girl with the heart of gold. she is deeply vulnerable and looking to be accepted; to be loved. her mother died, unexpectedly and inexplicably when she was twelve, and her father crawled into a wine bottle to cope. her brother already has a family of his own, and she only has her art and her best friend rachel to provide emotional release, but with their new responsibilities; terra as a gruff botanist’s assistant, and rachel as a dress-shopkeeper, even this comfort is taken from her.
she sends out feelers, hoping to find her bashert, or soulmate, but after she witnesses something she should not have seen, she finds herself caught up in a situation which becomes more dangerous than she expected. all she wants is a place of her own, outside of her unhappy home life and her feeling that she is a constant disappointment to everyone she knows. and this need to please, to belong, leads to dangerous exploits, but it also gives her a chance to become the woman she wants to become.
it’s just a giant thumbs-up of a book, painstakingly rendered. all the coming-of-age uncertainty, all the painful decisions about duty and tradition vs. what makes sense, her poor heartbroken father, the very likable koen, rachel’s loyalty despite their suddenly different social status and…that other thing…it’s just excellent.
i am so grateful we bonded over that bad book, so i could get the opportunity to read this great one.
and again:
jewwwwwws in spaaaaace!!
