What I've been reading

"The Office of Mercy" by Ariel Djanikian, as an audiobook. It's hard to know what to say about this book, because I found it flawed but I also really liked it. In the future, the population on earth has exploded and there is rampant poverty, violence and ecological decline, so a group of "Alphas" establish strongly-defended, high-tech complexes, each one just a few hundred people, but with many of them strung across the former USA. Outside are the primitive "tribes" who have reverted back to pre-industrial living. Hundreds of years after the establishment of these complexes, Natasha Wiley is born in America 5, where she has trouble living by the community's code of ethics and has what the society would consider an unhealthy fixation with outside & the tribes. It's mostly told from Natasha's viewpoint, but then it almost randomly jumps to a few other viewpoints. I feel this could have been handled better. I also think her prose borders on purple at times. All criticisms aside, I do recommend the book - it's a strong entry in the recent craze for dystopias, going in a slightly different direction than I've seen before. She does a great job of ratcheting up the tension and making you wonder what will happen to a very sympathetic main character. Here's a review from NPR.org that goes into more detail.

and

"A Thousand Acres" by Jane Smiley. A modern retelling of King Lear set in a Jimmy-Carter era farming community, it starts slow, and I wondered at first why I should care about a childess farm wife heading into middle age and her family, but the tension starts building a few chapters in and that doesn't relent until the very end. I understand why it won a Pulitzer. Reivew fom Publisher's Weekly.

My full comments on both books here.