Happy new year!
I guess I wasn't the only one getting serious Hunger Games vibes. Although it is interesting that a. the Charter people aren't guaranteed a spot, and b. their place relies on their jobs, which tend to be the sort of jobs Asian-American parents are fond of. The doctors in particular are the stereotypical jobs that Asian parents push their kids toward, although real-estate broker and the rest aren't uncommon either. Perhaps this is commentary on upper-class or educated Asian-Americans and assimilation?
I don't think the 'we' makes the story unreliable- in fact, I feel like it makes it more honest. The word contributes to the world-building, as the character really feels that he/she is part of a collective. The passage on page 8 I found particularly interesting: I can’t think of a dystopia novel where individuality isn’t stomped out, but this book acknowledges inherent individuality and doesn’t portray it as harmful to society. Also, I’m interested as to what the author intended the area to look like. Sci-fi dystopias typically have a grey, bland, industrial aesthetic and uniform clothing, but the treatment of individualism and existence of underground malls makes me wonder what everything looks like.
Who is Loreen? Is she a slave, bought by Quig’s medical services? Why are the open counties exactly so bad to live in? Also, does anyone else find her extremely disturbing? I keep getting sexually predatory vibes from Quig, which is weird, but on the other hand, he seems to be the one that genuinely cares about Fan’s life.
Honestly, I'm not convinced that it isn't not-dullgray/industrial. There are, like, giant fish tanks that have Big Brother staring over divers' shoulders to feed the Charter Overlords. The relative lack of description, in my head, puts the first image in my mind of an "underground mall" that's just like a series of gray shopfronts (etc) and then fishtanks everywhere and then walls. Maybe with spatterings of red. Chinese people like the color red.
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