WELCOME
Dear Readers, Aliens and Creatures, What in the abandoned void is happening?! I give you, ‘The Unraveling’.
BASICS
Official title: The Unraveling
My title: When Children go Wild
Author: Benjamin Rosenbaum
Publisher: Erewhon
Fav character: Pip / Have
Type: Book
4.7/5
INTRO
The author put a considerable amount of work into this story, and it shows in its layered reality, detailed pronoun use, intricate family structures and multiple story perspectives. It raises an intriguing discussion on gender and sexual identities.
Gender is completely independent from sexual expression – gender is binary – Staid or Vail (for now) but sexual expression means taking on a penis or vagina (and their respective accessories) depending on the needs of your cohort – in the mean time you can just not have anything down there and just live your best staidish or vailish life.
💁🙃
REVIEW
In this world, humans have travelled to the far regions of the universe and have created a society which resides underground, has two genders (which basically describe whether you are a fiery person or a calm person 💁) is governed by public opinion through the all-seeing ‘feed’ of your life’s actions, has an economy which focuses on public opinion and influence, consists of neural linked clones of a person, increasing the activities you can engage in, people with orange, red, blue, green, lilac skin hues, but little to no darker shades. Disappointmentttttt.
Since humans now live until they’re about 800+ years old, what is considered childhood is separated into two parts and can go until you’re about 80. What is more, being born means that your PARENTS (sometimes 80+ of them – one ‘mother’, other are all fathers) received special permission and are deemed suitable by the Midwife Mafia. But Fift will challenge all of this on his quest to becoming best friends, with benefits and maybe cohorts with Shria. Zir will bring down the whole system of the world because zir parents said zir should wait a bit before talking to Shria – talk about own-way.
OBSERVATIONS
▪️Gender is completely independent from sexual expression – gender is binary – Staid or Vail (for now) but sexual expression means taking on a penis or vagina (and their respective accessories) depending on the needs of your cohort – in the mean time you can just not have anything down there and just live your best staidish or vailish life.
▪️🤔 I don’t remember these people using bathrooms… hummm… I wonder.
▪️You can interchange your sexual organs to make them interesting… i.e. a giant swallowtail… a regular penis, a regular vagina… a vagina that has little cilia that grasp your fingers as you play with them? 🙃💁
▪️You can change the colour of your skin and probably hair and other features;
▪️Your living arrangements within countries are organised based somewhat on status and reputation;
▪️The tech in the book is absolutely brilliant – considering these people are all neurally interconnected through the Feed processor – you can have several clones that you share a mind with – there are full ventilating, transport, housing, illumination, etc systems in the world, existing UNDERGROUND and providing waste recycling, etc…
▪️Elderborn children are basically rejected somewhat losers – according to the book – who are replaced by the middle and he latter born. In this society they tend to be underachievers and to be somewhat useless. – Fift belongs to another ‘sad’ group, the only children – which is a derogatory term – better instead, without the benefit of a sister association? Or something like that
▪️The little glossary at the end was brilliant!
CONCLUSION
Half-way through this book I had a massive emotions attack and HAD to make a reaction video – which you can see here.
This society has advanced to such a point that they have a word for when everything goes to hell – ‘the unraveling’. And this is exactly what this little 16 year old child and zir bestie Shira, come friends with some others, instigate. The collapse of the society as predicted by Thave.
The worst part for me, is that these children weren’t even looking to become symbols – they truly didn’t even really want anything…. Fift just wanted to continue being Shria’s bestie and lusting after vem and Shria just wanted to continue hanging around with Fift and exploring zir staidness while protecting zir. 🤦♀️
Overall, this is a book full of amazing and fantastical things, much food for thought, colourful characters and wild wild children who cannot consider consequences.
I recommend it. The world building is amazing, even if the children are frustrating.
Pages: 416
Publisher: Erewhon
Year: 2021
