Jessica Eise

I received a copy of this book through Goodreads Giveaway.

I have to be honest, I was unsure about this book. The plot line sounded awesome, but I've read enough indie works to know that there are usually editing issues, in both plot and grammar. It took all of two pages of Renee to allay my fears.

This book is truly reminiscent of one of my favorites, Left Hand of Darkness, but I think it is actually more accessible as social commentary because of the incredibly real titular character. Remaining (normal) human throughout, Renee actually reacted to her environment the way a real person would. She experienced sheer panic after discovering she was 1,000 years in the future. She laughed awkwardly in serious situations. She despaired and she adjusted and she stayed true to herself. It wasn't until meeting Renee that I realized how little I connect with the majority of heroines in fantasy and science fiction literature. They're always kickass, clever, take charge super-women. Don't get me wrong, I love a sassy female lead who can punch a man in the throat, but that isn't the only kind of strong and that also isn't me. Renee was strong AND she was a real person with insecurities and emotions. She wasn't the stereotypical survivor, but she still adapted and survived. I really appreciate the Jessica Eise wrote about "normal" woman who found internal strength.

Because this book was so heavy (in a good way) on character growth and social commentary, the world building came second, which definitely made some of the plot difficult to follow. This is where heavier editing would have been helpful (there was a lot of conversation that was virtually repeated multiple times, plot lines that could be adjusted, and small mistakes like home vs hone and incorrect names). I think that if this book was picked up by a publishing company and was given its due attention and advertisement, it would be hugely successful.

Side note: as an evolutionary biologist, 1000 years is not nearly enough time for humans to have become noticeably physiologically different from current humans, even with the described events that caused a genetic bottleneck. And from a historical perspective, we have knowledge about culture and customs (or at least we think we do) of civilizations that died out thousands of years ago, so humans a millennium from now should not be completely unaware of modern human life. I cringed every time the thousand year gap was mentioned, but, since I really enjoyed this book, I just pretended that it was 10,000+ years in the future.… (plus d'informations)