Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Book Review: Viridis by Lauren Hemphill (Viridis #1)


Viridis: Lauren E Hemphill: 9780692153895: Amazon.com: Books

While I did enjoy this book quite a lot (especially in the later parts), there's some serious issues that made me put it on two. I almost put it at one star, but simply got too invested for it to warrant such a low score. Spoilers beyond the cut.


Let's get the snipper out of the room first:
This shouldn't be in the LGBT section. The only character that's clearly LGBT is a lesbian sexual assaulter and borderline rapist that gets immense sexual pleasure out of torturing our main character (physically and mentally) to the point the protagonist (Jade) has PTSD and gets hallucinations of her abuser showing up and taunting her quite often. This is bad representation, especially when it's the only clearly LGBT+ character in the story. Yes, technically there's an LGBT character in the book, but  that doesn't mean it should be in the LGBT section when the representation is handled like this. I felt incredibly uncomfortable and had trouble reading through quite a few of the scenes where A'doxia assaults and tortures Jade.

I also didn't see the author put on any content warnings in the trailers or on social media for this heavy subject, nor an age rating. It also definitely makes me uncomfortable that Hemphill advertises this book in their reviews of online animated webseries-- webseries which often have followings which are minors-- without putting on these warnings or age ratings. This way it'd be easy for a minor to come across these reviews, see the book advertisements and end up reading this without knowing better, and I definitely think this book is for an young-adult audience at the very least. So, yeah, the advertising, trigger warnings and stuff for this book definitely could've used some revising.

The PTSD could've been written more believable. Another reviewer pointed it out quite clearly and I agree, having the disorder myself as well. Clearer and more defined triggers could've made it feel more believable. I'm not sure if the author is writing from experience or not, but if she is, I'd recommend trying find better ways to put it into words. If not, be sure to do more research and maybe get some sensitivity readers!

The main characters of Jade and Aris I somewhat enjoyed, the latter a bit more so than the first. I wish we got to see Jade as more proactive towards the story (she's cooped up suffering and being tortured for a lot of it) and thought that Aris maybe should've had a few more moments where she's shown to be clever (it's mentioned she's smart, but it's not always shown). Thaddeous was a character I just couldn't for the life of me get invested in, and I didn't even want to read the parts where A'doxia is present. I just hoped she'd die in the most cruel way every scene she was in. I just couldn't quite connect to these main/major characters.

I quite liked Aris' journey in the book, because we got to see more of the planets and world-building. The latter I liked, too. I enjoyed reading about the creatures, planets, etc. I'm still not quite sure what exactly a Helix is, but overall the world-building was pretty good. I also really dig the concept of people's allegiances being based on their eye color. Keep in mind this is about the first sci-fi I've ever read, so I really don't have any experience with reading in this genre. I felt like some describing of the surrounding of the characters could've been better, whereas maybe there should've been less "show don't tell"-descriptions of clothes for the main characters.

The writing itself was pretty engaging, though it definitely could have used more show and less tell. Probably a beginner's mistake, since this is (as far as I'm aware) Hemphill's first book, but something to look into for future works.

The editing definitely could've used some work. I felt like some paragraphs were indented too far, commas needed to be added, there were words missing or misspellings from time to time... It just could've used an extra revision. This just felt a bit too draft-y for me.

I did sometimes get confused by the random jumps back and forward in time, but gradually got used to it, so I think that's to blame on me. I did feel like they somewhat broke the pace of the story at some of the more cliffhanger-y points.

The ending felt like it came completely out of left field for me, so either I missed something or it's something that will be expanded upon in a possible sequel or supplementary material. Either way, it was quite confusing for me to see Aris; who was going through the effort of doing anything to find Jade, her best friend; suddenly turn on her and attempt to kill her for being a Green, something she's known for a long time now). It didn't as much as shock me, but more just confused me. Then the book ended very abruptly, leaving me with a "what the fuck did just happen?" face more than anything.

A good attempt for a first book, and it definitely had me hooked on quite a few of it. But there's still quite a few errors with it that could've been resolved with another draft before publishing. I also was definitely uncomfortable throughout a lot of the book (every scene A'doxia is in plus the references to what she did to Jade, the bad LGBT+ representation, the lack of an age rating in the advertising).

I definitely encourage Hemphill to keep writing and doing more research into properly handling these issues. If I would rate this book for my enjoyment in the non-uncomfortable scenes, it'd definitely get a good 3 stars out of me. But the rest is simply holding it back, and I don't feel right giving it anything above two stars when it made me feel like this and handles these delicate topics without much grace.

Rating: 2/5


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