Title: Wildlings

Author: theemmpress

Genre: Sci-Fi

Quick Summary: Could be cool without all the unfortunate implications.

Thoughts: 

I had two major problems with this book: the world-building and the point of view. The first point has a few facets to it.

There are some aspects of the world-building that I like - the actual linguistic changes are, while at times cheesy, clever. The implementation of tech, clever. 

Everything else about the worldbuilding... various degrees of not clever.

The basis of the culture surrounding this book reads like someone with a sixth grade understanding of racial matters decided to write a world centered a lot around racial matters. The basic idea is there, but the result is cringey at best. And, to be honest, this book is a peak example of why white people shouldn't write narratives centered on race. It's really not our place to.

Speaking of the worldbuilding... the terms for the three main groups. I cringed. Really hard. We have the Generics - who as far as I understand are basically white people - the Exotics - the people of color, as I understand - and the Natives. I have several problems with these name choices.

-They're entirely too simplistic. I'll use America as my example here. We don't call POC "exotics". We tend to use umbrella terms - Asian and Black and such - but even these are way less overarching than "exotic". Even real life chose better [still not good] collective names for groups of people.
-Even "generic" is too overarching and broad. And comes with a lot of shitty connotations. Which I mean, I understand where the author is going with this? But like a lot of things that happen in this book, the meaning behind it is cringey at best. 
-Exotic as a descriptor also just has a lot of bad connotations. Which, again, I get it, but it's... hamfisted at best.
-This is equivocable to me to fantasy stories that just capitalize Big Important Terms rather than try and come up with their own words for it. And it's lazy.

Moving on. The Point of View. It took me five chapters to realize I was supposed to be reading about two different characters. I kept getting confused about who the fuck I was reading about. I honestly thought it was the same person with two different names, until Sannah and Judit get separated. And then when they're reunited, the same thing happens. The only reason I know how to tell them apart the second time is because the POV flips each chapter.

I understand this is third person, but the fact I was unable to tell who I was reading about for five entire chapters is very very bad. They read so samey that it hurts. Unless you're writing omniscient - and this book is not in omniscient - each POV character should have a sort of voice that makes them stand out from the rest of the cast. And these characters did not.

If I could tell these characters apart without them needing to be separated, and if one of the key themes of the book wasn't so egregiously hamfisted, maybe I would like this. But unfortunately, I couldn't, and it was, so I didn't.