Goldilocks, Laura Lam
Oh boy, here I am finally, reviewing this. It’s been a heck of a year, and this wasn’t quite the right book for me earlier this year — I didn’t even get to the pandemic part, it’s just that the portrayal of a world slid out of control was too much for me in general. Goldilocks portrays a future version of Earth with women forced back out of the workplace, climate change out of control, and temperate areas overpopulated and struggling. A small crew of women are heading for a new planet, Cavendish, with the hope of finding and making a new home there, to save everyone.
Things turn out darker than that hope, in a way that’s difficult to talk about without giving too much away. There are some twists that are worth experiencing as part of the story, with its multiple timelines and carefully timed revelations. I’m usually pretty good at guessing ahead, but one or two twists caught me on the hop.
In the end, one particular character came across as a little too straightforwardly villainous for me. I didn’t have an ounce of sympathy for their aims or their choices on the way there, and that sat oddly with my earlier impressions of them. I’d have welcomed something that felt a little more nuanced, perhaps, though I did find Naomi’s reaction to them was nicely ambiguous. The ending seemed to suggest that things were meant to be that way, but after a certain point, they just went beyond the pale for me.
Overall, though, I enjoyed it and would recommend it.
This definitely fell into the category of books I expected to like more than I did; altho I think some of that was spring 2020 being a terrible time to try and get lost in a book for me. I know what you mean about the villain tho – I’d have preferred a lot more nuance over the outright evil that unfolds. I also think I’d have been highly critical of some of the narrative choices if the author had been a bloke, which leaves me feeling a bit awkward about it in hindsight.
It felt like there was setup for more nuance, and like… maybe even more talking from the villain would have convinced me a bit more. But once the full plan comes out, things move pretty quickly to get rid of them.