G. Deyke reviewed Mirror Project by Monje, Michael Scott Jr
[Adapted from initial review on Goodreads.]
5 stars
I've kind of a complicated opinion of this book, and while part of me wants to recommend it to absolutely everyone, another part of me wants to preface that recommendation with a whole slew of caveats and content warnings. It is, unquestionably, a good book; but it is not a pleasant one.
The writing is fluid, the narrator easy to empathise with, and the framing device both really nifty and very immersive. It also performs another important function: it makes it clear from the start that whatever else happens in the book, the narrator is going to - somehow, somewhen, in some capacity - make it through. This is the sort of book in which that knowledge is critical, and for some readers might make the difference in being able to finish it.
The narrator - whose only given name and pronouns in fact belong to someone else, for which …
I've kind of a complicated opinion of this book, and while part of me wants to recommend it to absolutely everyone, another part of me wants to preface that recommendation with a whole slew of caveats and content warnings. It is, unquestionably, a good book; but it is not a pleasant one.
The writing is fluid, the narrator easy to empathise with, and the framing device both really nifty and very immersive. It also performs another important function: it makes it clear from the start that whatever else happens in the book, the narrator is going to - somehow, somewhen, in some capacity - make it through. This is the sort of book in which that knowledge is critical, and for some readers might make the difference in being able to finish it.
The narrator - whose only given name and pronouns in fact belong to someone else, for which reason I'm uncomfortable with using them - spends nearly the entire book in a state of no or nearly no agency. Every aspect of their life is tightly controlled, down to their perception and their ability to move their own body. Their mind is their own, but there's so much gaslighting and disregard for their personhood that that, too, is under constant assault. Other characters range from dismissive to misguided to outright abusive. The threat of rape or sexual assault is a constant looming shadow, though - this is the other thing that keeps the book readable despite all of this - it doesn't ever actually happen.
In various ways, Mirror Project parallels medical abuse, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, and really just about every kind of abuse you can think of. The narrator's situation is deeply traumatising, and readers who are sensitive to any of these things should take every measure to brace and protect themselves before reading (if, indeed, they read it at all).
A good book, an important book, but also a deeply uncomfortable one.
Selling points: voidpunk; AI/robots; hopeful ending.
Warnings: all the content warnings; see above. There were also occasional typos in my edition, though not so many that they seriously disrupted the reading flow.