P. Kirby’s Reviews > The Just City > Status Update

Ya know what? This reads like someone trying to write a YA dystopian novel for adults. As if their assumption is that all that adventure, and sexual tension is for kids, so ditch that, but keep the sorting of people into "factions" and add lengthy Socratic dialogue. Tah-dah! YA dystopian made mature. ... Uh, not. Ugh. This book is dull, dull, dull.

And...things got rapey. Yuck. This is like fan-wank for philosophers. A long string of Socratic dialogues, literally--Socrates has showed up. So bored, but don't want to DNF until I hit 50%.

So far, typical pretentious, sort of meta, writing that makes the SF/F literati's panties wet. As with Among Others, it assumes that the reader has done her homework and understands all the references. In this case, knows anything about Plato's Republic or has a strong background in classical studies. I don't. I'm not proud of my ignorance, but, ugh, this is too fucking smug. Thank Dog it was free.

I admit to going into this with a bad attitude. Thing is, it's free, part of Tor free ebook a month giveaway, and I can't resist free. But it looks like pretentious award-bait.