May 13, 2024
In this ambitious sophomore novel, Askaripour (Black Buck) casts a young woman as a sorcerer’s apprentice in a dastardly scheme to “reset” the world. In 2529, Sweetmint is the first Invisible to work for the Northwestern Hemisphere’s Chief Architect, Tenmase, an elderly eccentric who has been instrumental in upholding apartheid policies that separate the Invisibles from the visible Dominant Peoples. Fast-thinking and a decent tennis player, Sweetmint impresses Tenmase, who shares with her his half-baked plan to remake Northwestern society. After someone murders Northwestern’s religious head honcho, suspicion falls on Sweetmint’s brother, Shanu, who disappeared several years earlier, and Sweetmint sets out on a dangerous quest to find and protect him. She must first locate the parents who abandoned her and Shanu as babies and then navigate a labyrinth of arcane alliances, including the Rainbow Girls (her former classmates who paint themselves visible so they can work as prostitutes) and underground rebels who call themselves Children of Slim. Meanwhile, two Local Managers vie to become Northwestern’s next Chief Executive, Tesmane’s real identity is revealed, and violence simmers between the Invisibles and the Dominant Peoples. Askaripour crafts a plot so intricate and twisty it occasionally leaves the reader on the sidelines. At it’s best, however, this energetic, speculative deconstruction of colonialism feels like watching an expert put together a 1000-piece jigsaw.
June 1, 2024
A dystopian fantasy in which our present-day racial hierarchies and caste prejudices are ramped up--as are the humiliations, cruelties, and perils that go with them. Askaripour follows up his debut, Black Buck (2021), by imagining an America even more divided by region and race 500 years into the future. By then, the world's land masses are designated as hemispheres rather than continents and nations. The action takes place in the Northwestern Hemisphere, whose people are divided between what's called the Dominant Population, or DPs, and Invisibles, second-class citizens denied opportunities and rights because they aren't fully "seen" by DPs, who demean, ostracize, and even brutalize them when their presence is acknowledged. One of these Invisibles is Candace, who also goes by Sweetmint, a young woman whose intelligence and determination lead to a coveted apprenticeship with Croger Tenmase, an illustrious inventor considered a mystifying eccentric by his fellow DPs. Among the many tribulations Sweetmint has had to overcome is the disappearance of her older brother, Shanu. Still, she flourishes under Tenmase's guidance until her world crashes around her with the news that Shanu is the primary suspect in the assassination of the hemisphere's chief executive. Sweetmint leaves Tenmase's haven to search for Shanu, hoping to find him before the authorities do. Her principal nemeses are Curts, the hemispheric guard director, and Stephan Jolis, a ruthless young aspirant for the executive's job, pledging greater repression of the Invisibles if elected. Askaripour, whose first novel was a satire of class and racial transactions in corporate America, exhibits some of the same hard-driving and, at times, heavy-handed depictions of bigotry here. The author infuses his conscientious worldbuilding with audacity and intricacy down to the social rituals and the epithets casually hurled at minorities. (In this future Earth, the words "Black" and "white" are never explicitly used to classify characters.) And as the propulsive narrative runs its course, the interactions between social castes become subtler and less predictable, especially toward the book's stunning, even stinging, conclusion. A page-turning vision of a future made all too plausible by our volatile present.
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Starred review from May 24, 2024
Sweetmint is invisible, just like 40 percent of the population. They are oppressed by the Dominant Population at every turn, but Sweetmint hopes that her internship with one of the inventors of the system under which they live will demonstrate what her peoples are capable of. Instead, she learns that she has been elevated just so she can be struck down. When her brother is falsely accused of murder to cover up a political assassination, Sweetmint is forced to run for her life, sending her straight into the arms of a revolution that may, or may not, be capable of dismantling all of the levers of power that have been engineered to keep her people down. Using invisibility as a metaphor for various forms of division and repression, this novel sets multiple narratives on parallel tracks; Sweetmint's quest for justice is juxtaposed with the real assassin's revenge motives even as the villainous plots of those in power are set against the rhetoric of the revolutionary underground. VERDICT A stunning and compelling work of social justice speculative fiction from Askaripour (Black Buck).--Marlene Harris
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from June 1, 2024
Askaripour's (Black Buck, 2021) sophomore effort is an ambitious, engaging novel set 500 years in the future in a society that is sharply divided between people who are physically invisible and the visible dominant population, which holds a brutal dominion over those who cannot be seen. Sweetmint is a young invisible woman and aspiring inventor living a largely isolated existence after her beloved brother goes missing. When she is selected to be the new apprentice to Croger Tenmase, the reclusive billionaire inventor, Sweetmint gains access and new insight into an entirely new world, one that governs and controls how the other half, her half, lives. She soon learns that her brother is alive and accused of a crime and finds herself in a race against time to find him. Askaripour is a skilled worldbuilder, imbuing this imagined society with fascinating detail and (often sadly) relatable divisions and issues. The page-turning prose and standout characters will appeal to a wide range of readers. Part sf adventure, part mystery, part social satire, this is a vividly imagined and captivating story.
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