Review: The Traitor Baru Cormorant
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3 stars. My second DNF on Goodreads! It's in my nature to be stubborn and stick with things, but about halfway through this I took a step back and realized I was done. The Traitor Baru Cormorant is not a bad book at all, I'm just the wrong reader for it. Nothing against Seth Dickinson and his frankly impressive worldbuilding here, but I wasn't interested.
Super high level summary: a fierce and intelligent young woman infiltrates the group that conquered her homeland intending to stoke the flames of rebellion from within their highest ranks. It's painful, for her: navigating the system, learning who to trust, weaving together the millions of threads required to reach her goal. We get front row seats as she experiences the growth and great personal sacrifice required to change the world. It's a fantastic premise.
And I want to recognize that this book deals with some incredibly important themes - homophobia, racism, gender dynamics, colonialism, power - in incredibly insightful ways. I really admire authors who successfully tackle stuff like that in complex fantasies, because it can go so wrong. So many pitfalls to avoid! Dickinson pulls through, at least in the first half of the book, with a nice balance of cleverness and sensitivity.
So why did I put it down? Well, I hate math. I love that Dickinson tried to demonstrate the power of money here (I love considering the concept of conquest from all angles), but I have to admit that most of it was pretty over my head. I also couldn't hold onto certain delicacies within the plot, nor could I easily remember or recognize most of the characters. I'm a really careful reader, but I just couldn't stick with the writing style here. It felt sloppy, to me. It's totally, totally fine for an author to rely on his or her readers to draw conclusions, make jumps, recall plot points, etc., but this felt extreme. (And I almost say that sheepishly, less as a criticism and more of an admission that maybe I'm not smart enough?)
But it's certainly unique, and I may be tempted to pick it up again. Baru is an awesome character. The way she struggles with her sexuality feels so potent and tragic and hopeless. In that sense, it's really powerful writing. And I appreciate that Dickinson isn't preachy or sanctimonious, he just lets the chips fall. I can't really recommend this, and I can't comment on how it ends, but I fully acknowledge that there's something interesting here. It just isn't for me.