Review: Earth Girl

"The polite people would call me Handicapped, but you can call me ape girl if you like."

Earth Girl (Earth Girl #1)
Janet Edwards 
358 pages

Rating: 5 

This book is okay. It's not terrible, it's not offensive, but it's certainly not outstanding or sensational like some people seem to believe. The reviews of this book are a textbook case of people's tendency to overinflate ratings. You can rate things below "outstanding", people, it's all right. Sometimes things are just fine.

Jarra, our protagonist, is handicapped: stuck on Earth in a future where almost everyone got the hell off the planet if they had the chance. The rest of the galaxy looks down on her kind as primitive relics, but Jarra isn't having any of that- she decides to apply to an off-world university (that holds its first-year courses on Earth) and not tell any of her classmates she's an "ape". She invents a fake backstory for herself and sets to work studying archaeology and digging up the ruins of old New York. Obviously, issues ensue, as Jarra struggles against prejudice against her and also her own prejudice against the "norms". There's also a whole ton of stuff about how people in the future conduct archaeological digs.

The best parts of this book involve the world building. I love far-future settings that still involve Earth, and I feel like there aren't enough of them- usually when we're this far in the future, it's always in a space-exclusive or distant-planet setting. I loved the concept of portal technology, the inevitable Earth exodus, and what it would be like to be trapped on a planet during a space-faring age. It's what Edward's loves writing best (well, that and how to conduct futuristic archaeological digs), and it shows. The main reason I kept reading was to learn more and more about the galaxy Edward's has crafted.

It's also a refreshing divergence from the standard relationship archetype that abounds in YA lit these days. Sure, there's a romance, but it's realistic- a girl and a boy meet because they share interests, become friends, have some issues, start dating, have problems to work through. There's no ridiculous insta-love or undying, forbidden passions. Plus, Jarra is flawed in real ways, not in "she's quiet and shy because she thinks she's plain but is secretly amazing" ways. She can be kind of obnoxious and has a lot of justifiable issues given the prejudice she faces, but she's also smart and works had to be good at what she loves.

The main problem with this book, though, is that the writing...just isn't very good. It's not that bad- there are no grammatical errors or egregious statements, I never rolled my eyes at a stupid line (well, except when Jarra spontaneously goes crazy half-way through) but it's just...fine. The whole thing has a bit of an "uncanny valley" feel to it, where it's hard to put my finger on it but everything is just a little bit off. Phrases get repeated a few too many times. The non-Jarra characters are very two-dimensional, the "races" are excessively stereotyped, the dialogue feels flat, emotions are slightly over-explained, motivations are a bit overly simplistic, and problems and resolutions too quick to arrive and change. There's no depth to anything. Events also just sort of happen and then keep happening; some of them seem like they should be more climactic than others, but the writing can't convey any shift in intensity. I wasn't surprised to learn that Edward's apparently used to write technical documents before switching to fiction.

I'm reading the sequel now, which continues in much the same way (though Jarra ends up in more unrealistic situations- I don't care if she's an archaeology prodigy with a unique perspective, there are whole schools of archaeologists on future-Earth who aren't 18 year old freshman who would be more qualified than her). The world is interesting enough to have kept me reading, and it's a calming enough way to kill a few hours before bed when I'm too tired to read another book. Just don't expect five stars.

(In meta-news, it's occurred to me that I want to get back into writing reviews, so there should be more forthcoming instead of another ten months of nothing! Chemistry homework notwithstanding.)