G. Deyke reviewed Failure to Communicate by Kaia Sonderby (Xandri Corelel)
[Adapted from initial review on Goodreads.]
3 stars
There's a lot to love about this book: the characters, the worldbuilding, the diversity, the quality of representation, the found-family vibe.
The one thing I feel it fails at is immersion - which is interesting, as it stands in stark contrast to several other autistic-voiced books I've recently read. It's worth noting that with all of those, the deep immersion and emotional intensity made them, at times, difficult to read. Failure to Communicate, by contrast, feels a lot lighter. It's a fun read. Depending on what you're wanting at the moment, that could be good or bad: light and fun definitely has its place, especially when deep and hard-hitting is too much to handle.
My edition also had a distinctly noticeable number of typos. It certainly wasn't unreadable, but I did find it distracting: it could definitely have used another round of proofing.
Selling points: #OwnVoices autistic narrator; nuanced characterisation; …
There's a lot to love about this book: the characters, the worldbuilding, the diversity, the quality of representation, the found-family vibe.
The one thing I feel it fails at is immersion - which is interesting, as it stands in stark contrast to several other autistic-voiced books I've recently read. It's worth noting that with all of those, the deep immersion and emotional intensity made them, at times, difficult to read. Failure to Communicate, by contrast, feels a lot lighter. It's a fun read. Depending on what you're wanting at the moment, that could be good or bad: light and fun definitely has its place, especially when deep and hard-hitting is too much to handle.
My edition also had a distinctly noticeable number of typos. It certainly wasn't unreadable, but I did find it distracting: it could definitely have used another round of proofing.
Selling points: #OwnVoices autistic narrator; nuanced characterisation; diversity in both the human and non-human subsets of characters; bi and polyamorous representation; respectful handling of mental illness even in a villain; found family; anti-fascist vibes.
Warnings: some typos; sequel-thirsty ending; sometimes Xandri makes bad decisions and you have to watch the consequences of her mistakes.