{"id":3081,"date":"2016-03-22T14:00:40","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T18:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/?p=3081"},"modified":"2020-11-29T17:45:00","modified_gmt":"2020-11-29T17:45:00","slug":"review-the-drowned-cities-by-paolo-bacigalupi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/2016\/03\/22\/review-the-drowned-cities-by-paolo-bacigalupi\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Drowned Cities<\/i> by Paolo Bacigalupi"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Drowned Cities<\/a><\/em> by Paolo Bacigalupi is set in a harsh, brutal futuristic world in which war is inescapable. Everyone bears scars.\u00a0 Everyone is just trying to survive. Mahlia has survived losing her family, escaping the Drowned Cities, and losing her right hand all in the name of war. She is luckier than some, but she notes it \u201cdoesn\u2019t seem so lucky when she needed both hands to get the job done.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tBUY ON BOOKSHOP<\/span>\n\t\t\t\tBOOKSHOP<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t& support independent bookstores\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/article> \n\n\t<\/center><\/div>Mahlia, however, does manage to get the job done. Throughout the book, she is shown to be quite capable in her role as a nurse to the doctor who has taken her in and in the rescue attempt that follows.\u00a0 The narration labels her \u201ccrippled\u201d and occasionally uses the word \u201cawkward\u201d to describe how she accomplishes a task, but it never portrays her as helpless because of her lack of a hand. It doesn\u2019t always describe how she does things one-handed, which may be confusing to some readers who can\u2019t imagine doing certain tasks with only one hand, but I didn\u2019t feel like anything Mahlia accomplished single-handedly was improbable for her to do that way.\u00a0 I want to note how much I appreciated the fact that Mahlia doesn\u2019t need help because she has one hand.<\/p>\n

I have been known to say that my biggest disability is other people\u2019s doubt, and I can easily imagine Mahlia agreeing with that sentiment.\u00a0 From the very first scene in which we meet her, she is accused of not being enough. A grieving father tells the doctor: \u201cIf your nurse had two hands, it would\u2019ve helped.\u201d \u00a0This is not the only time in the book that she is faced with doubt about her ability, and it does affect her. I\u2019d be lying if I said that it didn\u2019t affect me sometimes to be so regularly faced with the assumption of not being able.\u00a0 I related to the way that Mahlia struggled with her reaction to the harsh words that people hurled at her because of her limb deficiency \u2014 sometimes wanting to prove herself and sometimes wanting to just keep her distance from people who didn\u2019t care to see her for who she was.<\/p>\n

Mahlia is a survivor and her story is riveting to the end.\u00a0 If this review was simply about her character, it would be wonderfully enthusiastic, but this book is about more than just Mahlia or any of the other characters to whom readers grow attached during the story. \u00a0The Drowned Cities<\/em> is about war and human nature in a larger sense, and, while the book faces some very dark themes throughout, it does offer a sliver of hopefulness in the end.<\/p>\n

However, it becomes clear toward the end of the book that Mahlia\u2019s amputation is symbolic of all that war has taken from her.\u00a0 It is, I must admit, hard to read a story in which limb deficiency is equal to tragedy and inextricable from violence when that is far from my own experience as a congenital amputee. While it is true that traumatic limb loss as a result of war does happen for both soldiers and civilians and would, I imagine, feel like a tremendous loss, in the context of this story\u00a0Mahlia\u2019s amputation felt like it went from being part of her character to being a plot device rather suddenly, which was disappointing.<\/p>\n

The Drowned Cities<\/em> is an impressive work that leaves readers with a lot to think about as regards to war, violence, and human nature.\u00a0 While none of the characters are always likable, including Mahlia, they are what makes this book worth reading despite a disappointing finale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I related to Mahlia’s struggle with the harsh words hurled at her because of her limb deficiency \u2014 sometimes wanting to prove herself and sometimes wanting to keep her distance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":2984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[62,522],"tags":[221,273],"genre":[35],"age_category":[8],"disability":[10],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3081"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6893,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3081\/revisions\/6893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3081"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=3081"},{"taxonomy":"age_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age_category?post=3081"},{"taxonomy":"disability","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disability?post=3081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}