World of Shell and Bone by Adriana Ryan opens with a bang and reads like George Orwell decided to take up his pen and make The Hunger Games better…for the first few chapters. The story is that of Vikka Cannon, a low-level clerical assistant at a government office struggling to find her way in the oppressive matriarchy that runs the post-apocalyptic nation that rose from the ashes of the Americas. In this society, women have wrested the political power from men who led the world to war and have designated them as second-class citizens – good only for manual labor and procreation.
It is this interesting twist that really hooked me at the start – that and the stunning cover art. It was such an interesting take on the post-apocalyptic genre that the first few chapters flew past at the speed of my fingertips. Of course, there is a heavy (very in some cases) influence from Orwell’s 1984. The matriarchy is very controlling and dissenters are executed with haste. Mothers are pulled away from their children and lovers with all of the efficiency of trash collection and whisked off to gas chambers at the slightest hint of collusion with the “Rads” (Radicals: the underground comprised totally of men who have had enough of the draconian women’s regime).
Because procreation is regarded as the holiest of holies only pregnant women or those who have already born children can emigrate to Asia – which survived the nuclear holocaust. And, if after a certain number of attempts, the woman is still barren she is executed for being a drain on society. Likewise, children born with genetic mutations (either Nukeheads or Defecteaux depending on the severity of their mutation) are shipped to asylums for scientific study. Of course they’re not studied. They’re raped, drugged, tortured, and generally abused.
And so we are introduced to the quintessential character in World of Shell and Bone: Ceres, Vikka’s little sister. She was taken away at a tender age as Vikka looked on and pretended there was nothing wrong. Vikka’s regret, shame, and longing slowly transform her into a Rad sympathizer and with the help of her assigned husband Shale (who is also a Rad) she leaves the safety of her home/prison to find her sister and save her from the horrors of the world.
Unfortunately, when Shale (who reminds me so much of Gale from The Hunger Games it’s annoying) and Vikka leave home, the book falls apart.
World of Shell and Bone Falls Apart Just like the Titular Object
Somewhere along the way Ms. Ryan loses her way and everything that was so intriguing about the book falls to the wayside. Vikka follows the flow of the narrative – never really doing anything much other than bemoaning her sad station – until she’s forced to act at the end. And even then she doesn’t really do anything.
That’s one of the main problems with the book: as a heroine Vikka falls flat. During the journey she’s subjected to several horrors both physical and mental, but she doesn’t really appear changed by them. She merely accepts them and continues on. She doesn’t even fight back but instead is rescued (several times) by supporting characters who blip in and out of the story like inconsequential sprites. The transitory nature of these secondary characters is plague on the entire novel.
Indeed, Vikka’s data-entry nemesis, a tattooed woman named Moon, is portrayed as a conniving, backstabber who will rat out perfect strangers in order to secure her ticket on the emigration train. But when Ryan brings Moon back at the end of the book as the leader of an all-male death squad I almost put the book down. There was no explanation of how a glorified typist could somehow rise to the post of gestapo lieutenant over the course of just a couple of weeks. Had she been a plant all along?
Spoilers!
It doesn’t really matter because she was dispatched post-haste after she’d dropped her expositionary gobbet of info.
Spoiler-Free!
The saccharine ending of the book fits so discordantly with the overtones of ennui that permeate the rest of the story that it makes the whole thing, in retrospect, seem rather childish. It’s also a sort of anemic “cliff hanger” as this book is billed as “book one.”
One thing I found incredibly disgustingly pretentious was the book club discussion at the back.
Things I Liked About World of Shell and Bone
I couldn’t bring myself to hate the book though I wanted to by the time I struggled through to the end. There was so much unrealized potential in there that I found myself rooting for Ms. Ryan, hoping that she’d somehow pull it together in the end.
The Orwellian allusions are the cherry on the top of this novel. The beginning really set this up for something special. There are also subtle(and not-so) threads weaving through Vikka’s tale: her fear of infertility, the shadow of her mother (who is a high-ranking government official), the burgeoning love/lust relationship with her husband – which defies all societal norms, her guilt about her sister and several proxies. You can call World of Shell and Bone a lot of things but “shallow” isn’t one of them.
There are a few other bright spots such as Ryan’s sometimes spectacularly done descriptions and internal monologues. Also the bleak outlook shared by most all of the characters is very consistent with the world which Ryan has created.
Overall, it just wasn’t enough to cobble these gems together and hope for the best. It almost feels as if Ryan spent a good chunk of time banging out the first few chapters and then machine-gunned the rest to meet a deadline.
Unfortunately, I can’t see myself reading book two in this series.
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