Review–The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord (DNF)

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The Best of All Possible Worlds
 
by Karen Lord
 
Summary: A proud and reserved alien society finds its homeland destroyed in an unprovoked act of aggression, and the survivors have no choice but to reach out to the indigenous humanoids of their adopted world, to whom they are distantly related. They wish to preserve their cherished way of life but come to discover that in order to preserve their culture, they may have to change it forever.
Now a man and a woman from these two clashing societies must work together to save this vanishing race—and end up uncovering ancient mysteries with far-reaching ramifications. As their mission hangs in the balance, this unlikely team—one cool and cerebral, the other fiery and impulsive—just may find in each other their own destinies . . . and a force that transcends all.


Source: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Review:

Did Not Finish
 
The Best of All Possible Worlds was a unique and intelligent novel that took a science fiction futuristic setting and told a story from a sociological aspect. The book was brilliantly done in that aspect. Instead of being either plot driven or character driven, it was neither. It was societally driven with a focus on humanity and sociology as the main characters worked to preserve an alien race.

I found the idea of the book to be fascinating. However, I did not finish the book. I got about 62% done before I realized I was not connecting with any of the characters and was instead reading the book from a distantly curious standpoint and didn’t feel invested in the story at all. I decided not to continue after giving it a lot of thought. The Best of All Possible Worlds was by no means a bad book. It was quite brilliant and I think it has the potential to be successful and draw people in. It’s just that I couldn’t get into it for some reason, despite the fact that it was heavy and full of wonderful quotes and ideas, with an interesting plot and mission.

I highly recommend the book to people who are interested in sociology and other cultures. Those who are interested in the concept of preserving cultures and how to go about taking on a project like that will be stunned by the book and hopefully will appreciate the futuristic setting of the novel, too. The characters who are a part of the government team assigned to preserving the Sadiri race were distinct and enjoyable, with personality traits that really stood out. The book didn’t have a lot of actual action, but there were conflicts of all kinds in it. Everything was very subtle, even the romantic connections between the characters. The Best of All Possible Worlds was a unique story with themes that apply to the world today and I would definitely recommend it to people who can appreciate a subtle and slow story with sociological themes and concepts.



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