““You stumble over your own feet. You don’t know what to do with your…”

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The last time I was up to date with reviews was 2022-01-31. Since then, 260/415 books (62.7%) have been reviewed. We'll get there … eventually.

“You stumble over your own feet. You don’t know what to do with your hands. When you are in a position where you have to do the exact right thing in an instant, deft movement is the most important element. You want your body to work for you, not against you. Not only, by God, am I going to give you dancing lessons, but I’m going to start you on needlepoint.”
We not only got needlepoint, dancing lessons, hand-to-hand combat training, and weapon instruction, but Mr. Marechal was our tutor in all of them.

Rite of Passage

by Alexei Panshin · published 1968 · read 2023-03-29

★★★★☆

A scifi book from the 60s, with a young black girl as protagonist, written by a white dude from the US, that isn’t terrible? And also isn’t praised and listed on all the reading lists everywhere? Reading this book was a big surprise, I have to say. This book is a take on generation ships that not only pays attention to society on the ship (which I think basically all generation ship stories set out to do), but also economics, and how the ship relates to non-ship space (and hot damn colonialism on a bicycle, it’s not pretty). The protagonist is proactive, very very flawed in a way that works with her being, y’know, a 14-year-old girl born to influential parents, but also not stupid. Granted, the story has limited depth in the end – it is a coming-of-age story, but I thought things felt very alive and well-handled. And, what’s more, the ending! Oh my, the ending. When the subject of the climax became clear, I was very afraid it’d be tacky or moralising or cheap, and it was none of that. Really glad I read this book.