Tournament of Books discussion

place to discuss Gish Jem's The Resisters

Just finished this book. Wasn't a huge fan -- seemed like it couldn't quite decide whether it wanted to be a sports novel (with the traditional arc -- underdog overcomes adversity, proves the doubters wrong, wins the Big One) or a dystopian novel (with a peculiar focus on lawsuits).

I just started this this morning and it’s giving me strong Golden State/We Cast A Shadow vibes. Gotta love that near-future surveillance state.

Agreed. Just started and I'm a bit confused, but definitely intrigued.

This one was not for me, in almost every way that a novel can be not for me. The characters seemed two-dimensional, the plot trying to do way too much without regard to believability, the mantras & the trade names & the rhetorical questions were just unpleasantly overwhelming and left nothing at all for me to think for myself. Perhaps if I loved baseball, there might have been something there.

Phyllis wrote: "Perhaps if I loved baseball, there might have been something there.
"

I had the opposite reaction from you and I also don't love baseball...so I don't think that's it. For me, it was more of a political book and that's why I enjoyed it.

Janet wrote: "I had the opposite reaction from you . . ."

Janet, isn't it wonderful that there are enough books for every reader? Reading is such a subjective experience, as the ToB shows year after year after year. Happy New Year to you!

I'm reading this now and I wasn't sure at first (I don't love sports books, and I seem to be 'resisting' dystopian books lately) - but I'm hooked now. I'll check back in when I finish. Definitely more engaged with the plot and ideas than the characters. I'm glad I'm reading this one, not sure it would have worked for me in audio format, especially with all the back and forth correspondence.

I'll be interested to read everyone's thoughts on the POV here. Having the father tell the story seems an interesting choice to me.

The book didn't work for me as well as I expected. I read half of it before the pandemic and then had to return it to the library. Once our library opened up curbside service, I was able to check it out again. I'm a big believer that books may not be right for me at a current time, so I might try to reread this before the tournament. A 3-4 month hiatus in the middle didn't help.

I just finished this today and can connect with a lot of the comments above. I didn't dislike anything about it, and the ending was nice, but nothing really stood out for me, and I'm also not really in the mood for dystopian stuff right now (as we're already living it). The POV was a bit confusing on audio, but I managed to follow along relatively well. 3.5 stars for me.

I've got about 70 pages to go, and I'm enjoying it far more than I thought I would - a nice surprise since I was anticipating a DNF before I started it. I'm finding the characters delightful and I love the voice of the dad narrator. Even the baseball details are going down smoothly. I don't think it'll be among my top tier books of the year, but I'm glad I'm reading it. It's a good-natured dystopian story that's keeping me in a good mood.

Jen wrote: "I'm reading this now and I wasn't sure at first "
I had the opportunity to talk to the author a couple of weeks ago, which was interesting and made me come away from it with a slightly bigger appreciation of the book than I had when I finished it. As for the POV, she wanted the women to be the heroes of the story, and by telling the story from the point of view of the father, she was aiming to give a more mythological quality to Eleanor and Gwen.

Interesting though I'm not sure it worked.

I enjoyed aspects of this novel, but it didn’t hold together for me overall. The world-building is impressive. Gish Jen’s future world is both believable and horrifying. The sports narrative also has some interesting elements, but the sports story and the future world didn’t come together in a way that made sense. It seemed like two different novels layered on top of each other.

Katie wrote: "As for the POV, she wanted the women to be the heroes of the story, and by telling the story from the point of view of the father, she was aiming to give a more mythological quality to Eleanor and Gwen...."

This strategy worked perfectly for me! I love the dad's voice - I wish I could send him a father's day card :)

I’m halfway through this and I’ve already forgotten everything about it. At least Tender Is the Flesh was provocative. If folks are looking for places to skip, I recommend this.

Katie wrote: "Jen wrote: "I'm reading this now and I wasn't sure at first "
I had the opportunity to talk to the author a couple of weeks ago, which was interesting and made me come away from it with a slightly ..."

Thanks for sharing that Katie, I think she was successful with this intention.

This book hit a weird venn diagram of things I enjoy: women playing baseball (and being taken seriously at it) and surveillance state dystopian SF involving people trying to best the system by living off or under the grid. I did find the ways the government were trying to subtly control the population chilling, to the point where I had a creepy dream about it. I thoroughly enjoyed it while reading but I can see why it would not appeal to everyone :)

Question for those who have read: how much description of baseball are we talking in this one? 30%? 90%? I'm wondering how bored I will be.

C wrote: "Question for those who have read: how much description of baseball are we talking in this one? 30%? 90%? I'm wondering how bored I will be."

Overall, there's not really that much baseball play-by-play, and where it occurs it's pretty easy to just skim. I'm no sports fan, but the baseball wasn't what got in the way of my enjoying this book. The book also reads really fast, and you don't have to do any hard thinking.

Phyllis wrote: "C wrote: "Question for those who have read: how much description of baseball are we talking in this one? 30%? 90%? I'm wondering how bored I will be."

Overall, there's not really that much basebal..."

ok good. Thanks Phyllis!

Katie wrote: "As for the POV, she wanted the women to be the heroes of the story, and by telling the story from the point of view of the father, she was aiming to give a more mythological quality to Eleanor and Gwen..."

Okay, this gets to the root of my floundering to describe how I felt about this.

I think the father POV worked really well in valorizing Gwen, she was an intriguing kid from the start, not in her personality so much as because of her talent. It was clear we would learn much about what that talent would do to shake up their normal, dystopian world.

For Eleanor, though, she seemed to just float through most of the novel, doing all her resistance law work as a background matter of course for the narrative. And then in the last part - suddenly she was everyone's mascot and talisman and hero and lynchpin.

I can make a logical leap from 'lawyer who does much to make life better for everyone in the dystopia' to 'revolutionary hero' but I didn't feel it on the page, I guess?