An excellent read, if seriously flawed. For one, nothing dates a novel like its depiction of the future. This is no exception, the whole thing felt very seventies. Second, much of the twin utopia/dystopia presented in the book is told instead of shown, an elementary crime against literature. Third, I've been spoiled by [b:The Dispossessed|13651|The Dispossessed (Hainish Cycle #6)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1353467455s/13651.jpg|2684122] which presented its future with a negative capability, sowing doubts by presenting the inevitable discontents within its utopia. That I agree with Piercy's premise doesn't let this book off the hook.
Still, its so very refreshing to see Rosa Luxemburg's axiom "socialism vs barbarism" brought to life so starkly. The novel's predictions align with choices our actual society faces. The fact that reality is less subtle than science fiction isn't this novel's fault, it's our own. ( )

SPOILERS: Oh my days, what a fantastic read. But so sad, and so sad that it could have been written today but was actually published before I was born. Not only have we not learned anything, we're hurtling toward the bad future. Reading this felt at times like being given proper meaningful answers to the question But How Should We Live? I wish I'd read it twenty years ago, but then I probably wouldn't have understood either the question or the answer! This is a wonderfully crafted, terribly prescient novel about trauma, recovery, survival, the many possible futures, all topped off with a {SPOILER} clever twist But Was It Really A Mental Health Episode that made me sad and awestruck at the layers of cleverness going on here. Standing ovation from me. ( )

I read this before, many years ago. It was so well worth reading again. It's a scary window on the way that the mentally ill were treated in the 60s. So Reagan came and turned them all out on the street. They're not on Thorazine, but their illness is not addressed any better. ( )

I love this book so much. It perfectly displays what I as a feminist am fighting for. It shows a beautiful utopia (not a classic utopia, there are problems and such, but classic utopias never really work now do they?) I've read it over and over whenever I feel down. It's such a beautiful vision. ( )

This is one of those books that I didn't necessarily read because I was enjoying it, but because it's an important contribution to its genre.

The book is about Connie, a Latina in New York City. She lives alone (she has been twice widowed, and her daughter has been taken away by Child Protection Services). She has a beloved niece, and she gets in an argument with her niece's pimp and hits him in the face with a glass bottle. For that, she is unjustly put in a horrible mental institution where she is kept on heavy sedatives and subjected to medical experiments.

While all of this is going on in her daily life, she is visited by Luciente, a woman from the future. Connie learns that her empathy and ability to connect with people gives her the ability to time travel. She frequently travels to the future to learn about Luciente's world, which is an anti-capitalist, eco-feminist utopia.

I found Connie's time traveling to be rather tedious. There isn't much of a storyline to most of it: for the most part, Luciente shows Connie around, and Connie asks a lot of bombastic questions about what she is seeing, and seems very resistant to most of the changes in the future. This often devolves into a kind of contrived dialectic dialog where it is clear that the only reason for the dialog is to give the characters a chance to describe their society in detail. For the middle half of the book, there is very little action, just a lot of descriptions of this future utopia. It felt like Pierce just wanted to describe her idea of a perfect world and invented a flimsy frame story so that she could talk about every aspect of the world: polyamory, gender fluidity, education, conflict resolution, genetic engineering, holidays and celebrations, food preparation, etc.

However, it gradually becomes clear that all is night right in the utopia: Luciente mentions that the reason they are bringing Connie to the future is so that she can influence the events of the past to make sure that this future happens. As Connie's life becomes more troubled, the future becomes less utopian, and Connie feels a stonger imperative to prevent the doctors at the mental hospital from experimenting on her so that she can save the future.

When she is not traveling to the future, Connie's storyline is a scathing indictment of the unjust treatment of the poor and mentally-ill. This can make for some very traumatic reading at times.

The book has a twist ending, which I won't give away... but I will say that when I first read the ending, I found it very disappointing, but the more I have thought about the book, the more the ending totally changes the rest of the book, to the point that I am almost tempted to read it again.

What makes this book remarkable is how much it is ahead of its time, especially for science fiction. This feels like the kind of science fiction that would be written now and would make the Sad Puppies angry than the kind of book that was written 45 years ago. ( )