First of all, the writing was all right. It started off a little shaky but improved a lot over the book and I got into it enough that I wanted to continue reading.

This book is really something and in a bad way. Shinn tries to do a whole lot and it ends up being WAY too much. I had very high hopes for this book. The racial and sexual politics intrigued me at first. The set up of EXTREMELY flawed characters was nice in the beginning. There was room for a lot of growth. However, that growth never really happens as much as it should. I mean, we have a bit of it. But the "change" wasn't actually that far from the original points of views of the characters anyway.

Shinn really should have also stuck to just race. She brought in homosexuality (and made a really mind-boggling distinction between female and male homosexuality that was unbelievable in such a society) and abortion, but she never dealt with them. I mean, we have two conversations where it's like, "yeah. We believe this and you believe that and we both make no sense," in terms of homosexuality, but it's never resolved. On one hand, we're cool with female homosexuality, but even though Nolan spends quite a bit of time talking about his feelings about male homosexuality, it's never resolved. I mean, why put it in, if you're not going to actually tackle it? It makes it seem as if you're supporting that kind of idea. And then abortion is brought up for literally no reason. I got the idea that Shinn is anti-abortion because that side kinda wins the argument (even after comparing abortion to murdering children um . . . ).

Race is dealt with acceptably for the most part, though I must point out that we never actually meet a "good" guldman even though we have several "good" blueman characters. It could have been done a whole lot more effectively but it wasn't atrocious. And sex is done about the same.

I think Shinn tried too hard to reverse all the conventions of our world and ended up messing up big time.

The romance is kind of weird but turns out relatively cute, which was nice. ( )

Reminded me a bit of [b:Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West|37442|Wicked The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years, #1)|Gregory Maguire|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1321029694s/37442.jpg|1479280] but reads more like Star Trek TNG's Angel One episode whipped together with some Chechen influenced [a:Laurie Garrett|12627|Laurie Garrett|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] with a bit of [b:The White Plague|53733|The White Plague|Frank Herbert|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1277938057s/53733.jpg|3634624].

Wont be for everyone, but I kinda liked it!
( )

I wanted to like it. I loved Shinn's YA fantasies. I am a feminist, and am interested in topics of race, privilege, and gender. But this is just so clunky, so graceless. I felt like, by p. 24, I got the point of the story, and didn't need to struggle with these unlikable characters any longer. Sorry. Thanks to all who wrote reviews, who convinced me I didn't have to read further before making my decision!

I couldn't help thinking throughout about the Irish word for a black person, daoine gorm or blue people, because to call someone black was to associate them with the devil, or so I was told. This features a world with three main races, blue, gold and white, where white is in the minority and the blue and gold are two very different worlds, blue are a matriarcy and hold men as inferior, and the gold are patriarchal and very much so.

When a male scientist finds a secret that will change his world and change his future he has to get the help of a female blue who understands.

I guessed a few of the twists, and the sexism and racism analogues were a bit overt but overall it's very interesting. ( )

Shinn has created a sf world where three races coexist, each almost biologically identical save for the color of their skin. Through a plot about terrorism and falling in love, Shinn examines the tense relationship between the brutal, colorful and patriarchal Gilder and the repressed, agrarian and martiarchal Indigo. There are a few great moments: when an Indigo character realizes that although she was raised by the Gulden, she still has all the privileges of an Indigo; the long and uncomfortable bus ride two Indigo take to visit a golden friend; the Gulden newspapers printed with two languages, side by side...But the moments that feel like true statements about race, gender, and sexuality are too rare to make up for a hackneyed plot and stale characters. I was also really annoyed that Shinn was so lazy in creating the two clashing cultures—each is clearly an Earth culture, with sf colored skin. The Gulden are stereotypically Middle Eastern, complete with honor killings, while the Indigo are oh-so-Western European, complete with fancy balls. Why not create two NEW cultures, or at the very least not map them so closely onto clichés? Still and all, worth a read. ( )