SuitabookPills and starships
Lydia Millet
- Reading
- Allow time to discuss the book’s ideas rather than treating it as a purely fast-paced adventure. Focus on how Nat’s detachment and Sam’s resistance shape your response to the story.
- Themes
- Environmental collapse and responsibility: Environmental decline shapes the teenagers’ understanding of their choices and future prospects. The novel uses a dystopian scenario to examine the consequences of environmental degradation and the possibility of different ways of living.
- Death, family choice and corporate power: The parents’ decision creates a conflict between adult autonomy and responsibility towards their children. The corporate service is presented as disturbing, while the parents’ decision creates an unresolved moral conflict between adult autonomy and parental responsibility.
- Nat’s changing understanding: Nat’s changing perspective is contrasted with Sam’s resistance, complicating her understanding of the world and the service corporation. The book treats Nat’s growing awareness as meaningful, but her passivity and later abandonment of Sam complicate any simple account of personal growth.
- Worth knowing
- Expect sustained attention to death, ecological collapse, storms, disease, drug use and family separation. The narration is detached and sometimes explanatory, while the underlying situation can become disturbing and violent.