First of all, I would like to start off this review by saying this book was almost impossible to follow. Even after finishing, I went on Wikipedia to read a plot synopsis and STILL had no idea what went on. There were way too many characters with really difficult names that were too odd for me to remember from chapter to chapter; one of the only reasons I remembered Emiko’s name is because it kind of looks like “Emily”. With that in mind, here is what I gathered from reading Paolo Bacigalupi’s, The Windup Girl:
The second I opened the book, I knew I was going to be thankful that I was only writing a short review on it. I remember thinking, “why? Why me? There are fifty thousand characters and this book is so long. What monster does this?” All sarcastic remarks aside, my favorite part of the book was the end…NOT IN A SARCASTIC WAY. I like that Bacigalupi ended the book on a hopeful note with Gibbons telling Emiko that he can use her DNA to produce a species of people that will be just like her that she can live with, something she’s wanted for a very long time. I feel like a lot of the books we’ve read haven’t ended so happily, so this ending is one I can appreciate. I feel bad that I didn’t enjoy the rest of the book as much as I had anticipated I would. I suppose I did enjoy how developed all the characters were even though there were so many of them. With that many stories to keep track of, Bacigalupi did an incredible job of not slacking on any of the characters. Ten points for Bacigalupi.
