Surrogate Colony by Boshra Rasti: A Book Review
Genre: Dystopian Coming-of-Age
Surrounding the idea of a world were disease is eradicated and everyone is constantly monitoring for germs, Surrogate Colony gives the story of two people willing to survive just to be together. Much like all forbidden love stories, everything goes wrong in the beginning for this couple, only for everything to go completely right at the end. Rasti does intertwine some interesting ideas in her story though.
Starting from the very beginning, I could tell something was off with the community the characters live in. Of course, I knew this was to be a dystopian story, so I was prepared – however, what I was not prepared for was how much Surrogate Colony was like The Giver and how cynical of view of this world she was going to take.
Starting off the story, people feel emotions thanks to drugs that give them the chemicals necessary to make attachments. Love is not real – its manufactured. While I like the idea in the long run, I feel that it is also very cynical as well as inconsiderate to those with mental health disorders. While I can understand that Rasti might have been looking to critic the fact that society has started prescribing more and more pills, I am torn about how she goes about it, mainly because she exaggerates it so much.
To go with this, as a reader, you can clearly see how some characters can be considered psychopaths – and yet nothing is said towards that. In that aspect, I think that Rasti missed the mark. Rather than creating a message about the amount of pills we take to think we are happy, she could have focused on how emotions and empathy – connection to each other – is what makes us human and should be cherished.
Rasti’s idea of population and control was ingenious as well although it reminded me of Superman. With a database in control of who gets what kid, what the kid grows up to be, as well as, their place in society, the story did sound a lot like Krypton. However, I do think that she put a different light on it by taking it a step further with how the process of reproduction went. By creating the Surrogate and Eunuch categories created an even more complex story of what can happen when we let our freedom and control over our lives slip even a little for protection against anything, such as in the case of Surrogate Colony, protection against disease.
Who would most enjoy the work and who should stay clear (if necessary):
I would caution younger teenagers in reading this story. While not depicted graphically or in detail, information regarding surrogates and eunuchs may lead to some uncomfortable questions of those who have not had a formal health education of the different sexes. While a formal health education is not necessary to understand the topics discussed, it would lessen the amount of questions and perhaps the awareness of what may actually be going on. I did want to give a shout out to Rasti though for discussing everything sexually related in a very educational and detached manner. I have read many books where sexually related information is worded almost in a funny way as the writer tries to skirt around the main point.
Other books like the one reviewed:
The Giver by Lois Lowery
Divergent by Veronica Roth
| Plot: | 10 / 10 |
| Characters: | 9 / 10 |
| Writing: | 8 / 10 |
| Editor: | 9 / 10 |
| Total | 36 / 40 |
Title: Surrogate Colony
Author: Boshra Rasti
Edition: Paperback
Published: 2022
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
ISBN: 9781639881628
If you want to get it: Amazon
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