Chad's Reviews > Saturnalia

I was on the verge of giving this a 3-star review on the basis that it's competent enough, just not my cup of tea. But every time I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt, it would just find a new way to annoy me.

Some ways it annoyed me:

Kudos to whoever designed the book cover. It's quite deceptive. The cover makes this look like an actual literary work for adults, but to be very clear, this is a Young Adult book. Author, Stephanie Feldman throws in some adult-ish content to hide the fact that it's actually a YA book, but after the first ten pages, it is very clear that this is a YA book.

It's like the author secretly wrote a fan fic while she was in high school about the adult lives of her high school buddies. Every once in a while, the book hints that these characters are supposed to be adults, but none of them ever act like adults. They all act the way the emo kids thought they looked to everyone else. They're all mysterious and aloof and tragically hip. They're all obsessed with joining Secret Societies, and even though they just seem like normal teenagers in need of some healthy self-reflection, they somehow all end up as the Kings and Queens of the Secret Societies they want to join. It just reeks of wish-fulfillment writing, which is a cardinal sin in my book.

The book wastes its so-called premise. The book kind of sells itself as some kind of near-future almost-dystopia where climate changes is destroying the planet. But this book in no way feels dystopian and the climate change angle is only paid lip-service for 95% of its page count, and only becomes a factor at the last possible moment to prop up what Feldman thought was a cool ending that doesn't have any thematic connection to anything that happened prior.

It would be more accurate to describe the setting as "an alternate universe Philadelphia where everyone is obsessed with Secret Societies". I probably wouldn't have wanted to read that book. But it really does feel more like an alternate universe than a dystopian future. There isn't anything futuristic here. Everything is exactly as it is now, just with more Secret Societies which are named after all the various deities Feldman learned about in an Introduction to World Religion class somewhere. None of these Secret Societies serve any real function in the plot. Feldman could easily have swapped out the Saturn Club for any of the dozens of other deities she name-drops, and it wouldn't have changed the plot one bit. It's just like, she loved the idea of having Secret Societies as a premise, then picked world religion as a theme, and to establish how important they are, she has all her characters yearn to join them, then they do and become the Kings and Queens. It made me roll my eyes the way I roll my eyes at Japanese video game characters when they carry around giant swords that are twice as big as the kewl badazz characters wielding them. Like, the creators clearly thought they were cool, and there is apparently an audience for that, so knock yourself out I guess. Anyway, such were the Secret Societies.

Author, Stephanie Feldman, made some outlandish comments on her GoodReads author's page. After less than 50 pages, I became convinced that Stephanie Feldman was a precocious and angsty 17-year old, and I went to her GoodReads page to verify my hypothesis. It turns out I was wrong about her age, but it wasn't a wasted trip as I did stumble upon a post where she humblebrags about how she's heard people compare Saturnalia to Jeff VanderMeer's "Southern Reach Trilogy". So, first of all, shame on anyone who said that out loud to Stephanie Feldman. Maybe you were just trying to be nice and you didn't realize she would cite you in a public forum. And second of all, shame on Stephanie Feldman for posting such a ridiculous statement. There are only three reasons I can imagine why she would do this. 1) She hasn't read "The Southern Reach Trilogy" and therefore doesn't realize how wildly off-base the comparison is, 2) she hasn't read her own book and therefore doesn't realize how wildly off-base the comparison is, or 3) she has read both books and thinks the comparison is valid. I think #1, but if I ever find out it's #3, I'm docking this down to 1-star.

For reference: Saturnalia is to "The Southern Reach Trilogy" as Goosebumps #24: Phantom of the Auditorium is to In the Mountains of Madness.

"The Southern Reach Trilogy" is Jeff VanderMeer's damned fine go at putting into words all the inscrutable madness that Lovecraft built a reputation out of not trying to describe because you couldn't or you'd go mad. Saturnalia is goth teenagers joining Secret Societies while chasing an occult macguffin. Minus the f-bombs, Saturnalia is perfect for an 8th grade book report. "The Southern Reach Trilogy" is perfect for a list of books a conservative parent wants banned from the library for being satanic even though it's not satanic, that's just the label they put on things they don't understand, and to be fair, understanding "The Souther Reach Trilogy" can be a pretty tall order.

In conclusion, like I said before, I kind of feel like I got tricked into reading this by the deceitful cover art and inaccurate book description. But I will wholly admit that someone with the reading interests of a 14-18 year old might love this. Judging from some of the reviews, they love it indeed. But if you're looking for something a bit more substantive, then this book can be pretty obnoxious.

For the second time in the last month or so, I find myself wanting to recommend Nalo Hopkinson's Brown Girl in the Ring, which is a vastly superior book that is actually set in a dystopian future and features a teenager who gets caught up in occult Secret Society schemes but actually does something with the premise and feels like it has something to say besides, "Aren't Secret Societies kewl??"