Yours for the Taking by Gabrielle Korn

​If an author was to google all the topics that sell right now, come up with a list, and then write a book that checked every box on that list, you’d get this this novel. Seriously.
That was my initial impression, but because life kept getting in a way, this book took me an usually long time (several days as oppose to a customary day or two at most) to finish and thus I ended up with several fresh perspectives on it.  Which is to say that as annoyingly pandering and self-consciously tryhard as I found it to begin with, I actually ended up not minding it that much and rather liking some aspects of it.
So how do you write speculative fiction that sells in this day and age? Well, it has to be feminist, strongly so. In fact, avoid male characters in general whenever possible. Also, it has to be queer. As queer as you can make it. Throw in lesbians and trans people, heavily. Then make sure you have enough politically correct messages offered in a precise politically correct language. If you do it right, it will provide a clever sociopolitical commentary.
As this book does, to its credit. Because the overall motif here seems to be that a dictatorship is a dictatorship no matter how well meant it might be and any dream taken too far can and will become a nightmare.
Dystopian commentary aside, there’s some interesting worldbuilding here (as Earth becomes borderline uninhabitable and alternative methods for survival have to be engineered), though it takes a backseat to the ideology.
The writing is mostly good but uneven as the author rushes to cover an expansive timeline and flips between alternating narrators. Sometimes it’s just too plain and factual, sometimes it’s surprisingly emotionally engaging. Sometimes (often) it’s pure women’s fiction, occasionally, it’s literature.
But overall, it’s just about interesting enough, original enough and engaging enough to just about override it’s precocious, box-checking trendiness and enjoy. Thanks Netgalley.