Shawna Ayoub moves "beyond a book review" in not only recommending great books by diverse writers but highlighting a technique to apply to your own writing practice.
Yours for the Taking, by Gabrielle Korn
Queer writer and feminist Gabrielle Korn has had a formidable career when it comes to LGBTQ+ media. She has worked for multiple publications and was, according to her website, “the editorial and publishing lead of Most, Netflix’s digital home for queer storytelling.” I came across her novel, The Shutouts, via an internet queer read-this listicle. I got my copy and read it.
Without realizing it, I also grabbed a copy of its prequel, Yours for the Taking, and began it a few weeks later. I had a moment of deja vu when the characters all had familiar names, and then the storyline started to shape into something I recognized. I looked back through my reading notes and realized that, whoa, I’d read the second book in a duo without knowing it came second.
Also, whoa, I was hooked and wanted to know all about the timeline of this world even though I’d already read the end of the story. (Although, is there ever really an end to a story?)
Yours for the Taking follows Ava’s journey as the world faces crisis climate change. There’s an opportunity to be housed in domes, but the application process is in-depth and selective. She and her girlfriend apply. Only one of them makes it in. Korn shows us the mastermind of The Inside: what utopia is meant to look like, the pitfalls as well as the benefits.
What I love about this dystopian science fiction piece is it spans decades while grappling with incredibly difficult subject matter and managing to read lighter than your average sci-fi saga. This is not to say there’s no scientific thought or terminology. There’s also abundant philosophy. What is being examined is the idea that society is better without men. Is it? And what defines a man? Does a man define himself?
Who defines sex and gender?
Here, Korn dives right into the problematic thinking of an ego-driven capitalist who wants to leave a legacy of herself. I’ll let you read to figure out exactly what that entails. This woman heads up The Inside with the idea that removing men will remove violence, but she does so much more than remove men. She also removes free will with the aid of medicinal cocktails dosed through the vents to “calm” the population. The success of this Inside is pitted against the other global Insides as they struggle to maintain nonviolent populations free of rape and other systemic patriarchal flaws carried over via their implementation—a phenomenal conversation point by Korn.
Years into the project, both the staff and the population begin to chafe against these oppressive tactics. This launches a new story that The Shutouts addresses. What is life like on the outside? Is it survivable? How? There are still men there, so how does that work? The Shutouts follows another character from the beginning of Yours for the Taking as she makes her way toward the women-only Inside. The reader gets to see the world fully realized versus what the women of the Inside imagined or were told or could glimpse through altered windows.
Both books work perfectly as standalone novels; together, though, they create a storyline that is frighteningly true to the projections of climate change today and the megalomaniacal growth of capitalist despots currently in positions of power. The books provoke thoughtful questions about where the problems lie in our systems, how we can fight them, and what change looks like when implemented. I had great conversations with my peers and my kids after reading these books. They excited my mind and made me want to dust off my own dystopian pages.
A writing exercise
For these pieces, I think the takeaway is the question of what defines sex and gender. Are these terms defined by the individual, the group, or the state?
Imagine you are a different gender than the one you identify with (male, female, nonbinary). How do you know? How do you communicate this? Why is it important? Does the gender you chose make you a man or a woman? Why or why not? For 20 minutes, write a story in which you as a character come up against resistance to your identity. What happens?
After you finish, check in with yourself. How did this writing make you feel? Did you learn anything new? Were you able to relate to anyone in a different way than before undertaking this prompt?
If these books sound intriguing to you, consider ordering your own copies of Yours for the Taking and The Shutouts at Bookshop.org and supporting independent bookstores across the U.S.
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