Truth of the Divine

Truth of the Divine, the sequel to Axiom's End, has little similarity towards it's prequel, opting to shift away from a focus on the alien visitors and Cora's special bond with one of them, to hyper focusing on trauma, mental health, Earth politics, and the occasional dip back into alien motivations. While this tonal shift might be necessary as the second installment in a trilogy, I would hesitate to say this was an enjoyable reading experience. But don't let that fool you into thinking this wasn't good!

After the events of the first book, Cora is not in much of a better position that she was at the start of the last book. Working for ROSA as Ampersand's official translator is difficult when your charge often refuses to communicate with your employers. Though she largely agrees with Ampersand's motivations, the government grows impatient with the lack of intelligence they could be gathering about their alien visitors. This is amplified when, as the result of a sort of medical emergency, Ampersand reveals to Cora that he is considered "diseased" and that if he were back within his civilization, he would be euthanized. But at the backdrop of this tension, the United States is gearing up for an election, and the main ballot item is alien right, or more specifically, should aliens be granted the same rights as humans, or is there a "third option" that they should be classified as, granting them fewer rights than natural born humans, but more than animals. The country is divided with far-right groups rallying against any recognition of the rights of aliens that they know so little about, and ROSA is trying to keep things under control. The situation is made worse when another surprising alien arrival is made -- another one of Ampersand's symphiles who has traveled to Earth to locate him so they can die together. This arrival, and Ampersand's absence to take care of it, has thrown his relationship with Cora into turmoil. This is further amplified by the introduction of a companion and source of stability to Cora, a man named Kaveh, who seems to care deeply for her well-being. As all relationships and the entire state of the world fall into disarray, Cora is doing everything she can to stay afloat while holding onto the relationships she cares deeply for.

This was a difficult read. When I say that the book focused a lot on mental health, I didn't mean it focused on beneficial mental health practices. You really need to check the trigger warnings of this book, or read the author's foreword. As a result of events from the first book, Cora is dealing with extremely severe PTSD, and she has several panic attacks during the book. And the book does not shy away from making you feel the sheer intensity of these attacks. I actually listened to the audiobook, and I have to commend both the author and the narrator for bringing something so terrifying to life so vividly, but that's really just scratching the surface of some of the dark mental health places this books goes. When it isn't focusing on mental health, it's focusing on stressful political situations, relationship tension, and heart pumping action. In fact, you have very few moments to breathe where any of the characters have a moment of calm.

But like I said before, don't let this make you think this book isn't good. It was very good actually, but it was just different from what I was expecting having come off of Axiom's end. I appreciate this tonal shift, I think it is realistic to have severe PTSD from what happened in the first book, and I think it is good for that to be included as a critical part of this over arching story. The heavy focus on the human politics and attitudes towards the aliens also felt extremely realistic, and I think is an important part of this arc. While I think others might criticize this book for not having enough aliens, I think this dive into the human side of this conflict was necessary and very well executed.

Aside from that, structurally, this book had highs and lows. The characters were good, Cora was often difficult to follow due to her mental health struggles, and she didn't have a lot of personal character growth, but that's to be expected to an extent. Kaveh, being a new character and new POV was refreshing and interesting. So different from Cora, but so realistic at the same time. The new alien also was a welcome addition, allowing us to see how different aliens who aren't openly hostile to the main characters might act. So different from Ampersand, but alien all the same, I think Ellis did a great job in instilling a compelling personality into this new character.

The pacing was less strong. It was honestly a bit difficult to follow, each scene felt extremely siloed from the overarching story. No scene really flowed into the next, and there were often clumsy justifications to get the characters where they needed to be for the next Important Thing to happen. It might sound like whiplash, but because of the low frequency of action scenes, it really was just a race to the next setting that will further illustrate how much of a mess Cora's life is. Maybe the overwhelming feeling was intentional, but I don't feel like it did enough to serve the story, just felt sloppy.

I liked this. I didn't enjoy reading it, but I liked it. Ellis' exposure to the worst humanity has to offer, specifically far right internet trolls, lends a horrifically realistic lens to how the American public is portrayed. Don't go into this expecting the same as Axiom's End, but keep an open mind to considering that this is the natural place for the story to go before the third book. If you like topical, political books or if you like books with aliens, you'd enjoy this.