Reviewed by girlinthepages on
*Note, this review will contain spoilers for the first book in the series, but not the second!
Girls with Razor Hearts picks up pretty immediately after the events of Girls with Sharp Sticks, opening with the core gang escaping from Innovations Academy and trying to process everything they learned at the end of book one. How they are actually artificial intelligence, created and crafted to the specifications of donors, to cater to their whims, fantasies and tastes. This series is so creative in how it takes a somewhat "scary" premise (AI becoming so intelligent it can think for itself/outsmart humans) and making it heartfelt and vulnerable. Philomena and her fellow girls are so earnest and empathetic and supportive of each other and their emotions don't feel lessened because they aren't fully "human." Yet they must deal with being treated as objects because of their origins (and the story explains the further layers of oppression that some experience based on other traits too, such as the struggles one of the girls faces due to her darker skin or the debasement they suffer from being women in a patriarchal society). Their experience as AI young women was nuanced, varied and heartbreaking, and I appreciated the multiple layers that the author added to their experiences.
Out of the academy, most of the novel takes place in the "real world," with the girls trying to find the core investors of the academy and infiltrating a fancy private school in order to do so as they have information that one of the investor's children may attend school their. Seeing Philomena and her friends have to navigate an actual high school rather than the bubble of Innovations Academy is difficult, especially as it's filled with vile and rage-inducing characters who treat those who are different than them (in gender, social standing, etc) horribly, and the school system and administration is set up to protect them and reward them for this behavior. It may seem over the top for Philomena and her friends to encounter so much hatred in one school, however I saw it as an example of the many, many mico (and not so micro) agressions that many have to face in society all emphasized in one environment that is the ideal setting to breed and normalize such behavior. It really reaffirms Philomena's fight with the other girls to find the investors and push for a better, more compassionate world.
In this installment there's many new characters introduced with varying agendas on how they want to change the social sphere, from regressing to radical. It added a balance to the story, as Philomena meets characters (such as the author of the poems who originally "woke" the girls) who swing too far in the anti-men camp for her liking, and challenge her to evaluate the behavior of all of the men she has met. While the message of "dismantle the patriarchy" can be strong in this series, Young also balances it with characters who defy the stereotypes and push Philomena to critically think about what she knows about the academy and what she thinks about the world around her that she's encountering for the first time.
Overall: Girls with Razor Hearts is a difficult yet important installment to this series that showcases how horrific things are both at Innovations Academy and the real world. Now that Philomena and her friends are "awake," they must think critically about their place in the world, the behaviors they witness, and how to forge the right path forward. I look forward to the next installment!
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Reading updates
- Started reading
- 1 March, 2020: Finished reading
- 16 March, 2020: Reviewed