dobbs the dog's Reviews > We Speak Through the Mountain

Received from NetGalley, thanks!

So, this book pretty much picks up right from where The Annual Migration of Clouds ended, so you absolutely must read that one before reading this one.

We have Reid making her way to the university where she has been accepted to study, traveling by bike and by foot over the Rocky Mountains (from Alberta to BC), while dealing with her chronic illness. She's an absolute wreck when she arrives and is in the infirmary for days before she is well enough to leave. While there, she is told that they have a medicine that will sort of bury the symptoms of her illness. So, as long as she takes the medicine, she will be symptom free.

But as she tries to make friends and do well in her classes, it becomes very clear that there is a divide between herself and the students who were born there. It is very much a story about an outsider trying to fit it, and not really succeeding.

Reid gets word that her mom's illness has gotten much worse and she needs to go home immediately, so she asks if she can have some of the medicine to make her mom feel better, and is told no. So she asks for painkillers, and is again told no. This really came across as a critique of capitalism and big pharma, hoarding life-saving medicines and only allowing those who they deem to be worthy of accessing them. As though the people who are living through the apocalyptic conditions that are the fallout of late stage capitalism and the climate crisis are somehow going to abuse these medicines.

There were definitely a lot of parallels to the current state of late stage capitalism that we are living in right now, when we look at the effects of climate change on the global south, and how because they're not offered the same opportunities that those in the global north are, they are more susceptible to disease, poverty, and exploitation. I think Mohamed is telling a really interesting and timely story with this series, and I am eagerly awaiting the next installment.