There are many ways to describe a novel. Page-turner. Cozy. Provocative. Heartfelt. Riveting. The list goes on.
But the word that first came to my mind after reading Atomweight was: disruptive. Although many of the themes in this novel are familiar, Sasagawa explores their
complexity through unique characters and unexpected angles. Time and again, I
was surprised and challenged by this novel.
Atomweight is, at its core, about identity and belonging. The protagonist, Aki, is a multiracial, closeted queer woman from an upper-class West Vancouver family. Despite her mother’s wishes that she remain close to home after graduation, Aki pursues her post-secondary education in London where she is free from her family’s close watch and the “good girl” expectations that have followed her into young adulthood. As Aki enters the world of dating women, keenly aware of the disapproval she’d face at home, she falters and hurts people – at first emotionally, and then physically. Soon she begins to seek out people who she feels deserving of her fist, most often toxic males. She’s small and feisty – an “atomweight” in the fighting world.
One of the things I found most fascinating about this character is her upper-class status. Often, stories of identity and belonging are interlaced with other forms of oppression, such as poverty and class restrictions. This is, of course, based on real-life intersections between class, race, and various other forms of oppression such as gender/sexual identity, or disabilities. These stories shine a light on characters that may otherwise remain invisible through our societal lens of capitalism. They are deeply valuable to understanding both our current society and the human condition. But it is also valuable to explore it, as Sasagawa does, through the eyes of the upper class. Although it was a sub-theme of the novel, the reader follows Aki as her world opens to more than just her own class.
Through structured circumstances, her first friends are wealthy and similar to Aki, but she slowly finds other people outside her university dorm circles, many with complicated lives that traverse through financial struggles, illness, religious differences, and safety in their identities. When she begins to attack a man on the street, one who she impulsively decides is deserving, Aki discovers he is disenfranchised and scared, willing to do anything to stop her abuses, and she sees a new kind of fear in his eyes. As a reader, I sensed a shift in Aki then, a new awareness of her place in the world, and the power she held. Although her journey to understand her own anger was not yet complete, that scene was powerful and spoke to the intersection of compassion and outrage that so many of us carry in our bodies and souls. In another scene, when a school counselor shames her for distracting her friends from their exam prep by having to worry about her, I sensed another shift - a subtle understanding (though still hostile) that she needed to look beyond herself and her own problems. This commentary on perspective and empathy for others is one that I found time and again in this novel, and it spoke deeply to me, especially in our current political climate.
There are many layers to this book, and I’ve only touched on one in this review. I encourage you to read it and explore the many other ways Atomweight disrupts the conversation about class, identity, belonging, the way we rage against the world and why, and how to find peace.
If you’ve read Atomweight, or would like to share any thoughts on this review, please comment below!