Review: Amy Lilwall – The Biggerers

The Biggerers
Amy Lilwall

Jinx and Bonbon live with their She-one who feeds them flakes from a bowl. They have an active social life Outside where Chips and Blankie visit them. These four people just happen to be only a foot or so high – and they aren’t supposed to be human. Being human could get them kidnapped.

Now, this was a decidedly odd novel. I forced myself to read it because I believed that it could get better or have something really powerful to offer me. Cloning to produce little humans as pets? It could be really fascinating because it’s a possibility.

If memory suppressants work on Littlerers, why not just use them on the old people who don’t want to be lonely without their dead partners? Why clone and produce little humans? I don’t get why people would want a pet human. What’s wrong with a dog? The pet humans aren’t even as intelligent as a dog – they aren’t supposed to communicate after all. And of course, they aren’t supposed to be marketed as toys for children, even though I felt like they could have just been dolls for the way that their owners tended to treat them. What the author did manage really well was the characterisation and character growth of Jinx and Bonbon. They really were little people!

I didn’t understand, but did understand at the same time, the behavior of Susan and Hamish. They both spend a lot of time introspecting about their feelings, and blaming each other for the relationship. And of course there is Hamish’s relationship with Emma. Was their relationship supposed to represent the typical disconnected people that will exist in an age where digital technologies are all that are on offer?

The ending left me feeling very confused. Was the storyline with Watts and Drew in the past? What were those last two chapters really about? This novel had excellent potential as a plot but the language left me cold and uninterested. Maybe pick it up at the bookstore and read the first couple of pages or so to see if you can tolerate the language. If you can, maybe buy this novel to read. But be prepared for a wishy-washy ending. 2 stars from me.