But Won't I Miss Me, by Tiffany Tsao
May. 12th, 2026 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rachelmanija
This novel has one of the most off-the-wall premises I've come across. In a near-future world much like our own, women who get pregnant also conceive a "fetal mother." When they give birth to their baby, they also deliver the fetal mother, then fall into a coma-like sleep. The fetal mother rapidly grows into an identical clone of the original mother, then EATS HER. This process is called rebirth. The new mother has the original mother's memories and personality, but is also endowed with superpowers for the first five years of her child's life: she needs almost no sleep, has super strength and fast reflexes, is filled with energy, and finds all child care and domestic tasks endlessly fascinating and enjoyable. In short, the new mother is the woman that mothers are supposed to be.
The main character, Vivi, is terrified of rebirth, and sees it as death. This view is very stigmatized, but might be more widespread than society lets on. She's reluctant to get pregnant because of it. When she finally does, something goes wrong with her rebirth. She didn't get new mother powers. Instead she slogs along, depressed and alienated, trying to care for her infant while she's still physically impaired from the pregnancy and actually needs sleep. She and her husband end up breaking up over this, and Vivi moves to Australia to live with her uncle, who runs a hobbling business.
Remember I mentioned this is near-future? The world has actually decided to do something about climate change, and so drastically regulated energy consumption. Hobbling is altering old machines to make them low emitters. The low-emissions world is less lavish: planes are rarely used, long-distance calls are brief, and only the very rich have unlimited internet. It's an interesting take on a world whose future seems much brighter than ours, but whose present is more similar to our recent past.
Vivi and her family are Indonesian-Chinese, and their cultures (including Australian) play into the book much as the near-future setting does: it's pervasive and interesting and very specific, which makes a nice grounded base for the incredibly weird rebirth stuff.
But Won't I Miss Me is a weird, fascinating, ambitious book with a weird, fascinating, ambitious premise. Great social commentary and issues of identity. I didn't quite love the ending - it felt like it needed either more setup or more payoff - but the book is still excellent and very original.
