The First Sister: a deeper meaning

By Sophia Doshi

I picked this book up in passing to read over my vacation (we—my family and I—are Cape Cod summer regulars) on the beach. It was an afterthought because I needed one more book, I had read the inside flap, and the cover was cool. I ended up tearing through this book in a day. 

Before I continue, and I mean no offense to the author (Linden A. Lewis), it wasn’t any stellar detailing or exceptional world-building that made this book so great. J.R. Tolkien did that, and that made Lord of the Rings great, but he didn’t do what Lewis did. It was the fact that Lewis incorporated real-world themes like comfort women (being justified in the name of religion) and being non-binary (in a world that generally doesn’t accept it…sound familiar?). She incorporated these themes so masterfully that I was stunned and impressed as I read the book. 

However, that’s not to say that Lewis is not a good writer in any way—she wrote this masterfully—there just weren’t any things besides these well-thought-out themes that stood out to me. 

I myself do not identify as nonbinary, but I have several friends that do. (Of course, I have recommended this book to them.) Yet even as a friend of my friends, I felt understood. Lewis had a way of writing with inclusivity that touched my heart with a warm, caring hand and I commend her for it. 

The other theme I described was comfort women. During the period of 1932-1945, women from Korea, China, and other Asian countries were forced into a system of sexual slavery to provide services for the Imperial Japanese government (you can read more about that here). In my interpretation, I believe Lewis based her group of religion-justifying women providing services for one side of the warring intergalactic forces on these comfort women. The parallels in some spots are vague, but in others they are clear. While the gender-based themes tickled my heartstring, the comfort women storyline took a pair of scissors to them.

This book was more than a beach read. I highly recommend it to anyone seeking a way to understand the way our world works through the eyes of three characters in a sci-fi book. 9/10.

Cover image from Amazon