Brooke's Reviews > Nothing Sacred

Taking place in the 21st century, a 42 year old woman Viveka Jan Vanachek (Viv for short) joins the army and is a warrant officer in the North American Continental Allied Forces and is keeping journal entries though it all. She did this because the economy in the states was going bad and there weren't enough jobs/resources for everyone in the economy. For example it took a PHD in engineering to drive a truck, and a masters in restaurant management to work in the fast food service. On September 15, 2069, while on her first mapping mission as a computer specialist in geocartography, her helicopter was shot down near the KunLun mountains and she was captured. Being brought to her first p.o.w camp, she was taken advantage of for her intel about the war and was quickly moved on to her next camp after meeting The Doctor. To go to the next camp, it required Viv to trek up a snow covered mountain. Since Viv was so weak from her time at the camp, the Dr hypnotized her to help and get her up the mountain to the next prison compound.


Once at the compound, she shared a cell with three men; Thibideaux (Marsh), Danielson, and Colonel who were also prisoners of war, who had been there for a long time. Being at the compound, Viv meets Wu who is commandant of the compound and in charge and who tells her to keep journal entries of her time there. Viv exclaims that she doesn't understand why she would want her to and believed that Wu didn’t know either. Viv, notices that she doesn’t know how long she or the others have been at the compound and tries to figure this out. While being forced to work, she meets Tea, who is Wu’s husband and who sets Viv up into scenarios to see if she will tell him any info that she gets and tell him about it and she eventually does. After a while, the three p.o.w’s including Viv try to set up a plan and try to escape the compound, Viv,Colonel, and Marsh are caught while Danielson is nowhere to be found. Wu asked Viv if she knew anything about his whereabouts and was very worried but she gave no intel, simply because she didn’t know but didn’t want to rat out her friend. About a month goes by and a nuke goes off just outside the valley of the mountain where the compound is. While everyones working, they spot refugees from an outside village who have come to seek shelter and they notice someone was on a stretcher. On the stretcher was a very old, very aged Danielson and Viv, Colonel, and Marsh were all confused as to what could have happened.


Wu and the doctor exclaim that when he escaped, Danielson crossed a border just outside of the valley and that a hypnotic suggestion had worn off. They exclaimed that all three men were very old and a deterrent was placed in their subconscious to make time literal instead of a psychological painful concept for them. So, once he crossed the border, this wore off and he aged in a matter of seconds and his body went to his natural age. Commandant Wu then exclaimed how each of the “p.o.w’s” were actually those who were chosen to be at the “camp” because of their capabilities. Viv was someone who was logical and had very great mapping and anthropological skills to which she could contribute to their community. Viv and the others were then taught about reincarnation and how each member had lived before and came back as someone different. But, a little while after, Colonel was determined to escape the “prison” and took the doctor with him as a hostage or a guide. Once everyone had set out to find him, they shortly did but they had reached the boundary line. Colonel was determined to leave to Ama La (the doctor) first since he was so persistent. Once crossing the border her body aged and she collapsed and died. Following her, Wu did the same thing. Fast forward to a little later, 2080, Viv is cleaning the compound and they come across Ama La’s Tibet language book. One of the members of the community had a baby with them. When Vivs hand was holding the book, the baby stretched toward the book and stated, “mine”.

I chose this book because I thought it would be an interesting read taking place in a distopian type society and it was about a woman in the military who gets captured into a prisoner of war camp. But there are many twist and turns that take place. It illustrates the class material because it shows many instances of misogony, and toxic masculinity-even 4o years from now. It also shows intstitutional inequality within the p.o.w. compounds and there is also an instance of rape culture and in the end, the whole book is revolved around the idea of false consciousness. I would not reccommend reading this book. During the beginning, it was an interesting read and you wanted to read more, but it soon became predictable, especially because of all the misogonistic ideas that take place because she is a woman in the military. Also, the plot is rushed at the end, becoming very confusing and hard to interpret.