My book is on Amazon now, available as Kindle or Paperback.
https://www.amazon.com/Biljana-Malesevic/e/B09PMKNR7J
I am still not happy with cover design but hopefully I will manage to make decent illustration to put on front pages of my novel.
Short synopsis:
Mima is a thirty something year old teacher who lives in the future world where life is so advanced that everything is protected and safe, and there are practically no risks for people. Everything is controlled: climate, temperature, traffic, streets... everything is very ethical and carefully thought of, so that no one is ever offended or endangered in any moment. Because of her problem with anger management, Mima accidentally ends up in a situation where she loses her job, apartment and all her possessions. She is basically "canceled". Stubborn, relentless and quick to act, she refuses to rehabilitate, and instead decides to find her place on a newly discovered and terraformed planet on which people have already been living for a few decades.
Even before the flight she realizes that this planet is nothing she imagined in her fantasies, but a place where mostly criminals, convicts and rejected people, who are ruining the perfect presentation of humanity, are ditched never to return to Earth. After arrival, she starts her own battle to survive and find positive and negative sides of living in completely different world than the one she got used to. World without safety and stability, but also world where you can be whoever you want, disappear if you want to, and where you may have much more variety of life than on Earth.
Inspiration:
I started this novel when I got divorced, 15 years ago, finding myself with 6 year old child with almost no possesions or place to live. As I had to manage and get everything I wanted or needed to have in life, I thought what would happen if someone was thrown from safe and tucked in world suddenly into something completely new and potentially unsafe. But, of course, multiply my situation by hundred! Of course, my main character, Mima, is nothing like me, she is merely my alter-ego, I am nowhere that brave and charismatic. I wanted to create strong female character with human flaws and issues who can be a lead in the story. As someone who is quick to act, and with some anger management issues (one small similarity to Mima), I had lots of problems in life. If I was even minor celebrity, I guess I would be "canceled" quite fast. Or maybe not, who knows!
Humanity strives to some "perfect world", where everyone would be super-protected, safe and politically correct and have all the right opinions. But, that leads again to fights between people and dividing people into groups, which again, is not healthy. Sometimes, someone's opinion is just that: opinion. It could change, or it may not, but it probably won't do any good or bad to anyone. It's not always dangerous to have opinion which is not "by the rules". Sometimes, creating tension between groups of people, based on difference in opinions, can be more dangerous than few maybe somewhat controversial opinions.Excuse me for not being idealist, but people tend to be aggressive, maybe not in physical ways, but I had my share of insults online for merely harmless opinions about non-important things.
Creating super-safe world can be just an illusion. It has its price. And that price may not be visible for most. But, there is a price for everything.
I also incorporated into Mima some problems usually women have in society. A pressure to be forever young a beautiful, being a constant "target" of physical attacks and difficulties to be taken seriously. She also wants people to praise her, to accept her, to tell her she is brave and smart, because we all want to be praised and complimented and accepted. But that also doesn't always happen. Your perception of world as well as your perception of how bad luck (or life) you have may be vastly different that someone else's. And that is ok. That is human. Humanity survived in so many different societies and concepts, none much worse or better than the others. We are much stronger than we think. there are good people and there are bad people, but usually it's a blurred line, and each individual is much more complex that it's shown on surface.
Any suggestions are welcomed!
