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redur's review
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
A very good book that illustrates a very real problem: constant surveillance. It's interesting how that complete violation of privacy and consent gets so smoothed over with a fun-toned cozy mystery and leaves the moral quandary up to the reader. It feels on purpose, like the way it hand waves the deep family trauma as well. The book touches on really dark material that people really suffer with but in a way that tries its best to ignore it, much like Claudia must do to just get through the day. It's like a pop song that has a danceable melody with really dark and troubling lyrics.
Claudia is *not* a good person but seems to justify her use of total surveillance technology by using it for "good". She also goes on tobreak and enter and steal "for good", justifying those crimes and violations of privacy and autonomy as well. I'm interested to see how far Claudia continues to slide down this slippery slope of vigilantism in future stories and whether the author will show these moral failings with anything other than ignoring it. And whether Claudia can reckon with what she is doing. And then everything is happy in the end with all the means justified.
We certainly have real world examples of this, so it's certainly something to keep on your radar.
https://www.wired.com/story/how-pentagon-learned-targeted-ads-to-find-targets-and-vladimir-putin/
Claudia is *not* a good person but seems to justify her use of total surveillance technology by using it for "good". She also goes on to
We certainly have real world examples of this, so it's certainly something to keep on your radar.
https://www.wired.com/story/how-pentagon-learned-targeted-ads-to-find-targets-and-vladimir-putin/
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Infidelity, and Suicide
Moderate: Lesbophobia and Death
emma_sky's review
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Minor: Death, Suicide, and Murder
emmehooks's review
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Some hard to ignore plot holes and a lot of subplots but a nice no brain read
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, Infidelity, and Suicide
Minor: Racism
whewtaewoon's review against another edition
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Stalking, Suicide, Murder, Drug use, and Death
cvaldivia19's review
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Had a little trouble getting into the book as the narration/dialogue was a little atypical (felt like they were trying to match how a private I movie is narrated which at times felt confusing and I had to reread a paragraph a couple times) but a little after half way through, I got pretty into the plot and characters! Looking forward to more.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide
aweekinthelife's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
a lighthearted & quick-paced mystery and i really enjoyed seeing things from Claudia's perspective and all of the complicated, nuanced interactions that can happen in immigrant stories.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide and Murder
Moderate: Infidelity and Abandonment
renee_rain's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Summary:
Claudia Lin works at Veracity, an online-dating "detective" agency. The agency helps clients verify their match(es) on dating apps by tracking movement, viewing profiles, and reading their messages. One of the clients Claudia is helping passes by suicide.
Claudia questions that it is a suicide and decides to investigate, like a detective in one of her favorite series' would. Throughout this, she breaks laws and discovers a hidden side of matching companies.
My Thoughts:
I finished this book because it was easy to listen to via audiobook. If I had a paper copy I feel that I would not have finished.
This is an interesting contemporary mystery. I found myself curious about how this client may have died, but not invested. As a reader of mysteries and thrillers, this book was not enough to fully capture my attention. There was no danger or life-or-death situations. I need more suspense in my mysteries.
Claudia Lin works at Veracity, an online-dating "detective" agency. The agency helps clients verify their match(es) on dating apps by tracking movement, viewing profiles, and reading their messages. One of the clients Claudia is helping passes by suicide.
Claudia questions that it is a suicide and decides to investigate, like a detective in one of her favorite series' would. Throughout this, she breaks laws and discovers a hidden side of matching companies.
My Thoughts:
I finished this book because it was easy to listen to via audiobook. If I had a paper copy I feel that I would not have finished.
This is an interesting contemporary mystery. I found myself curious about how this client may have died, but not invested. As a reader of mysteries and thrillers, this book was not enough to fully capture my attention. There was no danger or life-or-death situations. I need more suspense in my mysteries.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide and Murder
librarianeno's review
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Bullying and Emotional abuse
bookcasey's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
A fun, cozy murder mystery with interesting characters. It’s always nice to see casual lesbian representation outside of a romance.
To address some common themes in other reviews:
1. Yes, there’s tech stuff. Trust me, the more you know about modern tech, the scarier it gets.
2. Is main character really insufferable or…
To address some common themes in other reviews:
1. Yes, there’s tech stuff. Trust me, the more you know about modern tech, the scarier it gets.
2. Is main character really insufferable or…
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide
Minor: Abandonment, Death, and Domestic abuse
alaidbackreader's review
adventurous
challenging
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
i read this book because of a book recommendation service, mytbr.co, and i am so glad for it! my goal for 2023 was to read much more diversely in genres i’m familiar with but would not generally lean towards.
the pacing of this story was perfect and i found myself really intrigued and captivated by what was happening. some of the inner dialogue was very wordy and bordered on pretentious but it fit the character herself, in my opinion, so it wasn’t too bad.
would definitely read anything else this author writes!
the pacing of this story was perfect and i found myself really intrigued and captivated by what was happening. some of the inner dialogue was very wordy and bordered on pretentious but it fit the character herself, in my opinion, so it wasn’t too bad.
would definitely read anything else this author writes!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Toxic relationship, and Suicide