Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - The Verifiers

Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

The Verifiers by Jane Pek

16 reviews

frannook's review against another edition

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informative slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.75

Not at all what I was expecting and fell extremely flat.

More thoughts to come soon.

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redur's review

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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 to

break 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/

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hmetwade's review

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lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

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fkshg8465's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted mysterious slow-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? Yes

4.0

I loved this book. Not sure why it got so many low ratings. It was cute and fun. It was honest about the racism Asian women face every day. There were some phrases written a bit “extra,” as long people say these days, which I also find cute. Only thing that really bothered me was the ending. It was a cliffhanger without the promise of a sequel. I hope there’s a sequel!!!

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aweekinthelife's review against another edition

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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.

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bookcasey's review against another edition

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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…

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