Reviews

Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong

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osborne2read's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny fast-paced

Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

bhale33's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense 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

4.25

toodrew's review against another edition

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dark fast-paced

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

1.0

This book had an interesting premise. However, there is excessive violence against women as well as pretty much everything else horrible that can be done to women/girls. It has pretty much every misogynistic trope as well. For example, the only two women can't get along due to sexual jealousy. Ancient Greece called and wants her tropes back. There are no women side characters unless said side character are

sexual or in sex-related field,

in which case their are no men.

It does not work as a comedy because of this. You can't make

sex traffickers

likable. It would have been better if they either choose a different flaw or didn't bother trying to make them quirky. I couldn't feel sympathy for most of the main cast because of this. Like I get it's supposed to be bad people, but don't try to make them sympathetic. Seriously, there was a chapter detailing

how they would trick women (and perhaps even girls) from war-torn countries into sex slavery, specifically detailing how most were murdered before the age of thirty.

This can be done well if given proper weight but the execution is abysmal. The authors tried to make the cast who did this flawed-but-likable, even heroic in some cases. I'm sorry but no. That's not how to handle this material.

Content Warnings

estherelle's review

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adventurous funny lighthearted

happyharlequin319's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny medium-paced

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

4.25

frasersimons's review against another edition

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dark funny lighthearted mysterious tense fast-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? No

3.25

Honestly, almost a four star read, but dragged a little too much. This felt like Kristen Bell in Veronica Mars all grown up, slapped into futurism, and obviously, she’s not an investigator. But the humour and mannerisms, especially feel like it, and probably endeared me to the character more. Which is funny, because I hated Snow Crash’s humour, yet got on with this. In the right mood, I guess.

In a very, very broad sense, I can see why people classify this as cyberpunk. It does have high tech and low life, with Zoey herself being on the lower stratification of class, and technology being repurposed to take back some agency. There’s an underlying message in-line with the sub genre too. But it’s so silly and operatic, so much less grim that it doesn’t totally feel like it either. But that’s probably what makes it a nice inclusion to the sub genre, too.

This is a pretty quirky book. You need to be in the mood for both a dude-bro villain and a shallow mystery, unspooled relatively quickly in favour of a fast paced action ending. But somewhere in the middle, after the mystery, it does have trouble, dragging a bit at the transition. It gets bombastic and zany, but by that point, you’ll know if you’re on board for it, since there’s smaller moments onboarding the reader pretty much from the get-go. I had a good time with it, which is a lot more than I expected.