Reviews

Futuristic world where the government controls and sees everything. This book introduces many thought provoking topics such as AI listening in, the harms of social media, the abuse of power in high power positions, and personal freedoms vs government control. I absolutely LOVED the world building.
Despite the completely terrifying futuristic world, I could not get into the plot or the characters which made this book difficult to finish.

edgarstarr's review against another edition

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5.0

Solid 4 stars!

I just love John Marrs' ability and bravery to write from the point of view of messed up characters. He also finds a way to incorporate "what-if?" scenarios with modern issues in a way that isn't so "in-your-face". While this book is set in the UK, as an American I found myself getting chills sometimes reading this because considering what other fundamental rights have been stripped away and attacked, this is INCREDIBLY plausible in the next couple decades.

Downsides:
The last chapter was stupid- there's twists that are revealed that really don't make me view the book any differently. Not for the better or for the worst. I'm usually forgiving about endings though because they are extremely hard and considering I enjoyed the other 95% of the story though

I did take a while for some of the world's details to fully click, but I will immediately confess to being a bit slow so that could entirely be on me lol

Also this is probably the only part of the book that irritated me, but

Spoiler

WHAT was the point of bringing Maisie back into the story to marry Mitchell after they get divorced if NOTHING was going to be done with it? I was genuinely surprised by that twist, only for it to never be brought up again and he marries another woman we as readers know nothing about as a throw in detail right at the end. I wanted to know why she cut Corryn out of her life so abruptly and why she would betray her in a way like that with no hesitation.

But really I found Corryn's part of to be the most bland and confusing on them all. Really dragged on when the other three main characters were so compelling.

Can't wait to read Marrs' next work and I'm excited to see what kind of twisted world he creates next!

bpamatmat's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

gquartin's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

whiskersandwords's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

bellhore's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Review to come, must gather myself in the meantime.

aerolich's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

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

2.5

I was interested in many of the ideas of this book, but in the end I don’t feel that the author succeeded in his delivery. He relies heavily on shock over strong narrative structure, each chapter ending on some sort of twist cliffhanger of varying quality. It just ended up feeling lazy, as if he didn’t know how to push his comfort level and write outside of that template. I might go back and try some of his other books in the future to see if it’s a general problem with his work or just a weakness in this one.

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