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3.6 AVERAGE
3.6 AVERAGE
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Claire North's writing is one of my favorites. While I enjoyed her other book, The First 15 Lives of Harry August more, the concept of this book was so interesting and I ended up really enjoying it. The only thing I didn't love was the ending. It felt a bit rushed and open ended for some of the characters for my liking. But I do highly recommend the audiobook.
Wow. That was just sooo boring. What the heck happened here? The idea is great, the entire plot could be amazing but it's really not. I don't care for the writing AT ALL! So much nonsense and no plot or character development. In the end I just skimmed the pages as nothing (I'm serious, literally nothing for pages after pages after pages) was happening. I had to really push myself to finish this story.
What's the genre called for books about people who cannot be remembered, and to survive, they turn to thievery? Anyway, so far, that genre has two books in it that I know of. And I love this genre. Five stars for the whole genre.
4.5 stars. Just what I expected from Claire North - a fascinating concept, far flung locales, musings on the nature of life, being, and memory, and some game playing. Lots of fun.
Some incredible writing and a very interesting writing style (which I'm not convinced was for me). I thought parts of this book were a bit too drawn out, or perhaps not paced to my liking. In any case, a very interesting premise.
Claire North is very fond of defining words in this book but maybe she could have added 'subtlety' to the roster.
The concept is interesting -- although the book really does feel less about Hope's identity issues and more about the Perfection plot -- and there is certainly a strong voice but it's too long, the ending is weak, a few plot threads just sort of fade out without doing much and, most notably for me, the sledgehammer approach to telling readers about the themes prevents it from ever being incisive on any topic. Even readers who haven't read any other SF touching on the nature of identity, or perfection as a corrupt or inhuman goal etc. etc. would not struggle to pick what North is putting down with waaaay less of the overtly didactic stuff. It needed a way more hardcore edit. By contrast, some of the stuff later in the book about worthiness etc. feels poorly tied in to the first two thirds of the novel with little explanation offered for anybody's actions after the climax of the novel. Every once in a while, too, the distinctive voice this book is written in descends into style over function and feels a little bit self-indulgent and repetitive. Again, just a tighter edit needed because for the most part I did enjoy the style.
Overall an interesting concept and I enjoyed reading it. A fun book, but it felt like a draft stage of an awesome book so I came away feeling a little bit disappointed.
The concept is interesting -- although the book really does feel less about Hope's identity issues and more about the Perfection plot -- and there is certainly a strong voice but it's too long, the ending is weak, a few plot threads just sort of fade out without doing much and, most notably for me, the sledgehammer approach to telling readers about the themes prevents it from ever being incisive on any topic. Even readers who haven't read any other SF touching on the nature of identity, or perfection as a corrupt or inhuman goal etc. etc. would not struggle to pick what North is putting down with waaaay less of the overtly didactic stuff. It needed a way more hardcore edit. By contrast, some of the stuff later in the book about worthiness etc. feels poorly tied in to the first two thirds of the novel with little explanation offered for anybody's actions after the climax of the novel. Every once in a while, too, the distinctive voice this book is written in descends into style over function and feels a little bit self-indulgent and repetitive. Again, just a tighter edit needed because for the most part I did enjoy the style.
Overall an interesting concept and I enjoyed reading it. A fun book, but it felt like a draft stage of an awesome book so I came away feeling a little bit disappointed.
Loved this book when we were dealing with Hope's condition and how it effected her life. But I was just bored to tears when we were dealing with Perfection. I still love Claire North to death and will continue to read anything she publishes.
4,1 stars
It took me a month to read this book, which sums up why this wasn't a five star read for me.
I enjoyed the plot and I think the themes in this book were fascinating while quite creepy in their plausibility. (I have serious misgivings of having ever installed Facebook Messenger on my phone, for one thing.) The characters seemed real enough and Hope's condition was described convincingly. I did have a hard time relating to (or even empathizing with) Hope, though, which might have been intentional on the author's part. Or maybe not.
The one thing that I had most issues with, is also one of the good things about this book, and that was the writing style. Hope has lived her formative and adult years without any emotional connection to anyone, and in order to keep herself sane, she has constructed her consciousness to be made up of lists, and mantras, and trivia. And this was portrayed heavily in the way the story was told. While I understood what North was trying to convey with the writing (and she did succeed as well, to an extent), the stylistic decisions were so dominant that for me, they kept pulling me from the story, making this a very, truly, incredibly slow read. Even more so because the plot was quite interesting, so it's a feat in itself to make this lack any sort of pull.
I think I would have enjoyed this more had the book been around a 150 pages shorter.
However, this was a good book in the end, just maybe not something I was in the mood for right now. (And it definitely did not measure up to Harry August, which I should never have measured this against to begin with.)
It took me a month to read this book, which sums up why this wasn't a five star read for me.
I enjoyed the plot and I think the themes in this book were fascinating while quite creepy in their plausibility. (I have serious misgivings of having ever installed Facebook Messenger on my phone, for one thing.) The characters seemed real enough and Hope's condition was described convincingly. I did have a hard time relating to (or even empathizing with) Hope, though, which might have been intentional on the author's part. Or maybe not.
The one thing that I had most issues with, is also one of the good things about this book, and that was the writing style. Hope has lived her formative and adult years without any emotional connection to anyone, and in order to keep herself sane, she has constructed her consciousness to be made up of lists, and mantras, and trivia. And this was portrayed heavily in the way the story was told. While I understood what North was trying to convey with the writing (and she did succeed as well, to an extent), the stylistic decisions were so dominant that for me, they kept pulling me from the story, making this a very, truly, incredibly slow read. Even more so because the plot was quite interesting, so it's a feat in itself to make this lack any sort of pull.
I think I would have enjoyed this more had the book been around a 150 pages shorter.
However, this was a good book in the end, just maybe not something I was in the mood for right now. (And it definitely did not measure up to Harry August, which I should never have measured this against to begin with.)
It wasn't terrible. I loved the premise, but the overly forced cleverness of the prose drained all my enthusiasm for the plot. Plus, the side plots bogged the whole thing down ave made it unnecessarily long.