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magyklyxdelish's review against another edition
1.0
I should have stopped reading this one. I should have listened to my instincts. I literally finished the book and was angry. Angry at myself for not stopping when my instincts told me to. Angry because it was a colossal waste of my time.
First of all...the writing. Ugh. To say this was a slog to get through was an understatement. There’s a part in this book where she literally takes a full paragraph to describe someone getting out of their car. She spends almost 2 pages describing the definition and origin of “TK”. She over explains and details things that don’t need to be detailed. I would literally roll my eyes and get frustrated so many times saying out loud “cmon already”. Reading this book will feel like talking to that one family member we all have that doesn’t know how to get to the fucking point and takes 5 hours to tell a 2 minute story.
You might keep reading...thinking it gets better...no. No it doesn’t. She takes a character that was BRIEFLY talked about, randomly kills them off for seemingly no reason, all to push the story forward because to do it otherwise probably would have made the book 5 times longer since she can’t help but beat around the bush.
The characters aren’t even that likable. Especially the husband, what a piece of shit.
I’m so frustrated and angry and wish I could get my money back AND I DIDNT EVEN BUY IT. It’s from the library but I still feel like I should be compensated for this miserable experience. The false advertising of the jacket description is almost criminal. It promises multiverses. What you get is odious characters having a midlife crisis but described in such detail she will spend 5 pages describing a singular thought that had nothing to do with the plot.
Seriously I can not in good conscience recommend this book to anyone. Please. Spare yourself.
0/5 ⭐️
First of all...the writing. Ugh. To say this was a slog to get through was an understatement. There’s a part in this book where she literally takes a full paragraph to describe someone getting out of their car. She spends almost 2 pages describing the definition and origin of “TK”. She over explains and details things that don’t need to be detailed. I would literally roll my eyes and get frustrated so many times saying out loud “cmon already”. Reading this book will feel like talking to that one family member we all have that doesn’t know how to get to the fucking point and takes 5 hours to tell a 2 minute story.
You might keep reading...thinking it gets better...no. No it doesn’t. She takes a character that was BRIEFLY talked about, randomly kills them off for seemingly no reason, all to push the story forward because to do it otherwise probably would have made the book 5 times longer since she can’t help but beat around the bush.
The characters aren’t even that likable. Especially the husband, what a piece of shit.
I’m so frustrated and angry and wish I could get my money back AND I DIDNT EVEN BUY IT. It’s from the library but I still feel like I should be compensated for this miserable experience. The false advertising of the jacket description is almost criminal. It promises multiverses. What you get is odious characters having a midlife crisis but described in such detail she will spend 5 pages describing a singular thought that had nothing to do with the plot.
Seriously I can not in good conscience recommend this book to anyone. Please. Spare yourself.
0/5 ⭐️
soliteyah's review against another edition
Didn't love the writing style and couldn't connect with the characters.
gilmoreguide's review against another edition
1.0
I’d prefer not to end a strong reading week on a negative note, but have you ever read a book that feels like a case of false advertising? As in, if you had paid for it you would have demanded a full refund? That’s how I feel about Come With Me. Here’s the Goodreads synopsis:
Amy Reed works part-time as a PR person for a tech start-up, run by her college roommate’s nineteen-year-old son, in Palo Alto, California. Donny is a baby genius, a junior at Stanford in his spare time. His play for fortune is an algorithm that may allow people access to their “multiverses”—all the planes on which their alternative life choices can be played out simultaneously—to see how the decisions they’ve made have shaped their lives.
Donny wants Amy to be his guinea pig. And even as she questions Donny’s theories and motives, Amy finds herself unable to resist the lure of the road(s) not taken. Who would she be if she had made different choices, loved different people? Where would she be now?
Interesting, right? Except there’s a subplot about Amy’s unemployed journalist husband and his decision to take off for Japan to interview the most radioactive human on the planet—which is just a cover to be alone with a beautiful transgender woman he thinks he’s in love with. The husband’s plot plays out in tedious, unimaginative detail while the entire premise of an app that allows you to explore the lives you didn’t live? That’s explored in two brief chapters where the developer, who reads like a stereotypical, techie, man-boy, psychologically tortures Amy with an app that doesn’t work properly.
I kept going with this book despite characters who were so off-the-charts in their self-indulgent, precious uniqueness as to be violently annoying (a teenager so in love with his girlfriend that they are on Skype 24 hours a day—he brings her to school on his phone and they set a place for her at the dinner table). Up until the midpoint, I thought there would be redemption—that something discovered from the app would bring profound meaning to Amy’s life. Instead, a painful and tragic incident appears out of nowhere—as if Schulman thinks it will redeem the book—and turns the last quarter of the novel into a theater of the absurd. I finished Come With Me as a hate read, which is unfortunate because Helen Schulman’s last novel, This Beautiful Life, was impactful and thought provoking.
Amy Reed works part-time as a PR person for a tech start-up, run by her college roommate’s nineteen-year-old son, in Palo Alto, California. Donny is a baby genius, a junior at Stanford in his spare time. His play for fortune is an algorithm that may allow people access to their “multiverses”—all the planes on which their alternative life choices can be played out simultaneously—to see how the decisions they’ve made have shaped their lives.
Donny wants Amy to be his guinea pig. And even as she questions Donny’s theories and motives, Amy finds herself unable to resist the lure of the road(s) not taken. Who would she be if she had made different choices, loved different people? Where would she be now?
Interesting, right? Except there’s a subplot about Amy’s unemployed journalist husband and his decision to take off for Japan to interview the most radioactive human on the planet—which is just a cover to be alone with a beautiful transgender woman he thinks he’s in love with. The husband’s plot plays out in tedious, unimaginative detail while the entire premise of an app that allows you to explore the lives you didn’t live? That’s explored in two brief chapters where the developer, who reads like a stereotypical, techie, man-boy, psychologically tortures Amy with an app that doesn’t work properly.
I kept going with this book despite characters who were so off-the-charts in their self-indulgent, precious uniqueness as to be violently annoying (a teenager so in love with his girlfriend that they are on Skype 24 hours a day—he brings her to school on his phone and they set a place for her at the dinner table). Up until the midpoint, I thought there would be redemption—that something discovered from the app would bring profound meaning to Amy’s life. Instead, a painful and tragic incident appears out of nowhere—as if Schulman thinks it will redeem the book—and turns the last quarter of the novel into a theater of the absurd. I finished Come With Me as a hate read, which is unfortunate because Helen Schulman’s last novel, This Beautiful Life, was impactful and thought provoking.
kittykornerlibrarian's review against another edition
1.0
Both the story and the lives of the characters seemed very rushed to me. And I may be wrong, but I feel like I can tell where the husband's story line is heading, and I really don't want to read about an out-of-work husband who is being financially supported by his wife and who goes off and has an affair. I made it about one-third of the way through, and it seems like both Amy and Dan are rushing through their lives without pausing to make thoughtful decisions. I don't find this appealing. And, finally, contemporary novels set in California just feel so... California, you know? And I find this not very appealing as well. This book was not for me.
lxsdr's review against another edition
3.0
The sci-fi subplot was what got me interested, but it's not a major part of the book. It's mostly about the ideas of "what-if" and "what-could've-been", sandwiched between the struggles of actually living your life.
claireoh's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide
em1gem's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
3thingsaboutthisbook's review against another edition
3.0
📕I have a very bad habit of thinking about all what-ifs after I make a decision. Even for simple things. And for life changing decisions, it’s disturbing game of how to get myself stuck in the past
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📗Amy, who has a full life that could make some people jealous, got to see many alternative endings of her life. What if she picked the other guy? What if she didn’t terminate her pregnancy? What if she picked another path in life? Sadly she didn’t see much that has happy ending and she decided to stick to what she already had instead of drooling over other endings
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📘This story was mainly focused on those what-ifs and how they would have shaped our lives if we had a chance to simply see the outcome. However, to me it was more about the process of getting there. Creating such algorithm to calculate all those paths and possibly endings... Is that something I would like even though I pretty much live in past for not knowing? I doubt that
mypapercrane's review against another edition
4.0
This book was not at all what I was expecting, and a few times that annoyed me. Based on the description you think it will be a story about parallel universes. While that is discussed briefly, the story is more about one family, their relationships with each other and the people around them.
At first I was going to give it 3 stars, but the book did make me cry, and think, and while it wasn’t the sci-fi reading experience I thought I was getting into it was still enough to have me finish the book.
I do feel like whoever is promoting the book is doing it a disservice focusing on the sci-fi bent when it needs to instead be pushed as a family drama. I think some of the negative reviews are coming in because readers feel tricked.
At first I was going to give it 3 stars, but the book did make me cry, and think, and while it wasn’t the sci-fi reading experience I thought I was getting into it was still enough to have me finish the book.
I do feel like whoever is promoting the book is doing it a disservice focusing on the sci-fi bent when it needs to instead be pushed as a family drama. I think some of the negative reviews are coming in because readers feel tricked.
klizzie333's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0