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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I wish the ending had been better. I expected something dramatic.
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
عالی بود
داستان روونی داشت و هیجان کتاب به قدری زیاد بود واسم که نفهمیدم چجوری تمومش کردم
داستان روونی داشت و هیجان کتاب به قدری زیاد بود واسم که نفهمیدم چجوری تمومش کردم
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
This feels like an unsubtle screed against easy targets: the British government, the rich, social media, and mass hysteria. But worst of all, for a book about eight people trapped in self-driving cars that have been hacked and set on a collision course it is predicable and boring.
It starts off by jumping between some (but not all!) of the perspectives of the various passengers before they start their fateful car rides. This is the first mistake. The main character is clearly Libby Dixon, who isn't one of the passengers at all. She's the lone civilian on a very secretive panel that determines whether an accident involving a self-driving car is the fault of the car or the victim (hint, it's always the victim). She doesn't show up until the 10% mark. Each passenger is a cliche, and being inside their heads doesn't make them more sympathetic - I felt as much for the passengers who did NOT get a POV chapter as for the ones who did. In fact, I think the less I knew about them the better. The POVs seemed to be used just to establish that these passengers have a DARK SECRET. This wasn't interesting. Since we got the reveal of these DARK SECRETS by the hacker during the rides anyway, why bother with all the hints? Popcorn thriller writers should focus less on needless exposition and background and more on the adrenaline rush and the twists.
The villains in this were laughable. The hacker has exactly the motivation you think he does, and the arrogant politician just spends the book smarming around and all but twirling a mustache. Even when the politician is put on LIVE TV by the hacker, showing the entire world his actions, he continues to be hostile and contemptuous. There's also some kind of social media coordinator sent by the government (!?) who basically just announced what social media is doing (!?). He doesn't actually help the situation, just cackles in glee about ratings and engagement. He makes the media of the Hunger Games look dignified and restrained. At one point he straight out says, "What do you want from me? To pretend that I actually care about people I have never met? Because that isn't going to happen. This is what my team and I are here for, to tell the truth and represent the people, not to hold your hand and tell you everything is going to be alright." Like...is that his job? He's not on a network, he's not making money for anyone. He's supposedly been provided by the government, who you'd think would want to, you know, stop or lessen the impact of this terrorist event. Egging on the violence is helpful how exactly? All he does is read social media posts, it's not even useful or "representing the people." He's just a sock puppet for the Evils of Social Media.
The hoi polloi deserves the contempt in this book though, because only the worst version of group think is on display. The social media users are absolutely blood thirsty - no one is worried that their own cars being be hacked, I guess?!? It's like if there was a mass shooting and instead of an outpouring of "thoughts and prayers" the entire internet was cheering for more blood. Even in-person crowds were a mindless zombie hoard. At one point they mobbed one of the hacked cars, even though the hacker warned of retaliation if anyone tried to interfere.
I also guessed immediately that Jude was actually the hacker/terrorist. His POV chapter was just too vague to not be suspicious. And that's exactly the kind of "twist" that always happens in these kinds of books. And THEN the book spends the entire time trying to convince us that Libby is hopelessly in love with him because they met ONCE for a few hours and didn't even hook up or learn each others names! And the fact that Jude HAPPENED to have met the civilian on the secret jury and HAPPENED to connect with her and then he HAPPENED to be kidnapped was way too much of a coincidence. There are no coincidences in thrillers.
I am not even going to get into the stupidity of the British government deciding to use self-driving cars to murder poor people and other "undesirables." They would really program it so that the potential injury of an Air Force pilot > killing a baby and two other people? No one would ever notice that somehow Britain has way more pedestrian collisions/fatalities by self-driving cars than other countries?
It starts off by jumping between some (but not all!) of the perspectives of the various passengers before they start their fateful car rides. This is the first mistake. The main character is clearly Libby Dixon, who isn't one of the passengers at all. She's the lone civilian on a very secretive panel that determines whether an accident involving a self-driving car is the fault of the car or the victim (hint, it's always the victim). She doesn't show up until the 10% mark. Each passenger is a cliche, and being inside their heads doesn't make them more sympathetic - I felt as much for the passengers who did NOT get a POV chapter as for the ones who did. In fact, I think the less I knew about them the better. The POVs seemed to be used just to establish that these passengers have a DARK SECRET. This wasn't interesting. Since we got the reveal of these DARK SECRETS by the hacker during the rides anyway, why bother with all the hints? Popcorn thriller writers should focus less on needless exposition and background and more on the adrenaline rush and the twists.
The villains in this were laughable. The hacker has exactly the motivation you think he does, and the arrogant politician just spends the book smarming around and all but twirling a mustache. Even when the politician is put on LIVE TV by the hacker, showing the entire world his actions, he continues to be hostile and contemptuous. There's also some kind of social media coordinator sent by the government (!?) who basically just announced what social media is doing (!?). He doesn't actually help the situation, just cackles in glee about ratings and engagement. He makes the media of the Hunger Games look dignified and restrained. At one point he straight out says, "What do you want from me? To pretend that I actually care about people I have never met? Because that isn't going to happen. This is what my team and I are here for, to tell the truth and represent the people, not to hold your hand and tell you everything is going to be alright." Like...is that his job? He's not on a network, he's not making money for anyone. He's supposedly been provided by the government, who you'd think would want to, you know, stop or lessen the impact of this terrorist event. Egging on the violence is helpful how exactly? All he does is read social media posts, it's not even useful or "representing the people." He's just a sock puppet for the Evils of Social Media.
The hoi polloi deserves the contempt in this book though, because only the worst version of group think is on display. The social media users are absolutely blood thirsty - no one is worried that their own cars being be hacked, I guess?!? It's like if there was a mass shooting and instead of an outpouring of "thoughts and prayers" the entire internet was cheering for more blood. Even in-person crowds were a mindless zombie hoard. At one point they mobbed one of the hacked cars, even though the hacker warned of retaliation if anyone tried to interfere.
Spoiler
Marrs seems to be trying to make a point about racism and anti-immigrant sentiment among the populace by having two sympathetic immigrant women - one from Somalia, one from India - who the populace immediately turn against. They both die - one due to everyone voting for them to die, the other due to people mobbing her car and the hacker blowing it up. It's strange that in multicultural Britain, the ONLY non-white passengers are immigrants who don't speak unaccented English. And they are some of the ONLY passengers to die (the other is an old white military man, the first to go). Marrs had a choice on which characters to kill and he made this choice. And, also strangely, despite almost all the other characters getting an epilogue, neither of the non-white characters do. Once they die, they are barely mentioned again. I mean, I know they're dead, but why didn't Marrs say what happened to poor Shabana's children (did their evil dad get out of jail? did they escape? what happened to them? this book doesn't care)? Shabana was a POV character and the only POV character I actually liked and the narrative just forgets about her! It is...not a good look.I also guessed immediately that Jude was actually the hacker/terrorist. His POV chapter was just too vague to not be suspicious. And that's exactly the kind of "twist" that always happens in these kinds of books. And THEN the book spends the entire time trying to convince us that Libby is hopelessly in love with him because they met ONCE for a few hours and didn't even hook up or learn each others names! And the fact that Jude HAPPENED to have met the civilian on the secret jury and HAPPENED to connect with her and then he HAPPENED to be kidnapped was way too much of a coincidence. There are no coincidences in thrillers.
I am not even going to get into the stupidity of the British government deciding to use self-driving cars to murder poor people and other "undesirables." They would really program it so that the potential injury of an Air Force pilot > killing a baby and two other people? No one would ever notice that somehow Britain has way more pedestrian collisions/fatalities by self-driving cars than other countries?
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
no doubt in my mind that this will be made into a movie
adventurous
dark
medium-paced