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3.25 AVERAGE
3.25 AVERAGE
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
DNF. I wanted to like this, but after about 2/3 of the book, I realized I was just forcing it and decided to stop. The story follows a group of characters who are living in a post-apocalyptic world after the crash of The Feed, a form of social media that nearly everyone had implanted in their brains, allowing them to message, record, surf the web, etc., all in milliseconds from their own brains. With the crash of The Feed, society collapses, and the son of the man who created The Feed goes on the run with his family, trying to hide who he is. One day, his daughter gets kidnapped and the family does all they can to get her back. I was on board with the story in general, I just got lost in the prose, and I would read whole chapters and end up unsure of what happened within them. I also didn't feel much of a connection with the main characters, which left me ambivalent towards their successes and failures. For these reasons, it was a DNF and two stars for me.
This one is a tense thriller in a combo platter with a surprising amount of heartwarming family stuff.
The world is in The Feed -- which has echoes from "The Matrix" and "Ready Player One," except that here, the whole story is about what happens if the thing shuts down.
Not good stuff, basically.
This one's very well done. Give it a shot.
The world is in The Feed -- which has echoes from "The Matrix" and "Ready Player One," except that here, the whole story is about what happens if the thing shuts down.
Not good stuff, basically.
This one's very well done. Give it a shot.
Personally didn’t vibe with this one too well, it’s a mix of the writing style, the characters, the plot… It just didn’t interest me much
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
The story was interesting. I wanted to see more about the era before the collapse. I had a hard time staying in the story because the characters weren't likable.
I have a very hard time finding science fiction and dystopian and post-apocalyptic books that are well written and hold my interest, much less pack a serious punch. This book succeeded wildly for me, with a brilliantly blended collection of themes, some of which were horrifyingly topical.
I did not find it confusing or think characters unlikable. It all hung together for me and my heart nearly exploded from caring about everyone involved.
Trust and sacrifice, interconnectedness and the pace of life. The future of the planet. Superb.
Even the cinematic scene near the end did not annoy me as such things usually do. It was brief, motivated, and necessary.
I did not find it confusing or think characters unlikable. It all hung together for me and my heart nearly exploded from caring about everyone involved.
Trust and sacrifice, interconnectedness and the pace of life. The future of the planet. Superb.
Even the cinematic scene near the end did not annoy me as such things usually do. It was brief, motivated, and necessary.
I think some reviews described this as being similar to The Road or Station Eleven, with some Oryx and Crake mixed in, and it's nearly there. A social media apocalypse. Scary, actually, how this story seems plausible, in a not too distant future. This book is good. Reminds me of Blake Crouch in a way too. It's a bit stumbly in places, but the story moves quick, and the book takes a bonkers turn about halfway through that makes it so much more interesting. Worth a read, imo.
I'm exhausting after finishing The Feed. Partly because I've stayed up until late o'clock to finish it, and partly because I feel like I've been through a wringer.
Tom and Kate live in a world where near all humanity is connected to The Feed - an internet hub of sorts, where we talk, share memories and look up anything we ever need to know. What we don't realise is that by doing everything in the cloud, so to speak, we're not storing anything properly in our grey matter.
So when there's an assassination, humanity freaks out and the feed collapses, the world is left in a precarious state. Many men and women are reduced to mere animals, so unused to talking or thinking for themselves. People lack the basic knowledge to keep the old wheels turning.
More terrifying, it turns out that the assassination that appeared to start it all was caused by an 'invader' - someone taking over the brain of someone else. It becomes imperative to watch others as they sleep, to kill them if they show any signs of becoming 'taken'.
Tom and Kate have survived in this world, have even brought a daughter into it. Tom has to hide who he really is, because his father created and ran The Feed, and he likely has many enemies. They live on a small homestead with a few others, struggling to find resources and survive.
Then their daughter Bea, is kidnapped and Tom and Kate dash from safety, willing to do anything to save her.
But what happens if they get injured? What if they need help from the Taken? What if they find out what the Taken are really there for?
There are times when I think the book is in danger of losing readers - there's a lot of journeying, and the way it skips from point of view to point of view (or time to time) can be confusing - but there was a lot here for me to enjoy.
It's the questions above that make things interesting. Once the answers start seeping through into the text (and I can't address any of them here because that way lies spoilers), it becomes a race to get to the end of the book and discover exactly why all this is happening and whether Tom and Kate's family will survive, and in what form?
I have a great fondness for post-apocalyptic books and read this pretty much in one sitting. My biases may be on display here.
Tom and Kate live in a world where near all humanity is connected to The Feed - an internet hub of sorts, where we talk, share memories and look up anything we ever need to know. What we don't realise is that by doing everything in the cloud, so to speak, we're not storing anything properly in our grey matter.
So when there's an assassination, humanity freaks out and the feed collapses, the world is left in a precarious state. Many men and women are reduced to mere animals, so unused to talking or thinking for themselves. People lack the basic knowledge to keep the old wheels turning.
More terrifying, it turns out that the assassination that appeared to start it all was caused by an 'invader' - someone taking over the brain of someone else. It becomes imperative to watch others as they sleep, to kill them if they show any signs of becoming 'taken'.
Tom and Kate have survived in this world, have even brought a daughter into it. Tom has to hide who he really is, because his father created and ran The Feed, and he likely has many enemies. They live on a small homestead with a few others, struggling to find resources and survive.
Then their daughter Bea, is kidnapped and Tom and Kate dash from safety, willing to do anything to save her.
But what happens if they get injured? What if they need help from the Taken? What if they find out what the Taken are really there for?
There are times when I think the book is in danger of losing readers - there's a lot of journeying, and the way it skips from point of view to point of view (or time to time) can be confusing - but there was a lot here for me to enjoy.
It's the questions above that make things interesting. Once the answers start seeping through into the text (and I can't address any of them here because that way lies spoilers), it becomes a race to get to the end of the book and discover exactly why all this is happening and whether Tom and Kate's family will survive, and in what form?
I have a great fondness for post-apocalyptic books and read this pretty much in one sitting. My biases may be on display here.