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soniasoares's review against another edition
Ugh, I tried. Managed to properly read it till half, tried to skim the rest. But even that was just too much. Almost 400 page in, I gave up.
Everything is horrible. The writing, the plot, the characters, what they’re saying, doing, remembering, the concept dumping, the pseudo intellectuality, the crappy homeopathic propaganda. But the worst part is that there's no focus. It's all over the place and nowhere at the same time.
Everything is horrible. The writing, the plot, the characters, what they’re saying, doing, remembering, the concept dumping, the pseudo intellectuality, the crappy homeopathic propaganda. But the worst part is that there's no focus. It's all over the place and nowhere at the same time.
snickies's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars. 4 stars for the parts about her childhood, cryptography, and the treasure. 2-3 stars for the heavy-handed preaching. It got to be a bit much fairly early into the story and by the end I was rolling my eyes at NoCo, even if I do generally agree with the evilness of multi-national corporations, big business, etc. It was the other aspects of the story that kept me reading. I also really liked that this is a book with a female protagonist who is complex, flawed, geeky, and likeable.
roseannmvp's review against another edition
4.0
If you like cryptography, secrets of the Voynich Manuscript intrigue you, or you dream of finding the next big prime numbers, this quick, light read may be the perfect diversion. Wildly different, in its ending than other "mental" books I have read, worth the read if you can spare the time away from your numbers.
jasmiinaf's review
4.0
I ebjoyed this book a lot. I always seem to learn new things when I read something from Scarlett Thomas and she clearly enjoys learning new stuff too. This time I learned interesting things about code-breaking and about homeopathy. I like math so the code-breaking stuff was really interesting for me. I was a bit disappointed with the ending (I wanted more action), that's why I didn't give 5 stars.
lalauren04's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars - This book was interesting, but sometimes a little long winded and dull in a few places. I liked the characters and the mystery behind it, and oddly felt like I was learning whilst I read it, but some of the story was too bogged down in explaining mathematics (something I'm pretty hopeless at anyway!). Not bad, but definitely not a light hearted read. It's something that requires a bit of thought.
sasha_in_a_box's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed the book while I was reading it: the codebreaking, the cool parts of math, paradoxes, conspiracies, outsiders... I love all that stuff, but the ending disappointed me. It just.. ended. The central two mysteries were solved quickly and neatly in the last 50 pages, and I wish there was more. So, great book while it lasts, but don't expect much from the ending.
andintothetrees's review against another edition
4.0
Choosing a star rating for this book was difficult for me, because there were aspects of PopCo I loved so much that I thought the book might make it into my “instant favourites” list; yet I was very disappointed by the ending and had a massive issue with one particular “message” contained within the novel. For overall enjoyment it still scores well though, hence the four stars.
I was a little daunted by PopCo‘s length (the paperback edition is a little over 500 pages) but I still got through it in less than a week, largely because Scarlett Thomas is a most excellent writer who paints her settings and scenes in a refreshingly offbeat manner (in fact, for the first time in ages I’m bustin’ out the stylistically superior tag)*. It follows Alice Butler, a woman in her late 20s who works as an “ideas person” for a toy company (the eponymous PopCo), coming up with new products to sell to children. She, along with several colleagues, is summoned to south west England to work on a top-secret new product, but whilst there increasingly questions the morals of marketing and consumerism in general. Alice also receives several coded messages and at the heart of the book lies the mystery of who is sending these, and why. As the new product PopCo’s team are designing is for teenage girls Alice is inspired to contemplate her own late childhood/early teenage years, during which she was raised by her grandparents (veteran WWII codebreakers – there is a lot about cryptanalysis and maths within PopCo, but don’t let that put you off: I don’t have a mathematical mind at all but was actually quite interested by what was written about it here) after the death of her mother and the disappearance/abandonment of her father. A good chunk of the book is given over to these reflections, which were my favourite – I sometimes wanted the present day sections to hurry up so that I could get back to reading about Alice’s past.
* Here’s a quote from the opening page: “For the first time in weeks I am wearing proper shoes, and I can actually hear my footsteps as I walk, a D major scale on concrete. If you ever plan to hang around train stations in the middle of the night, you should always make sure you can hear your own footsteps, and, if you are at all musical, you should try to work out which notes you make as you walk, as it stops you from being lonely, not that I ever get lonely.”
Read my full review here, on my book blog.
I was a little daunted by PopCo‘s length (the paperback edition is a little over 500 pages) but I still got through it in less than a week, largely because Scarlett Thomas is a most excellent writer who paints her settings and scenes in a refreshingly offbeat manner (in fact, for the first time in ages I’m bustin’ out the stylistically superior tag)*. It follows Alice Butler, a woman in her late 20s who works as an “ideas person” for a toy company (the eponymous PopCo), coming up with new products to sell to children. She, along with several colleagues, is summoned to south west England to work on a top-secret new product, but whilst there increasingly questions the morals of marketing and consumerism in general. Alice also receives several coded messages and at the heart of the book lies the mystery of who is sending these, and why. As the new product PopCo’s team are designing is for teenage girls Alice is inspired to contemplate her own late childhood/early teenage years, during which she was raised by her grandparents (veteran WWII codebreakers – there is a lot about cryptanalysis and maths within PopCo, but don’t let that put you off: I don’t have a mathematical mind at all but was actually quite interested by what was written about it here) after the death of her mother and the disappearance/abandonment of her father. A good chunk of the book is given over to these reflections, which were my favourite – I sometimes wanted the present day sections to hurry up so that I could get back to reading about Alice’s past.
* Here’s a quote from the opening page: “For the first time in weeks I am wearing proper shoes, and I can actually hear my footsteps as I walk, a D major scale on concrete. If you ever plan to hang around train stations in the middle of the night, you should always make sure you can hear your own footsteps, and, if you are at all musical, you should try to work out which notes you make as you walk, as it stops you from being lonely, not that I ever get lonely.”
Read my full review here, on my book blog.
lisanussd's review against another edition
5.0
Super quirky and super fun and little math "isms" in the book!
categal's review against another edition
5.0
I love this book. I just loved hanging out with Alice Butler and learning about her childhood and learning about codes and codebreaking and the Voynich Manuscript and all the math problems Alice’s grandmother was working on.
Scarlett Thomas is a fantastic writer. I love the adult Alice’s voice as a narrator. She’s funny, she’s wry, she’s a loner and an observer and smart. The childhood scenes were show stoppers for me: beautiful, heartfelt, breath taking.
Scarlett Thomas is a fantastic writer. I love the adult Alice’s voice as a narrator. She’s funny, she’s wry, she’s a loner and an observer and smart. The childhood scenes were show stoppers for me: beautiful, heartfelt, breath taking.
rebecca_o4's review against another edition
5.0
This is the first book I had read by Scarlett Thomas, one of my new favorite authors. It was quite clever and original, as well as a book that I just couldn't put down!
The book's themes include animal rights, cryptography, math, and marketing - quite a unique amalgamation of ideas that I found really fascinating.
The book's themes include animal rights, cryptography, math, and marketing - quite a unique amalgamation of ideas that I found really fascinating.