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3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
OK, wow. This was very good, but it was unsettling from the start, pushing my anxiety buttons in an impressive way. I saw the mostly rave reviews on Bookmarks but didn't read any of them, so I went into the book not knowing much about it and maybe that added to the suspense. Thoughtful and quirky, with some interesting observations about parenting, technology, consumerism, etc.
I’m confused. We are literally thrown into this world full of AI machines called “Hums” where our main character is getting some experimental procedure done to make her face unrecognizable to all of the machines running this dystopian world. Apparently she also created these machines and then they took her job? Anyway, she’s getting paid a lot of money to do this procedure and her and her family desperately need that money.
She’s also having marital problems and she reallllly wants her husband to fuck her (the sex scenes in this book were so…weird). So, she spends a chunk of the money she just made to let a robot disfigure her face (but to what extent I’m never really sure because some people treat her like she’s grotesque while others are like not bothered by her appearance) to bring her family on a vacation to the Botanical Gardens (because apparently there’s no wildlife or nature in this world), and she ends up seeking help from a Hum to find her kids while she’s in distress.
The synopsis makes you this will be some epic story because her “kids come under threat” but it was so anticlimactic???? There’s so much that this book doesn’t explain and since family drama is such a big component some background info would have been nice. Anyway, by the end I was just left beyond underwhelmed. Maybe I’m just dumb and didn’t read the context clues or look at the bigger picture, but even though this ARC was gifted to me I really don’t have many positives to state except that this had major potential and I thought this was going to be so much more than it was. The writing was clunky, it lacked important details, the plot fell extremely flat, and I am left completely and utterly confused.
Thank you Atria/Marysue Rucci books for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
She’s also having marital problems and she reallllly wants her husband to fuck her (the sex scenes in this book were so…weird). So, she spends a chunk of the money she just made to let a robot disfigure her face (but to what extent I’m never really sure because some people treat her like she’s grotesque while others are like not bothered by her appearance) to bring her family on a vacation to the Botanical Gardens (because apparently there’s no wildlife or nature in this world), and she ends up seeking help from a Hum to find her kids while she’s in distress.
The synopsis makes you this will be some epic story because her “kids come under threat” but it was so anticlimactic???? There’s so much that this book doesn’t explain and since family drama is such a big component some background info would have been nice. Anyway, by the end I was just left beyond underwhelmed. Maybe I’m just dumb and didn’t read the context clues or look at the bigger picture, but even though this ARC was gifted to me I really don’t have many positives to state except that this had major potential and I thought this was going to be so much more than it was. The writing was clunky, it lacked important details, the plot fell extremely flat, and I am left completely and utterly confused.
Thank you Atria/Marysue Rucci books for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
emotional
reflective
medium-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
I wanted to like this but it just turned into a rant about how we're addicted to technology. I was much more interested in the initial premise about the main character altering her face for money and privacy versus the surveillance state but in the end these concepts are just used to get at a blunt anti-tech vibe that's only somewhat undermined in the final act. This was just begging to explore how technology's role in class divide but in the end all I can focus on is the screaming kids. Maybe that's the take-away in the end.
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes