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A review by eileen_critchley
Universality by Natasha Brown
dark
tense
medium-paced
3.5
***½ rounding up.
I decided on a bit of a whim to attempt to read as much of the Booker longest as possible. This is 1 out of 13. This one was on my radar before the Booker list was announced.
I liked the structure and writing and I appreciated that she packed so much into this short book (I do feel it could have been longer though; more on that in a minute). It started out strong for me. The first half reminded me of <u> Birnam Wood</u> a bit. This book attempts to cover a lot of big issues (spin a wheel on current issues and it's likely here-DEI, billionaires, "wokeness", media bias, COVID) in a small package and some of the finer points may have been lost on me since I am not British (although I think there are many parallels to the US in current events). In the end, I wanted more of the original story. The social commentary at times felt like it came at the expense of the core plot. The characters were well developed for how short the book was, but I do think she could have played with that more had the book been a touch longer. I did appreciate how the characters came together. I wanted to like this more than I did, but it's probably one of those books I appreciate more with a bit of distance.
{library, hardcover}
I decided on a bit of a whim to attempt to read as much of the Booker longest as possible. This is 1 out of 13. This one was on my radar before the Booker list was announced.
I liked the structure and writing and I appreciated that she packed so much into this short book (I do feel it could have been longer though; more on that in a minute). It started out strong for me. The first half reminded me of <u> Birnam Wood</u> a bit. This book attempts to cover a lot of big issues (spin a wheel on current issues and it's likely here-DEI, billionaires, "wokeness", media bias, COVID) in a small package and some of the finer points may have been lost on me since I am not British (although I think there are many parallels to the US in current events). In the end, I wanted more of the original story. The social commentary at times felt like it came at the expense of the core plot. The characters were well developed for how short the book was, but I do think she could have played with that more had the book been a touch longer. I did appreciate how the characters came together. I wanted to like this more than I did, but it's probably one of those books I appreciate more with a bit of distance.
{library, hardcover}