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Rating: 2.5 stars
This book started out good, and I'm so disappointed to be giving this lower rating because the premise was so fascinating to me. Constellation, a reality tv world were people's entire lives are filmed felt so real and near-future that I got the shivers. The intersecting timelines drew me in and I couldn't wait to see how they would influence each other.
And yet, the book fell so, so, so short. There was something incredibly boring about it, though I couldn't quite place my finger on why. The author was unable to lace tension into her writing. I think the book was 100 pages too long and could have been more effective as a novella or a short story.
Although Orla was an interesting character, all the other characters fell flat, especially Marlow. Marlow could have been such an interesting case, a psychotic girl smoothed over with emotional correction pills, and yet she was so boring and far too virtuous. Angelo should have leaned into the psychotic-ness of this character, instead she shied away from it, desperately holding onto "My character is a good person!" There should have been no villains and no heroes in this story, but the author so obviously tries to make Marlow a hero, which felt at odds with the plot she was going for, it was painful. What she did with Orla was amazing in terms of shades-of-gray, and she should have done the same with Marlow.
I neither loved nor hated this book, but I could not imagine recommending it.
This book started out good, and I'm so disappointed to be giving this lower rating because the premise was so fascinating to me. Constellation, a reality tv world were people's entire lives are filmed felt so real and near-future that I got the shivers. The intersecting timelines drew me in and I couldn't wait to see how they would influence each other.
And yet, the book fell so, so, so short. There was something incredibly boring about it, though I couldn't quite place my finger on why. The author was unable to lace tension into her writing. I think the book was 100 pages too long and could have been more effective as a novella or a short story.
Although Orla was an interesting character, all the other characters fell flat, especially Marlow. Marlow could have been such an interesting case, a psychotic girl smoothed over with emotional correction pills, and yet she was so boring and far too virtuous. Angelo should have leaned into the psychotic-ness of this character, instead she shied away from it, desperately holding onto "My character is a good person!" There should have been no villains and no heroes in this story, but the author so obviously tries to make Marlow a hero, which felt at odds with the plot she was going for, it was painful. What she did with Orla was amazing in terms of shades-of-gray, and she should have done the same with Marlow.
I neither loved nor hated this book, but I could not imagine recommending it.