Scan barcode
A review by swordspoint
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
TL;DR, content breakdown, and recommendations at the bottom!
It's been a while since I've written a review and even longer since I have written a review out of pure dislike, but I really wasn't a fan of this book. It may just have not been for me (I'm new to Egan's work and not typically a reader of literary speculative fiction) but if not for it being required reading for a class I would not have finished it - too bad, because the world Egan has created sounds fascinating. A near future where people can choose to essentially upload their consciousness to the Internet and view other people's consciousnesses, too?
Unfortunately, on the page, it's very underdeveloped besides a few infodumps that break any immersion in the story and only serve to explain the technology on a surface level. I left the book feeling like I didn't understand anything more about Egan's world than I did after reading the book jacket.
Each chapter/section is from a different character's point of view or focusing on a different character, all of whom are related to each other (by blood or by relationship) in some way. There's some interesting stuff here - a lot of work went into making sure these characters had distinct voices, flaws, and ways of thinking, but the constant switches led to it feeling like there was little actual movement in their stories. With so many different characters to address, each one got somewhere between 10-30 pages devoted to them - not a lot of time to develop a character's arc. A lot of them ended up feeling static or difficult to care about, as they were essentially narrating their own stories retroactively to the reader.
The plot is similarly hindered - this book feels more like a thought experiment exploring how a new form of social media could affect the lives of different people than one linear story. There are some interesting connecting elements, though, but some of them tend to be difficult to catch unless you memorize the name and description of every single character.
On top of that (and this may have been the nail in the coffin for my reading) there's some truly questionable queer/neurodivergent representation here, as well as a weird focus on sex. A nonbinary person is referred to as "a nonbinary", pretty much all gay/trans side or one-off characters are presented as "bad" in some way (doing drugs or being a sexually predatory professor), and the POV characters who feel as if they are written to be neurodivergent (note that this is my own interpretation and may not be what Egan intended) feel as if there was no research done whatsoever on the actual thought processes of neurodivergent people.
Most of the male characters have a strange focus on lust, sex, or being good sexual partners, and most of the women only really appear when fully involved with a man in some way. One of the jacket reviews called one of her books "old-fashioned" and, well... it shows.
Additionally - please don't put Dungeons & Dragons in your novel if you're going to spell it out as "D and D" repeatedly. Good God.
This would have been a one-star if not for Egan genuinely having some interesting ideas about social media and the next step it may be taking (at what point does your life become inextricable from your social media presence, can we even disconnect, can the human experience be quantified, what is authenticity, anyways). Also .25 stars back for having D&D and diversity in literary fiction even if it's questionably represented.
TL;DR: Experimental speculative literary fiction which is heavier on the literary. Somehow too long and too short at the same time, but had interesting moments and a unique way of tying characters together. Super interesting near future world idea that is disappointingly underdeveloped on the page (besides a few questionably integrated infodumps.) Also, 50 pages of an email chain (which was actually one of my favorite sections.)
Content Warnings: Discussion/on-page depictions of suicide attempts, drug use, alcoholism. Plenty of family traumas, bullying, and allusions to sex. Questionable depictions of trans/nonbinary/gay characters, even more questionable depictions of neurodivergence.
Recommended For: Those who don't mind shallowly built worlds or are happy with interesting concepts; folks interested in thinking about how social media has changed our lives and psyches; people who want a hardcover that is the color of Pepto Bismol under the jacket.
Favorite Moment: Lincoln's list of personal negative traits, which happened to include "online warlordry." Best possible way to describe Clash of Clans or Runescape.
It's been a while since I've written a review and even longer since I have written a review out of pure dislike, but I really wasn't a fan of this book. It may just have not been for me (I'm new to Egan's work and not typically a reader of literary speculative fiction) but if not for it being required reading for a class I would not have finished it - too bad, because the world Egan has created sounds fascinating. A near future where people can choose to essentially upload their consciousness to the Internet and view other people's consciousnesses, too?
Unfortunately, on the page, it's very underdeveloped besides a few infodumps that break any immersion in the story and only serve to explain the technology on a surface level. I left the book feeling like I didn't understand anything more about Egan's world than I did after reading the book jacket.
Each chapter/section is from a different character's point of view or focusing on a different character, all of whom are related to each other (by blood or by relationship) in some way. There's some interesting stuff here - a lot of work went into making sure these characters had distinct voices, flaws, and ways of thinking, but the constant switches led to it feeling like there was little actual movement in their stories. With so many different characters to address, each one got somewhere between 10-30 pages devoted to them - not a lot of time to develop a character's arc. A lot of them ended up feeling static or difficult to care about, as they were essentially narrating their own stories retroactively to the reader.
The plot is similarly hindered - this book feels more like a thought experiment exploring how a new form of social media could affect the lives of different people than one linear story. There are some interesting connecting elements, though, but some of them tend to be difficult to catch unless you memorize the name and description of every single character.
On top of that (and this may have been the nail in the coffin for my reading) there's some truly questionable queer/neurodivergent representation here, as well as a weird focus on sex. A nonbinary person is referred to as "a nonbinary", pretty much all gay/trans side or one-off characters are presented as "bad" in some way (doing drugs or being a sexually predatory professor), and the POV characters who feel as if they are written to be neurodivergent (note that this is my own interpretation and may not be what Egan intended) feel as if there was no research done whatsoever on the actual thought processes of neurodivergent people.
Most of the male characters have a strange focus on lust, sex, or being good sexual partners, and most of the women only really appear when fully involved with a man in some way. One of the jacket reviews called one of her books "old-fashioned" and, well... it shows.
Additionally - please don't put Dungeons & Dragons in your novel if you're going to spell it out as "D and D" repeatedly. Good God.
This would have been a one-star if not for Egan genuinely having some interesting ideas about social media and the next step it may be taking (at what point does your life become inextricable from your social media presence, can we even disconnect, can the human experience be quantified, what is authenticity, anyways). Also .25 stars back for having D&D and diversity in literary fiction even if it's questionably represented.
TL;DR: Experimental speculative literary fiction which is heavier on the literary. Somehow too long and too short at the same time, but had interesting moments and a unique way of tying characters together. Super interesting near future world idea that is disappointingly underdeveloped on the page (besides a few questionably integrated infodumps.) Also, 50 pages of an email chain (which was actually one of my favorite sections.)
Content Warnings: Discussion/on-page depictions of suicide attempts, drug use, alcoholism. Plenty of family traumas, bullying, and allusions to sex. Questionable depictions of trans/nonbinary/gay characters, even more questionable depictions of neurodivergence.
Recommended For: Those who don't mind shallowly built worlds or are happy with interesting concepts; folks interested in thinking about how social media has changed our lives and psyches; people who want a hardcover that is the color of Pepto Bismol under the jacket.
Favorite Moment: Lincoln's list of personal negative traits, which happened to include "online warlordry." Best possible way to describe Clash of Clans or Runescape.