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ottopivnr 's review for:
The Sudden Appearance of Hope
by Claire North
What reads as a thriller with a very strange conceit is actually a complex study of identity.
At the outset I found the premise of this story, a person who is almost immediately forgotten, at first by her family and friends, and then by everyone she meets, pretty depressing. It's as if everyone around her has alzheimer's , at least as far as she is concerned. Hope cannot have friends, cannot rely on anyone for anything because the moment she is out of sight she is out of mind.
North, therefore, had to create a plausible way for Hope to adapt and survive, and in the process creates a rather sympathetic and compelling master thief whose inner struggles to be memorable drive to to do more than just survive.
The world Hope lives in is being shaped by another type of identity crisis: the need to achieve "perfection" by enslaving oneself to a self-help app. Perfection, the app, takes the faithful by the hand and ultimately makes every decision for them as they climb the ladder of success and conformity. Hope is happy to rob from them until she befriends someone, in her unique way, who is driven to suicide by the app, and then it's game on for Hope to bring Perfection down.
At every turn identity plays the central role in what it means to be successful, safe, important, loved, remembered, and ultimately just "to be" in and of itself.
I rather like it.
Q: 3
E: 4
I: 4
3x4 +4 = 16
At the outset I found the premise of this story, a person who is almost immediately forgotten, at first by her family and friends, and then by everyone she meets, pretty depressing. It's as if everyone around her has alzheimer's , at least as far as she is concerned. Hope cannot have friends, cannot rely on anyone for anything because the moment she is out of sight she is out of mind.
North, therefore, had to create a plausible way for Hope to adapt and survive, and in the process creates a rather sympathetic and compelling master thief whose inner struggles to be memorable drive to to do more than just survive.
The world Hope lives in is being shaped by another type of identity crisis: the need to achieve "perfection" by enslaving oneself to a self-help app. Perfection, the app, takes the faithful by the hand and ultimately makes every decision for them as they climb the ladder of success and conformity. Hope is happy to rob from them until she befriends someone, in her unique way, who is driven to suicide by the app, and then it's game on for Hope to bring Perfection down.
At every turn identity plays the central role in what it means to be successful, safe, important, loved, remembered, and ultimately just "to be" in and of itself.
I rather like it.
Q: 3
E: 4
I: 4
3x4 +4 = 16