wargortarg 's review for:

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan

3.0

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A quick follow-up to Goon Squad shenanigans, it was comfortable continuing with the characters after a time jump that propels everyone into the world we are very familiar with. If we weren't saturated by tech dystopias already (thanks Black Mirror), this novel would have had a profound effect on me. In any case, I enjoyed reading from POVs of Lincoln (measure everything!), Chris (stockblocks), Alfred (authenticity addict) & few others. The novelty wears off over time and the email discourse & spy training chapter don't resonate as well as Powerpoint slides did. No Mandala in our era, but we've been seeing news related to cold cases of serial killers getting "hot" with 23&Me DNA analysis of blood relatives, or podcasts which crowdsource information to present a case in a new light and exonerate innocent prisoners. Overall, both these books have enough material to turn into a 2-season series.