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A review by chemwitch
This Mortal Coil by Emily Suvada
3.0
3/5 stars. Predictable, but certain things about it left me with a lasting fondness. Your mileage may vary.
Okay, let me try to summarize this book for everyone.
We have our protagonist (Catarina), her father (Lachlan), and her father's cute assistant (Dax) living together in their isolated mountain home, studying gene hacking. Gene hacking is a big, normal thing now. It's like iPhones but in your body. It's fine, don't think about it too much. Side note: Catarina is allergic to body iPhones so she's immediately established as different. A disease called Hydra does fucked-up things to the human body and makes you explode, and if you're around someone who has it you'll... eat them. Again, don't think about it too much. The super-evil mega corporation that controls lots of the gene hacking tech (where Lachlan used to work, but had to escape because of the aforementioned super-evilness) shows back up and kidnaps Lachlan and Dax because they wanna force them to research a vaccine to people-explodey disease. Catarina hides in a secret panic room during the kidnapping and is left behind with her father's advice to never let the evil mega-corporation catch you. Good advice, in all honesty.
And then, with a little time skipping magic, we are up to now. The world is a pretty standard "zombie apocalypse" situation. Catarina has been hiding out in the mountain home for some time, and has picked up an old lady friend along the way. She's helping out a resistance group who do hacker stuff and leak code from the corporation and all that. The corporation has formed safe underground bunkers, but the only way you can get into them is if you agree to let all your coding and apps and whatnot be standardized and controlled by them. With all this established, we get the main plot force start to happen: a super-soldier human experiment (Cole) working for the corporation shows up with a message for Catarina. Her father is dead, but he finished the vaccine before he went. He wants her to decrypt it and release it to the public, because he fears that the corporation will withhold it because they can kind of be a dick about things. Together, Cole and Catarina go on a journey to figure out how to decrypt the vaccine, figure out why her father was so mysterious and sciencey, and get caught up in a lot of different plot points along the way.
Ffs. And that was me trying to be brief about it. With that poorly accomplished, let's get into why I think this book was good, and why I also kind of didn't.
The Good
-Engaging enough plot to keep me going. I've been in a hard reading slump for 6 months and this was the first non-manga I've picked up and finished. I give it props.
-This book paralleled real life in some ways that have become a lot more real and relevant post-COVID. Worldwide pandemic, people suspicious of a quickly-released vaccine, the authority of a corporation to control people's access to healthcare, etc. etc. We're all tired of hearing about COVID, I know but the themes of this book will haunt me
-The world-building in this book was honestly pretty catching. Even if I didn't love all the pseudo-scientific, hacker-y talk. I usually despise post-apocalyptic settings but the world in this still felt real to me. Still felt very much struggling against the idea of being "post-apocalyptic". I liked that.
The Bad
-The romance. It was insta-lovey and overall just very bland. And obviously there's a little love triangle in there as well, because all books need to have one.
-The gene-hacking stuff felt a little cringe to me at times. Idk if it's just me but the pseudo-scientific stuff in the narrative just made me stop and close my eyes and take a breath before continuing
-During much of the plot, I felt like the characters were just meandering along without aim, without drive. The plot pushed them along but I never felt the sense of decisiveness of "This is what we should do next." And if they do decide something, it's often derailed by the plot itself. I guess this maybe comes down to the characters. They don't feel... real. Their decisions don't feel real. Catarina is super-special-awesome and can do everything. Cole is there simply to be obsessed with Catarina. Cole's friend (whose name I have forgotten, apologies) exists only to dislike Catarina and then soften up towards her because everyone has to love Catarina. Dax is just kind of there.
-The plot twist/reveals towards the end. I won't spoil anything but suffice it to say I was not a fan of the ending of this story.
As I write this, I realize that overall, I have more bad to say than good. It's hard to understand why I liked this story with its flat/overdone characters, post-apocalyptic setting, and plot twists that left me feeling cold. It feels very much "been there, done that" but in a new place that I kind of liked. I'm going to give it 3/5 stars, despite its many flaws, because Suvada at least wrote book worth finishing, even if just to see how it crashes and burns at the end. Perhaps I just left with a fondness for it because it got me out of my reading slump. The world may never know.
1/28/22. Might actually want to review this one later. Honestly? Pretty good (with some sizable flaws). Either that or I've gone softhearted in my old age.
Okay, let me try to summarize this book for everyone.
We have our protagonist (Catarina), her father (Lachlan), and her father's cute assistant (Dax) living together in their isolated mountain home, studying gene hacking. Gene hacking is a big, normal thing now. It's like iPhones but in your body. It's fine, don't think about it too much. Side note: Catarina is allergic to body iPhones so she's immediately established as different. A disease called Hydra does fucked-up things to the human body and makes you explode, and if you're around someone who has it you'll... eat them. Again, don't think about it too much. The super-evil mega corporation that controls lots of the gene hacking tech (where Lachlan used to work, but had to escape because of the aforementioned super-evilness) shows back up and kidnaps Lachlan and Dax because they wanna force them to research a vaccine to people-explodey disease. Catarina hides in a secret panic room during the kidnapping and is left behind with her father's advice to never let the evil mega-corporation catch you. Good advice, in all honesty.
And then, with a little time skipping magic, we are up to now. The world is a pretty standard "zombie apocalypse" situation. Catarina has been hiding out in the mountain home for some time, and has picked up an old lady friend along the way. She's helping out a resistance group who do hacker stuff and leak code from the corporation and all that. The corporation has formed safe underground bunkers, but the only way you can get into them is if you agree to let all your coding and apps and whatnot be standardized and controlled by them. With all this established, we get the main plot force start to happen: a super-soldier human experiment (Cole) working for the corporation shows up with a message for Catarina. Her father is dead, but he finished the vaccine before he went. He wants her to decrypt it and release it to the public, because he fears that the corporation will withhold it because they can kind of be a dick about things. Together, Cole and Catarina go on a journey to figure out how to decrypt the vaccine, figure out why her father was so mysterious and sciencey, and get caught up in a lot of different plot points along the way.
Ffs. And that was me trying to be brief about it. With that poorly accomplished, let's get into why I think this book was good, and why I also kind of didn't.
The Good
-Engaging enough plot to keep me going. I've been in a hard reading slump for 6 months and this was the first non-manga I've picked up and finished. I give it props.
-This book paralleled real life in some ways that have become a lot more real and relevant post-COVID. Worldwide pandemic, people suspicious of a quickly-released vaccine, the authority of a corporation to control people's access to healthcare, etc. etc. We're all tired of hearing about COVID, I know but the themes of this book will haunt me
-The world-building in this book was honestly pretty catching. Even if I didn't love all the pseudo-scientific, hacker-y talk. I usually despise post-apocalyptic settings but the world in this still felt real to me. Still felt very much struggling against the idea of being "post-apocalyptic". I liked that.
The Bad
-The romance. It was insta-lovey and overall just very bland. And obviously there's a little love triangle in there as well, because all books need to have one.
-The gene-hacking stuff felt a little cringe to me at times. Idk if it's just me but the pseudo-scientific stuff in the narrative just made me stop and close my eyes and take a breath before continuing
-During much of the plot, I felt like the characters were just meandering along without aim, without drive. The plot pushed them along but I never felt the sense of decisiveness of "This is what we should do next." And if they do decide something, it's often derailed by the plot itself. I guess this maybe comes down to the characters. They don't feel... real. Their decisions don't feel real. Catarina is super-special-awesome and can do everything. Cole is there simply to be obsessed with Catarina. Cole's friend (whose name I have forgotten, apologies) exists only to dislike Catarina and then soften up towards her because everyone has to love Catarina. Dax is just kind of there.
-The plot twist/reveals towards the end. I won't spoil anything but suffice it to say I was not a fan of the ending of this story.
As I write this, I realize that overall, I have more bad to say than good. It's hard to understand why I liked this story with its flat/overdone characters, post-apocalyptic setting, and plot twists that left me feeling cold. It feels very much "been there, done that" but in a new place that I kind of liked. I'm going to give it 3/5 stars, despite its many flaws, because Suvada at least wrote book worth finishing, even if just to see how it crashes and burns at the end. Perhaps I just left with a fondness for it because it got me out of my reading slump. The world may never know.
1/28/22. Might actually want to review this one later. Honestly? Pretty good (with some sizable flaws). Either that or I've gone softhearted in my old age.