A review by ohmage_resistance
The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon

adventurous challenging medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
The worldbuilding in this book seemed pretty cool (AIs, giant mechas, etc), except there's pretty much no exposition so you kinda just have to try to piece things together from context, which is tricky. The bigger problem is that because the worldbuilding is never fully elaborated on, it is really hard to get a sense of stakes or what any character's motivation is. There's a lot of twists and characters changing goals/secretly trying to do something other than they seemed to want towards the end, and none of that had any impact because I didn't understand their motivations in the first place or why one option would be better than the others. 

I'm complaining a lot, but I liked this book more towards the middle (I was having a fun time trying to piece things together), where the ending kind of lost impact. Definitely don't even try this book unless you actively like being confused when reading. 
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