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benmsmith 's review for:
The Atmospherians
by Isle McElroy
Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for an ARC of this title.
I keep going back and forth on my rating for this one - it's satire, but I'm not fully sure it knows what it's fully aiming for in terms of what it's skewering. A successful influencer is brought down by an errant comment online and runs off with a childhood friend with the intent of starting a cult to help with toxic masculinity. There's a _lot_ happening in that last sentence, and while the book pokes at influencer culture, "cancel culture", and ~w e l l n e s s~ in its first part, it's a little all over the place and can't really focus on where it wants the reader's eye to be.
After a too-brief second part that perfectly skewers Big Tech's approach to the same problems, we're back at the cult, albeit in a more successful form that also feels too short and sweet when it had more to say. There's slightly too neat of a bow tied at the end of all this after a messy start. When it's on, it's ON (and there's some great ideas like the nature of Man Hordes that are just explained _enough_ that the author's skewed vision of our world shines through, but I almost DNF'd this right before it got good.
I keep going back and forth on my rating for this one - it's satire, but I'm not fully sure it knows what it's fully aiming for in terms of what it's skewering. A successful influencer is brought down by an errant comment online and runs off with a childhood friend with the intent of starting a cult to help with toxic masculinity. There's a _lot_ happening in that last sentence, and while the book pokes at influencer culture, "cancel culture", and ~w e l l n e s s~ in its first part, it's a little all over the place and can't really focus on where it wants the reader's eye to be.
After a too-brief second part that perfectly skewers Big Tech's approach to the same problems, we're back at the cult, albeit in a more successful form that also feels too short and sweet when it had more to say. There's slightly too neat of a bow tied at the end of all this after a messy start. When it's on, it's ON (and there's some great ideas like the nature of Man Hordes that are just explained _enough_ that the author's skewed vision of our world shines through, but I almost DNF'd this right before it got good.