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shattoa 's review for:
Machines Like Me
by Ian McEwan
I’m still trying to figure out if I liked this book or not... McEwan is a brilliant writer and I really enjoyed Adam the conscious, complex machine, but this novel felt really self-indulgent at times. The explorations of humanity and morality were interesting, but the constant theorising felt a little like I was unwillingly taking a series of undergrad lectures delivered by passionate but droning professors... McEwan has clearly done a lot of reading, studying and thinking on this topic. We get it!
I liked the complexity of the relationship between Charlie and Adam, but struggled with his egotistical, puppy-love for Miranda. I also really liked the Adams and Eves and McEwan’s hypothesis about their inevitable self-destruction, so I was frustrated when the plot kept moving away from them. The alternative history was interesting (especially regarding Alan Turing), but the politics lessons surrounding Thatcher didn’t seem at all important. Why did McEwan cram this book full of so many conflicting plot lines?!
Did I find this novel interesting? Yes. Would I recommend it to others? Probably not. Would I love to analyse this if I was an undergrad again? Yes please.
I liked the complexity of the relationship between Charlie and Adam, but struggled with his egotistical, puppy-love for Miranda. I also really liked the Adams and Eves and McEwan’s hypothesis about their inevitable self-destruction, so I was frustrated when the plot kept moving away from them. The alternative history was interesting (especially regarding Alan Turing), but the politics lessons surrounding Thatcher didn’t seem at all important. Why did McEwan cram this book full of so many conflicting plot lines?!
Did I find this novel interesting? Yes. Would I recommend it to others? Probably not. Would I love to analyse this if I was an undergrad again? Yes please.