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A review by latad_books
The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North
4.0
The idea that you could be forgotten by nearly everyone around you, mere minutes after they turn away or leave the room, seems, initially, like a wonderful situation for someone who identifies herself as a thief moments into the story she relates. Hope Arden exists momentarily in each face-to-face interaction, then disappears from people's minds once they've turned away or she's left their view. They can't remember her face, or that she was there. This sounds so freeing for Hope, and terrifying for anyone encountering her. ("What just happened?") Then, gradually, the full horror and isolation of Hope's situation begins to dawn on her listener/reader. How can she hold down a job, how can she have friends, how can she plan for housing, etc.?
When Hope steals some diamonds at a swanky party attended by unnaturally beautiful, "perfect" people, she inadvertently ends up becoming involved with Perfection. Perfection is a program that people use to become perfect. Perfect in appearance, perfect in conversation, perfect in any situation.....Once a user grants Perfection access to a variety of their personal information, Perfection proceeds to motivate its users to make choices (shopping, eating, exercising, etc.) for points. By accumulating points, the users get access to more exclusive services that they can use to gain higher levels of personal perfection.
From a privacy perspective, I found Perfection horrifying, and the people it created to be horrible and plastic. Having read not that long ago about the misuse of data by corporations creating programs based on racist, sexist and/or classist biases (i.e., data science for profit and social engineering), I found the discussions between Hope and Filippa Pereira-Conroy and later Byron, to be fascinating.
I found the author's commentary about beauty and social standing sharp: what is perfect?, what does it look like?, and how can anyone but the rich achieve the program's definition of perfect?
Claire North's prose is beautiful, and I loved the dialogue, and the names of the characters, in particular Filippa Pereira-Conroy's.
This is a long story, but I found that I really enjoyed it, even when it felt a little slow in parts.
I experienced this book in audio, and really enjoyed the voice work by Gillian Burke, who beautifully captured Hope's anger, humour, ferocity, and loneliness (though I didn't think her american accent was great.)
When Hope steals some diamonds at a swanky party attended by unnaturally beautiful, "perfect" people, she inadvertently ends up becoming involved with Perfection. Perfection is a program that people use to become perfect. Perfect in appearance, perfect in conversation, perfect in any situation.....Once a user grants Perfection access to a variety of their personal information, Perfection proceeds to motivate its users to make choices (shopping, eating, exercising, etc.) for points. By accumulating points, the users get access to more exclusive services that they can use to gain higher levels of personal perfection.
From a privacy perspective, I found Perfection horrifying, and the people it created to be horrible and plastic. Having read not that long ago about the misuse of data by corporations creating programs based on racist, sexist and/or classist biases (i.e., data science for profit and social engineering), I found the discussions between Hope and Filippa Pereira-Conroy and later Byron, to be fascinating.
I found the author's commentary about beauty and social standing sharp: what is perfect?, what does it look like?, and how can anyone but the rich achieve the program's definition of perfect?
Claire North's prose is beautiful, and I loved the dialogue, and the names of the characters, in particular Filippa Pereira-Conroy's.
This is a long story, but I found that I really enjoyed it, even when it felt a little slow in parts.
I experienced this book in audio, and really enjoyed the voice work by Gillian Burke, who beautifully captured Hope's anger, humour, ferocity, and loneliness (though I didn't think her american accent was great.)