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A review by imaginary_space
The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
The blurb of this book sounded right up my alley, and the story would have been, too. If I hadn't been so distracted by the writing.
This book has ... words. So many words. It seems the author lost a bet and now needed to incorporate every single word in the Oxford English Dictionary in this one book. Especially the verbs, adjectives and adverbs. I found this very distracting and, frankly, unnecessary. It took a lot away from the story, which could have been told in have the pages and, if you took away all the overuse of language, was unfortunately not that exciting after all.
Which makes me sad, because I did like the premise and the worldbuilding was super interesting. I wish we would have learned more about that. I also liked getting to know the characters one after the other. Unfortunately, the writing took away from both.
The characters did not seem too different from each other, because they all spoke with the same voice and used the same flowery language. On top of that, they didn't really do much in the story, didn't make many decisions that would allow them to show who they were, so they were not very distinguishable. Or maybe they did and I just didn't recognize it beneath all the words. I can get behind one or two characters speaking like that, but all of them? The no-bullshit, down-to-earth killing machine (who's the POV for most of the chapters) that is literally described as "just a weapon" speaks AND thinks like that? I don't believe it.
There were also a lot of spelling mistakes and parts of sentences that will probably be corrected in editing. The pronouns for two of the characters were all over the place, first they were established and then they were constantly misgendered in dialogue and inner monologue. I hope this will be corrected, too.
The worldbuilding I liked a lot, it was something new and interesting and it excited me. But again, do AIs speak and think in flowery language? All right, maybe those AIs are so far evolved from machines that they developed like that, it's her world, her choice. But then add all the references to current pop culture on top of that and I couldn't believe any of it, it didn't make sense.
The story that was there was entertaning and I wish I had gotten more of the characters interacting with each other and the world around them, going through friendship, love, hate, betrayal, and just basic survival in this strange, dangerous world.
But all in all, the writing took away too much for me to enjoy the experience of reading this book.
Thank you to Erewhon books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This book has ... words. So many words. It seems the author lost a bet and now needed to incorporate every single word in the Oxford English Dictionary in this one book. Especially the verbs, adjectives and adverbs. I found this very distracting and, frankly, unnecessary. It took a lot away from the story, which could have been told in have the pages and, if you took away all the overuse of language, was unfortunately not that exciting after all.
Which makes me sad, because I did like the premise and the worldbuilding was super interesting. I wish we would have learned more about that. I also liked getting to know the characters one after the other. Unfortunately, the writing took away from both.
The characters did not seem too different from each other, because they all spoke with the same voice and used the same flowery language. On top of that, they didn't really do much in the story, didn't make many decisions that would allow them to show who they were, so they were not very distinguishable. Or maybe they did and I just didn't recognize it beneath all the words. I can get behind one or two characters speaking like that, but all of them? The no-bullshit, down-to-earth killing machine (who's the POV for most of the chapters) that is literally described as "just a weapon" speaks AND thinks like that? I don't believe it.
There were also a lot of spelling mistakes and parts of sentences that will probably be corrected in editing. The pronouns for two of the characters were all over the place, first they were established and then they were constantly misgendered in dialogue and inner monologue. I hope this will be corrected, too.
The worldbuilding I liked a lot, it was something new and interesting and it excited me. But again, do AIs speak and think in flowery language? All right, maybe those AIs are so far evolved from machines that they developed like that, it's her world, her choice. But then add all the references to current pop culture on top of that and I couldn't believe any of it, it didn't make sense.
The story that was there was entertaning and I wish I had gotten more of the characters interacting with each other and the world around them, going through friendship, love, hate, betrayal, and just basic survival in this strange, dangerous world.
But all in all, the writing took away too much for me to enjoy the experience of reading this book.
Thank you to Erewhon books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.