empressbrooke
Written on Jan 11, 2019
I see a lot of reviews raving about the world-building, but I honestly think that the book really fell down on this. The premise is that the Pittsburgh was vaporized by a bomb, and the main character is a survivor of the blast who works in an immersive digital archived version of the city to resolve insurance claims filed for the dead. Throughout the rest of the country, people are connected to the internet through neuro implants and live on a steady diet of violent and pornographic content. The political situation seems to have deteriorated enough that the president convinced everyone to install her for life, and she holds yearly televised executions of criminals.
The lack of world-building means that there really isn't any explanation for how we got there or how everything is connected. Did Pittsburgh lead to the president becoming a dictator? Did it happen before that? Did the bomb result in everyone's desire for more explicit and brutal entertainment to keep them distracted from real life (although people seem to otherwise go about life normally with their families and friends and jobs and art and gardening and community events)? The bomb happened 10 years prior to when the book takes place, and no other events are referred to happening in the interim. It isn't clear if other changes were made to the political system other than the ones I mentioned above. These pieces of this world are three separate things presented without any connections made between them, and it felt confusing and downright lazy.
Also lazy: how the author treats women. The main character is utterly fixated on multiple deceased women. His life revolves all of these dead women who are fridged to give him his motivation, and the author does nothing interesting with this tired, awful trope. To make matters worse, the bad guys responsible for most of these women's deaths are so unbelievably, cartoonishly evil and no reason at all is given for why they are the way they are. The author doesn't even try to come up with even the flimsiest of excuses, they are just presented as going about their evil business. All of the women in the book have nicknames given to them by men who abuse and kill them, and the main character only ever calls them by these nicknames instead of their real names, despite knowing their real names. It all just feels so ick.
There seems to be hints and wisps of themes the author is trying to develop, but he just didn't bring it all together. If there is supposed to be some sort of commentary or critique of how women are treated in media (maybe?), the author just tossed all the pieces onto the table without putting them together.
For an example of a book about a man's abusive fixation on a woman that brings something new to the table and is handled very cleverly, check out [a:R.O. Kwon|16556776|R.O. Kwon|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1520354743p2/16556776.jpg]'s [b:The Incendiaries|41020920|The Incendiaries|R.O. Kwon|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1533130312s/41020920.jpg|55674919], I think about this one a lot and wish I had re-read it before sending it back to the library.