"Taut and elegant, carefully introspected and thoughtfully explored."—The New York Times
From Hugo award-winning author Sarah Pinsker comes a novel about one family and the technology that divides them.
Everybody's getting one.
Val and Julie just want what’s best for their kids, David and Sophie. So when teenage son David comes home one day asking for a Pilot, a new brain implant to help with school, they reluctantly agree. This is the future, after all.
Soon, Julie feels mounting pressure at work to get a Pilot to keep pace with her colleagues, leaving Val and Sophie part of the shrinking minority of people without the device.
Before long, the implications are clear, for the family and society: get a Pilot or get left behind. With government subsidies and no downside, why would anyone refuse? And how do you stop a technology once it's everywhere? Those are the questions Sophie and her anti-Pilot movement rise up to answer, even if it puts them up against the Pilot's powerful manufacturer and pits Sophie against the people she loves most.
The idea behind this book is what grabbed. Unfortunately the execution, with the multiple POVs, was not carried out particularly well. You don't spend enough time with one character to really get a feel for the pros and cons of this new digital world. As a result, you jump from person-to-person without much of an opinion or a care for what happens to the characters.
I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.