This book is terrifying and heartbreaking all at the same time. The characters are easy to follow and each just the right amount of general awfulness, but you still cannot help but feel bad for them and wish for the better. It is the combination of a Black Mirror episode and The Truman Show movie (with Jim Carey, look it up), and takes what we know about technology and shows us what horrible things can be done with it.
As somebody who loves technology but is deathly afraid of how it could be used to destroy us, this book was almost like reading a thriller. But I still loved it, nonetheless. The story is seen from the viewpoint of two characters revolving around the life of themselves and a third person, which I think was done really well. The timelines start to converge near the end, when the past and present finally catch up to each other and everybody is reunited at last.
I do wish that we learned of the phenomenon, The Spill, a little earlier. Or at least, more details of it just so we, the reader, could find out earlier why this phenomenon shook the whole world so heavily. Also I am a little confused about the "fog" people get into from the use of phones, but I know a similar situation is being looked into in the real world, where nobody knows the long term effects of cell phone use.
This novel makes you take an inward look at your own social media and cell phone usage. How, in this day and age it is weird to go out in public and see somebody NOT on their phone but actually looking at their surroundings. How many articles and TedTalks there are on how your follower count does not determine your worth, and how oversharing in this day in age can only bring more harm than good. It is all talked about in this book, disguised in the need for one girl to achieve fame and the other trying to get away from it. Nobody wants to admit how much our smartphones dominate our daily lives, but I promise it will be worth it to put them down and read this book for a change. I like books that make you think, make you reflect on your own habits. This one will do that, in the same way Black Mirror does, but in a more subtle and tasteful way.
As somebody who loves technology but is deathly afraid of how it could be used to destroy us, this book was almost like reading a thriller. But I still loved it, nonetheless. The story is seen from the viewpoint of two characters revolving around the life of themselves and a third person, which I think was done really well. The timelines start to converge near the end, when the past and present finally catch up to each other and everybody is reunited at last.
I do wish that we learned of the phenomenon, The Spill, a little earlier. Or at least, more details of it just so we, the reader, could find out earlier why this phenomenon shook the whole world so heavily. Also I am a little confused about the "fog" people get into from the use of phones, but I know a similar situation is being looked into in the real world, where nobody knows the long term effects of cell phone use.
This novel makes you take an inward look at your own social media and cell phone usage. How, in this day and age it is weird to go out in public and see somebody NOT on their phone but actually looking at their surroundings. How many articles and TedTalks there are on how your follower count does not determine your worth, and how oversharing in this day in age can only bring more harm than good. It is all talked about in this book, disguised in the need for one girl to achieve fame and the other trying to get away from it. Nobody wants to admit how much our smartphones dominate our daily lives, but I promise it will be worth it to put them down and read this book for a change. I like books that make you think, make you reflect on your own habits. This one will do that, in the same way Black Mirror does, but in a more subtle and tasteful way.