The Tox...and all the questions that remain!

filled star filled star filled star star unfilled star unfilled
kitcatgirl2006 Avatar

By

I had such incredibly high hopes after seeing this beautiful and haunting cover and reading the premise of this book. I have never jumped into any virus-related fiction and was a bit apprehensive doing so with all that is going on in the world right now. However, these fears were completely unfounded because I spent a majority of the book not feeling afraid, but frustrated! Power has such interesting ideas and this book has unlimited potential, but she had no idea how to set up the novel. As a reader, I spent most of the time reading this wanting to know more about the characters and why I should feel invested in their relationships. If this book had solely been chapters from Byatt’s perspective, I would have been sold. However, ALL of Hetty’s chapters felt long and drawn out, needlessly expository, and I was just anxiously awaiting the end. The ending also wasn’t very satisfying and didn’t really leave the reader with enough to feel any sense of closure. I really feel this book was a short story written for grad school that got stretched into a novel, and I wish the author had made it into a full-blown book with more depth because there were so many avenues she could have explored.