By M. T. Anderson.
So there's like, this kid, and he goes to, like, the moon, and has a really unmeg time except that he meets this girl—
I'm already tired of that. This world in this book is definitely a dystopia and I saw the ending coming a long way off, despite hope that I would be wrong. I suppose the interesting thing about it is how you say "That would never happen"—and then have to ask yourself how much of it could actually happen. (Like a caricature, it stretches real concerns into grotesque shapes while leaving them recognizable.)
The teen characters are too much like some teens, which is to say, kind of boring and obsessed with their feeds. (How many people do you know who check MySpace or Facebook constantly? The feed is the same thing, brought to you by a chip in your head.)
As far as being a tragedy, I think it lacked some of the beauty other tragedies have, although it seemed just as inevitable. It reminded me of The Wreck of the River of Stars, with both the inevitability and the flawed characters creating their own doom. Unfortunately, here the characters (except for Violet and her dad, and sometimes Titus) aren't even interesting. There are hints of a larger plot going on in the world but the story never seems to follow up. (Perhaps there's a sequel?)
Despite a couple moments that made me gasp out loud (and the question Violet wants the answer to) I didn't enjoy this book that much. But I suspect that wasn't the point, anyway.
Apologies for the rambling review; I'm a bit out of practice and don't feel like proofreading right now. I'm still looking forward to Octavian Nothing Vol. 2 (came out a week ago).
