I am no connoisseur of dystopian fiction, so this is probably more relevant for all the dystopia-avoidant readers like me. Those depressing, dreadful, bleak futures that leave me with sad, dark, hopeless feels. This one was no exception, but it was also interesting. No regrets. 

Energy: Assiduous. Macabre. Watchful. 

 

🐕 Howls

The business talk in the “before” chapters initially bored me. Having backstories and tangents inserted in the middle of conversations…by the time a character finally answered a question, I had to flip back to remember what was even asked. A main character that we can root for (and I was) made this even more stressful and anxiety-inducing (that one’s a me-problem!). 

 

Had me all thoughtful about what I was reading. How characters don’t fully understand the tech driven world they live in (much like our own) felt believable. Portraying Ai as a normal, ever-present part of society that could be good, bad, or neutral depending on how people use it. The length of the story was just right.  

 

Scene: 🌎🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇧 A remote island in a tropical climate. Moments in Toronto Canada; Los Angeles, California; and London, England.

Perspective: A Chief Emotional Manager (part personal assistant to the CEO, part Chief of Staff) for an affective computing start-up who is flying with the team to celebrate the selling of the company.  

Timeline: Nearish future. Then (when MC was first hired) and now (after plane crash and company sold). 

🔥 Fuel: Inferring as we get more of the story. Tension, high stakes survival in a strange world. Thrown in the story figuring it out as we go. Why did they crash? What is the backstory for the team dynamics? Who built the seemingly abandoned mansion? Why was it programmed to do what it does?   

📖 Cred: Tech sci-fi realism

 

Synthetic agarwood. Palm trees. Poutine. Fresh coffee. Tanned leather. Sunburnt skin. Opaque glass. Cashmere. 

·       Imagining dystopian ‘what ifs’ of the future

·       Hitchcockian/Twilight Zone/Black Mirror grimdark mystery vibes

·       Surreal survival techno thriller 

·       Show not tell style of worldbuilding

·       Sprinkling of body horror and grotesque

·       Start-ups, tech bros, men behaving very badly

·       Remote island, everyone dropping like flies 

·       Good for them revenge 

·       Femme fatale meets homme fatale

·       Touch of antihero origin story

·       Third person style narration, getting info from the narrator while watching everything unfold

 

Content Heads-Up: Plane crash. Blood, injury, wounds, first aid/medical (graphic, on page). Death, corpses. Suicide (mention, discovery). Loss of parents (as teen). Fire (building; burns, fatalities). Misogyny, toxic masculinity. Alcohol (stress drinking). Stalking, obsession. Sexual content. Voyeurism, emotional abuse (of child). Domestic abuse. Murder. Dismemberment (brief). Confinement. 

 

Rep: Canadian. American. Persian, Kazakh, Indigenous ancestry. Cis. Hetero. Lesbian. Scars. 

 

📚 Format: Library Hardcover