pickYeah. Reread confirms, this is a book that's going to stay with me. I'm glad it's one I own, so I can revisit, probably annually. I think having experienced Tigerman by Nick Harkaway this past year, I have a new scale for 'heart-ripped out' books that affected me emotionally, but even knowing what was coming, this one still got to me. Grief, unshakeable, self-annihilating grief, is the undercurrent throughout the story, 1/?
Robotswithpersonality 2/? if you want to investigate the other nifty things you've heard about this book, just please be aware of this too. I love the premise, the world-building, the concepts that Hall has explored here, the fun with formatting! There's a good chunk of sci-fi speculation and a liberal sprinkle of horror, but there's also Ian the cat in all his disdainful glory and a fractured love story that hurts all the more for how briefly we see glimpses of it. 2d
Robotswithpersonality 3/3 As much as there's a great deal of ambiguity in the text, I think I should probably tack on a mental health concerns/suicidal ideation warning here just to be thorough. I can't guarantee you'll get out of this book what I did, but I can hope you find the experience worthwhile. Read with caution. 2d
so-so
pan