Reviews and Comments

What happens if the AI that runs the galaxy determines that your world would upend the permanent harmony enjoyed everywhere and Earth needs to be expunged?

It's an excellent idea, and I enjoyed the rebel army fighting-for-a-cause-against-impossible-odds angle the book mainly sets itself in. But as David Mitchell said, "Are we the baddies?"



It got a little lost with alternate realities in the middle but brought it all back again with an exciting roller coaster end.

Much better than other reviewers have given it.

Sure, nothing much happens but it was easy to read and I enjoyed the unusually dense writing style and been stuck in Anna's head.

That said, at the end, I still had no idea if any of it was real. Was she a lunatic? Was he a controlling freak? Or had it all been imagined?

Anyway, I now know a lot more about opera and singing, so that was cool.

Great premise for a story as everyone at the age of 22 is suddenly able to find out when they will die. Of course the world loses its mind. The participants in this novel are in the US so they act even more irrationally and seek to marginalise those with shorter strings (the measure of a persons life).

Could have been great but ultimately loses its way an£ doesn’t explore the bigger story within. Why?

First, it is definitely not like the hunger games. Which doesn't make it bad, but it shouldn't be sold on that.

A wellness health retreat gone mad is the most apt description for it. It is difficult to like any of the characters in the novel, though. Possibly that is the point, everyone is flawed and struggles with mental health issues.

It could have been five stars, but the book just ends without any conclusion, kind of like the author got bored or wrote himself into a corner.