Unfortunately, this wasn’t for me, and I stopped reading a third of the way through.
I wish I could say what the book was about - but it eludes me, even though I’ve read a full third of it. There are two major threads: Belle has a slightly mysterious background and goes to work for the mysterious Sophia, CEO of the mysterious Ecclestone Evolution, who are doing some mysterious work. It’s a grab-bag of future tech in a callous and unfeeling world: AI that’s “orders of magnitude” more powerful than a human brain, life-extending medical breakthroughs, bringing extinct animals back to life, lack of ethics or any kind of oversight, etc; and then there is Seth, a downtrodden worker just trying to make his way in a callous and unfeeling world, after a string of personal tragedies, while everyone’s jobs are being replaced by machines and there doesn’t appear to be any employment law.
Presumably these two threads come together later in the book.
There were a few reasons why I decided not to continue with this book, but overall it’s because my lack of engagement with any of the characters, coupled with a writing style that I found to be a distracting obstacle to my enjoyment, outweighed my curiosity about what was going on.
The writing style includes a lot of exposition - we’re told about what people are thinking and feeling, rather than allowing it to unfold through the actions and reactions of the characters. For me, this contributed significantly to my lack of engagement. But then suddenly there are pages of unbroken direct dialog between two characters - just line after line of quoted speech for page after page. I lost track of who was speaking several times. Then we’re back to the ponderous exposition again.
The pacing is also extremely inconsistent. The storyline around Belle and Sophia is almost glacially slow. For chapter after chapter very little happens beyond the drip-feed of mysterious goings-on at Ecclestone Evolution (did I mention that it was mysterious?). Every so often a nugget of what’s going on is revealed, but this feels like the author is dragging it out, presumably to create suspense and intrigue, but I found it transparent and irritating. And then Seth’s storyline is at express pace - hardly has he navigated one major or traumatic life event, than he’s negotiating the next. And while there is tragedy in his story, the whirlwind of plot doesn’t allow the time or space for any kind of emotional development or engagement.
The author seems to have some broad brush political opinions about corporate behaviour, which are ladled on in big dollops in both Seth’s storyline and Belle/Sophia’s - and it’s not clear whether these would have eventually become central to the plot, or whether the author just has a bit of an axe to grind and is using this book as a platform. And at one point, one of the characters who has a history of mental illness is referred to as “backwards” by one of the other characters. So perhaps I’ll take the author’s kind offer to bestow the benefit of his opinions on me, and leave it at the door.
Kthxbye.
Thank you #NetGalley and the author for the free review copy of #TitansTears in exchange for an honest review - for which I also apologise. All opinions are, clearly, my own.
My rating: ★☆☆☆☆
