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sarakomo 's review for:
Machines Like Me
by Ian McEwan
2020: Woof. I love McEwan, but this novel had so many weird characteristics that really bothered me that I can’t rate it higher than 3 / 5.
This book wants to go in so many different directions, and tries to deal with so many possibilities. The novel is set in an alternate version of 1980’s London, and it’s very disorienting, trying to reconcile references to events that didn’t occur and people that should have been dead. Was it set in this time period just so Turing could be considered feasibly aged? Very odd to be reading about leaving the EU in the 80’s, seems strange not to have just set the novel in present day. Also, if the technology had progressed as quickly as is claimed in this alt-history, there would definitely be social media around.
McEwan also lost me when he let his main character waffle when deciding whether to trust his partner that she had been raped. Not only did McEwan, only a couple of pages earlier, mention that Charlie wanted to marry Miranda, but the courts had even ruled in her favor. Why on earth was he even doubting that this happened? In this family, we believe victims. I ultimately liked where the plot went in an attempt to recover from this betrayal, but McEwan tried to make Adam out to be the villain in the end. I never got back on board to liking Charlie after this whole sequence.
A number of other frustrating inconsistencies kept popping up: I found it very hard to believe that this young woman, aged 22, who was still in school, wanted to adopt a five year old. NO WAY. I also found it unlikely that her rapist would have received three years in prison for a crime with no witnesses, when Brock Turner swindled his way into three months. Do I hate that I find that unbelievable? Yes. ALSO I do not believe this novel passes the Bechdel test. Unacceptable.
Ultimately, this book left me with an awful lot to mull over when I finished, especially in regards to right vs wrong, truth vs lies. I enjoyed the questions that McEwan brought up, but found his characters to be unlikable and unbelievable.
This book wants to go in so many different directions, and tries to deal with so many possibilities. The novel is set in an alternate version of 1980’s London, and it’s very disorienting, trying to reconcile references to events that didn’t occur and people that should have been dead. Was it set in this time period just so Turing could be considered feasibly aged? Very odd to be reading about leaving the EU in the 80’s, seems strange not to have just set the novel in present day. Also, if the technology had progressed as quickly as is claimed in this alt-history, there would definitely be social media around.
McEwan also lost me when he let his main character waffle when deciding whether to trust his partner that she had been raped. Not only did McEwan, only a couple of pages earlier, mention that Charlie wanted to marry Miranda, but the courts had even ruled in her favor. Why on earth was he even doubting that this happened? In this family, we believe victims. I ultimately liked where the plot went in an attempt to recover from this betrayal, but McEwan tried to make Adam out to be the villain in the end. I never got back on board to liking Charlie after this whole sequence.
A number of other frustrating inconsistencies kept popping up: I found it very hard to believe that this young woman, aged 22, who was still in school, wanted to adopt a five year old. NO WAY. I also found it unlikely that her rapist would have received three years in prison for a crime with no witnesses, when Brock Turner swindled his way into three months. Do I hate that I find that unbelievable? Yes. ALSO I do not believe this novel passes the Bechdel test. Unacceptable.
Ultimately, this book left me with an awful lot to mull over when I finished, especially in regards to right vs wrong, truth vs lies. I enjoyed the questions that McEwan brought up, but found his characters to be unlikable and unbelievable.