This isn't a novel. This is a pamphlet of personal vision of the world by the author. Claire North is always a must read for me. I read every book by her. I started reading her in French translation but for some reason she doesn't seem to be translated anymore so I decided to pick up where I left in English this time. She always has very intriguing premises and even if her ending where not always as good as her book, she did a good job every time so far. But this one... There is mostly no story, the small part there is is very repetitive and which a touch of what I would call British humor that didn't get well with my French Canadian humor style. But what mostly displease me was how much everything is just a pretext, an excuse, so can the author can tell us her opinion on every world problem there is right now. I agree with her more often then not, but the problem wasn't a divergence of opinion between the reader that I'm and the author that she is. My problem was that picking a Claire North novel was for me to read a good original and thrilling science-fiction/fantasy read. I don't mind mixing fiction with some facts or some personal thoughts here and there, but in this one, the personal thoughts represented around 80% of the book, that left very little space for the story. And I insist on thoughts, this aren't facts, some resonated with facts of course, but it's her own opinion that we get here and nothing more! This wasn't what I was expecting. This wasn't what I want. And I didn't like it. I do respect what she is trying to do, I love reading her style in her own language for the first time, and I did like the way she had with chapters format, or maybe more the overall organization of her book, exploring the world of her story in an unique way. But again, and I will quit eon that, this isn't a novel and I think that marketing it the way the publishing did gets a lot of reader to read something that they didn't want, maybe if readers where going in knowing what this truly is, then the overall ratings would be better. I will read the next Claire North for sure, I know that she has at least one, if not two, already out that I didn't read yet, but I hope she gets back to what she does best in my own personal opinion, which is telling great story with and original take to it.