I’m sure Ling Ma gets this all the time now, but this book has nothing to do with the TV show. Based on what I know about the show, I suspect some similarities in setting or theme, but the show is not based on the book. 

This is one of those books that I can objectively see all of the elements of the story and how they fit together to make a strong piece of writing, but the elements, in the configuration they were presented, just didn’t work for me, which is a real shame because all of these elements seem like they are things I could very much enjoy. The biggest problem for me (and this is something I’ve recently learned about myself) is that heavy-handed theming detracts a lot from a book for me. I want things to be subtle, light, and nuanced; I want characters to never settle, I want plots that aren’t propulsive, I want themes that have to be carefully picked out and can only be seen from the corner of your eye. This book is not that. Themes are delivered with a sledgehammer. I liked the set-up of this woman managing the production of Bibles—honestly, I’d read a dark comedy about that because the are layers there—but the author didn’t let the symbolism stand; instead, she spelled out exactly what she was trying to say. 

This is not to say these themes are bad, on the contrary, they are very important and in a post-2020 world, the book confronts very pressing questions about what the future could and should look like, but I just wish the questions had been presented with some more subtlety and nuance.