I'm sorry, I just can't get past the same repeated phrase over and over again. Especially when it's so cheesy. The world is interesting enough, but I can't deal with the way the characters talk--especially when three different characters say the exact same fucking thing. 

 I really wanted to like this book. The world is interesting, though you are kind of thrown in at a weird place where there's nothing going on but a lot of sitting around and whining.

The main character is, quite frankly, annoying. If we weren't given the POV of the main villain, then it might have actually worked, but we are and the guy is so "Capital E" Evil, that watching the main character pine over him feels outrageous.

Having this guy be a Tzar who supposedly cared a ton about his people, all he's doing is lounging around and complaining about losing his villain husband while his subordinates are ready to do something about it. It's hard to understand why they love this guy and wanna support him when that's all he does.

There was also a significant amount of sex scenes in just the first 40% that I read. I don't take issue with sex scenes, but one chapter ended with one and then the next started with another two characters going at it and I'm not entirely sure what it was adding to the plot (especially at a juncture where we barely know any of these characters and are meant to be getting invested in them). It just felt like it was thrown in there to be salacious and while it might work for some, it didn't work for me. 

 I did try, but this just isn't something that is going to resonate with me. The narration is weird, even when the character isn't speaking, and it makes it annoying to follow. But it's also a really boring premise. I thought with the computer becoming more human-like, there would be something interesting to read, but the 'revolution' is just too boring to read about. I like political intrigue to an extent, but you have to have action and characters that can drive it along and this was dull.

Also, just reading the way the first female character was described... made me very uncomfortable. 

 I couldn't get past how annoying the love interest was. I wanted to strangle both characters after about 45% of this. 

 I can't say the book was bad, but it couldn't hold my interest after a while. The concept is interesting, but I just wasn't connected with the characters enough to want to keep reading. 

 I am trying to keep listening, but it's just dragging on. They introduce new POV characters so late that you have trouble really connecting to them. I just can't seem to care about any new people. 

 I actually thought this was pretty interesting at first, but it became painfully apparent it was written by a man very quickly when the married man started to have lustful rape thoughts about a woman they came across in the forest--but that's fine because he would NEVER actually act on them like other men.

Not too long later his wife predictably dies in childbirth so that he can then have sex with said woman (it's okay now because his wife is dead--still warm in the ground, mind you) and she tells him, "I loved you the first moment I saw you." But he's not sure how to respond or feel about it because he's so conflicted about his wife being dead even though he was fine with having sex with her. A few other things happen with the baby that he abandoned who was found and taken in by some monks and then suddenly he asks her to be his wife.

The entirety of it was so fucking cringey I wanted gag. Needless to say, after this all happened, I was done reading. That was the first 10% of the book and it was enough. 

 

 Here's my problem with this--it's written like a fanfiction. I say this because it is extremely choppy and disjointed. You're getting these small windows into daily life for these characters, but nothing particularly meaningful. It makes you want to care for them, but it's hard when you don't get a true sense of who they are through this.

In fanfiction this is commonly used (and it works) because you already know the essence of these characters and are only trying to tell the story itself. As a novel, though, it doesn't work because we have no idea who these characters <i>are</i> and these tiny snippets of dialogue and story meat don't actually give us enough to work with. Even the flashbacks for Graham aren't all that insightful, if I'm honest.

There's also a huge problem with the way this is narrated on audiobook which makes it feel even <i>more</i> choppy. There are these long, unnecessary pauses between sentences and dialogue that make me think the tape stopped rolling. It's only adding to the feeling that not enough of this story really exists.

I can say that after about 65% of the way through, there's not enough there for me to care to continue. I am not that invested in the characters and the choppy narrative is not going to convince me that there's more to be had. 

It was too damn cheesy and every conflict was overblown. 

I had no idea that it was actually going to be a relationship between a 10 year old and a 16 year old. I understand that "nothing" happened when they were kids, but it's still super fucking weird and irks hardcore.

If the language had been different during this time--like none of the "he belongs to me" shit when a kid is ten fucking years old, MAYBE I could have bought it. But this was WAY too weird.