Sneak preview reviw:
Hooooow is this still over a month away?

I grabbed the free preview over at Net Galley, and got so into it that I completely forgot it was only a preview and got upset when the page wouldn't turn no matter how much I pushed the button.

Sigh.

Isla isn't my favorite so far (lots of secondhand awkward embarrassment), but it still has all the Stephanie Perkins charm that makes her novels so readable and loved, and I only read about 30? 50? pages so that is obviously subject to change.

GET HERE ALREADY

I cannot believe how much of the climactic drama in this book was because of a goddamn NAME.

Still, stupidly addictive and I'll be on to the next one.

Well, that was 500+ pages of a lukewarm plot, a love story that tries too hard to compare itself to Pride and Prejudice, and a heroine who was anything but.

The world building was pretty decent, but that alone was not enough to save this from being anything but a big snooze.

I rated this two stars in the true "it was okay" sense of the rating. The idea behind this is kind of fantastic and unique (to me, anyway), but playing out the murder mystery is where everything fell flat. Too much had to be told in scenes reminiscent of every cop show where the tech geek spells everything out (especially needed here because the tech is made up and thus needs the exposition) so the audience can follow.

Usually something like this could be saved by great characters, but there were none here. Everyone is cut from the same murder mystery cloth.

...This is a lot more than I anticipated writing on the mobile app.

I've enjoyed other Scalzi novels a lot more than Lock In. The idea is great, but the execution, not so much.