thealyssalo's Reviews (186)

I was extremely pleasantly surprised by this book. If you're a fan of The Poppy War, Dexter, or otherwise morally dubious characters, this is a book for you. Some plot moments were predictable, but overall this was an enjoyable read.

CN: Medical trauma, death

10:44:07 run time
Given the novel's epistolary format, I would highly recommend listening to the audiobook if you pick this up. The more subtle science fiction nature of this reminds me of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go while some of the government

(collapse)

/ religious elements reminded me a bit of 1984, though don't take that comparison too literally--it was more of the feel rather than direct thematic parallels.

I'm shelving this rather than DNFing. I'm busy right now and I don't want to try and rush through this and end up resenting the book. I read through part one and it's a pretty fast read. The writing felt a bit stilted at times and it seemed like that resulted from incorporating Japanese into the text. This is also a personal preference, but the Japanese words are italicized, which I'm not a fan of.

I have a lot of other books that I'm currently reading; I think I might pick this up again at a later point.