Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Misty

I read this book as the first in what I intended to be a "best of
sci-fi summer," and though I don't know if I will stick to that, this
was a good first book. It is interesting in its use of language, which
is not dumbed-down per se, but is simplified to the logical conclusion,
full of all those trendy little shortenings of words that keep
bastardizing language until it conveys nothing (there is a quote in
there somewhere, I think from Jane Austen or Margaret Atwood -- I know,
how different could they be -- about the point of language being to
obfuscate, not convey, but that is beside the point). This book is all
bout consumerism taken to extremes, and the lives that creates. The
book lulls you with the language and the fast pace, and then Anderson
drops these little jems in your lap that make you stop and really
think, which is admirable in any book let alone a YA. Really well done
and accessible once you get the language down, and worth it if only for
the conversations it will provoke. And because I am a quote-freak, here
is one of the shorter ones I loved from this book:



"The only thing worse than the thought it may all come tumbling down is the thought that we may go on like this forever."