I really enjoyed the overall story going on in this book, it had that conspiracy thriller going on. The overall feel worked and had that plot that I wanted from the description. The characters had that feel that I was looking for and enjoyed going on this journey. Natalie Docherty wrote this well and left me wanting to read more.

The writing, pacing, and chapter structure of this was artfully pulled together to create quite propulsive reading. The author has a good handle on how tech works which was refreshing! A lot of the shady stuff the Architects were cooking up were reasonably plausible. When I first started reading this, I was really enjoying it! But then, we spend a lot of time in a long YA-esque section on Spencer’s dating history which wasn’t so great. But when the lead women get magical powers, it totally fell over for me. 🫠

None of the characters felt like real people to me and our lead trio felt a lot younger than I think they were supposed to be. At times, the dialogue is quite stilted and unnatural which didn’t help. The characters were pretty one-dimensional and I wasn’t convinced by anyone’s motivation or the mechanics of the world in general.

Ultimately, I didn’t like this but I’m not sure it’s the book’s fault. I think it’s let down by its presentation. The cover suggests a more literary offering and the blurb is a bit interpretative (I genuinely didn’t think “powers” would be magical powers). Based on the cover and blurb, I was hoping for a dark, dystopian (maybe feminist?) tech thriller, not a heavily supernatural good vs evil showdown with spiritual themes. I wanted rich, dystopian world-building and less conspiracy theory. 🤷‍♀️ Compounding my frustrations, the book doesn’t end so much as stop, creating a cliff-hanger for a sequel.

There will be a readership for this: it might do well as YA or at least be a bit more explicit about the supernatural/magic elements so it can find it. If you're looking for the themes of Ripe or Severance, you won't find it here.

The folks who enjoy sci-fi dystopias or tech thrillers might not be the same folks keen to read about magical energies, sex magic, and conspiracy. I know I’ve been banging on about this for years but it’s a good example of why science fiction and fantasy really need to be decoupled.

Thank you Natalie Docherty, Netgalley and Pacific Books Press for this free ARCh in exchange for a review.

Despite the important, reality-based subject matter, the info dumps at the beginning were very annoying. This style of writing isn’t compelling. Showing what’s happening and avoiding telling, makes for compelling reading.

This went on for two chapters and that was more than enough, so I stopped reading. Life is too short to finish mediocre books.