Positive4ColumnsAnother genius twist of the knife rather than a departure from her past works ... If genre-faithful true crime seeks sense in motive, Kraus is seeking those senseless systems that both produce violence and strip it of meaning ... What happens in private between Catt and her then-husband, Paul, is the emotional core of the novel ... [Kraus] takes the opportunity, yet again, to steer away from purity politics and get deeper into the muck we’re all mired in ... [One] section is jumbled; characters ramble in and out, as their family members enter and exit their lives or OD and vanish. Narrative breaks down, cars break down, social services break down.
Rave4ColumnsVividly translated ... Sparse yet unsparing, it is a riveting, merciless fable of blame, shame, and consequence ... It’s a total, self-encapsulating project—about a total, self-encapsulating doom.
Tim Maughan
PositiveBookforumOn its face, the internet kill switch is such an on-the-nose science fiction premise that it’s a wonder Maughan is the first author to get it to market. Luckily, in his hands, the broadstroke concept trickles down into weird and unexpected crevices: sage futurism, political treatise, and mournful meditation on the violence of technological dependency. Maughan writes in a swift, almost breathless present tense, as if he needs to get this out as quickly as possible. Maybe he does.
