PanThe Michigan DailyThis novel had so much potential, which is why its bizarre unraveling felt like a sort of betrayal, like I had been cheated ... it promised interconnected narratives, Murakami-esque surrealism and lesbians in love ... However, this novel revealed itself to actually be an unpleasant smorgasbord of several wildly different texts it was trying to be. Picture Sophie’s World, Cloud Atlas and some arbitrary science fiction novel about artificial intelligence put into a blender, except there are still huge chunks that weren’t blended properly and give you an unpleasant jolt when you accidentally bite into one ... the random interjections of philosophy and artificial intelligence feel jarringly out of place, diluting the novel’s resulting effect into pure frustration and pretentiousness. The rapid and abrupt changes in perspectives between each chapter gave this novel an untethered feeling that made it difficult to connect and empathize with any single character. The characters felt static and the dialogue was stilted and awkward ... Ward is obviously an immensely talented writer who is capable of producing such beautiful prose, but these scintillating gems in the text were not enough for me to ultimately say that I would feel confident recommending, or that I even enjoyed reading, this particular novel, Booker-nominated or not.
