Girlie Delmundo is the greatest content moderator in the world, and despite the setbacks of financial crises, climate catastrophe, and a global pandemic, she’s going places: she’s getting a promotion. Now thanks to her parent company Paragon’s purchase of Fairground, she’s on the way to becoming an elite VR moderator, playing in the big leagues and, if her enthusiastic bosses are to be believed, moderating the next stage of human interaction. When she meets William Cheung, Playground’s wry, reticent co-founder (now Chief Product Officer) and slowly unearths some of his secrets, and finds herself somehow falling in love, she’ll learn that history might be impossible to moderate and the future utterly impossible to control.
This setup gives Castillo a long satirical runway, even some room for light sci-fi—all to the good. But Moderation is really a romantic comedy of the I-fell-for-my-boss variety. Though the love story left me cold...I applaud its trappings, which are daringly loveless, even churlish ... Castillo, despite some missteps, has the confidence to pull it off—but it’s a dangerous game.
Castillo has important things to say about the internet, trauma and true connection, but it’s a shame that this novel wasn’t polished to make it clearer or more enjoyable to read.
Canny ... Castillo has potent themes to work with ... Disappointingly, she seems more content to skim surfaces than probe depths. Her narratorial tactic of choice is to tell and tell ... Not without merits. Castillo is a writer of razor-sharp acuity who takes seriously the sinister instrumentalisation of storytelling, in a world increasingly veering right.
