This is a sci-fi novel set in 2055 in, of course, the USA, because why else would anyone ever consider reading it?! It was over the top and had some issues, and while I had initially intended to give this a positive rating, the more I wrote of this review, the more I realized how sadly lacking the story was, and despite my having read it all and enjoyed parts of it, I really cannot in good faith rate this positively. Maybe I'd considered doing that because I'm just getting too sentimental. Or maybe I've read so many really bad books that even a middling novel sounds like it's worthy? Or maybe I just like LGBTQIA stories, even if they're less than stellar? I dunno! But to be fair to other reviews, I cannot honestly rate this positively given all the problems it exhibited.
On the good side, this story is made more believable by the inane excesses of intolerance generated over the last four years and the dire consequences those years have scarred the USA with. It shows that there are almost as many assholes in this country as there are decent people and it's a toss-up who will actually make the biggest impression on life here. Much like the nation, in the story, the main two characters are diametrically opposed at least ostensibly in this novel. One of them, Cass, was raised in a cult known as the Sapiens Movement, which believes that any cybernetic enhancement of humans, even for medical reasons, and regardless of how little or much it is invasive, makes a person less than human and not worthy of equal treatment.
Rather than go to a sapiens-approved college, Cass elects to go to a regular school, explaining to her family that if she's to help them in the movement, she must understand what they're up against. For reasons which are left unexplored, much less explained, her parents go along with this. Cass hasn't been honest with her roomie about her extreme beliefs and when she learns of Shelby's enhancements, she's dishonest with her parents about those, too. Cass is also a lesbian, and this is a problem in the sense that, if her parents are so dead set against anything unnatural, how is it they're so accepting of her being queer? Why do they not consider that unnatural? There's no consideration, let alone explanation, offered for this apparent contradiction in their beliefs.
Cass has been video-conferencing with her roommate to be, who she hasn't met in person. When they do meet, Cass discovers that Shelby, on a whim, has had one of her perfectly good arms removed and replaced by a mechanical one which has enhanced features (essentially it's a cybernetic Swiss army knife with a storage compartment). There never was any really compelling reason offered for her to make this choice, and no accounting for the fact that this major surgery was not done in a hospital, but in a cut-rate dive where unqualified or disqualified people do these surgeries and there's no government regulation!
This would be a major point in the favor of the Sapiens's position, yet never once is it used, nor is Cass appalled by how slapdash and dangerous this work is, not to say illegal! Shelby also has brain implants that allow her to access the internet without a terminal. The Internet - for reasons unexplained - is renamed the 'mantle' here. I doubt that will ever happen! It didn't feel organic and felt much more like the author had changed it solely for the purpose to trying to sound cool. Rather than cool, to me a mantle sounds vaguely threatening, like something an octopus traps its prey under before eating it!
The 'romance' between the two main characters was skirted around rather than plunged into. As important as it was, it deserved better than this. The author skips several weeks of their interactions, and after that unexplored period, we're just told they're an item - so all the magic and charm of their falling for each other is lost and this negatively and severely impacts the believability of their relationship. It makes it feel like it happened overnight although technically it did not.
I got the impression, rightly or wrongly, that the author is squeamish (or something) when it comes to depicting lesbian interaction. Why he would be, I don't know, but he offers virtually zero physical contact between the two of them at any point in the story; there's barely any hugging, touching, or kissing, let alone actual sex. Instead, he leaves us to infer it from a line here and a word there. This was less than satisfactory and made their relationship seem truly inauthentic, which in turn spoiled all of their subsequent actions.
On a trip to the Caribbean, Cass has a serious jet ski accident that almost kills her. Here's where another problem arises. Shelby supposedly has strong feelings for Cass, and knows perfectly well how anti-enhancement she is, yet she dishonestly lies to the medical staff about how tight their relationship is, and speaks for Cass as though they're married - or at least engaged. They're not! But Shelby overrides any considerations Cass might have had and while the latter is unconscious, Shelby supports and urges the doctors to save her life with enhancements. This is part of a push this novel exhibited from the start: that Cass's feelings and position are wrong and Shelby is right. No consideration, not even token, is given to Cass's position.
Cass is over eighteen and technically an adult, but she can't speak for herself after her injury, and never once does Shelby contact Cass's parents to let them know her daughter was at death's door. This felt like truly shifty behavior on Shelby's part , but the worst aspect of this is that Cass is pretty much completely accepting of it when she recovers consciousness. Despite her horror of enhancement and her upbringing, she doesn't fly off the handle at Shelby. There is no rift in their relationship! Again it felt completely unnatural. It's almost like Cass is "Oh, now I'm cyber! How awful! But okay, moving right along...." Honestly, it's that bad. Again, it's like the author had this agenda to push and nothing would trip it up. A fight between the roomies over this would have added so much more to the story, but the author evidently never considered it.
One of the biggest problems with this story is that we're in the future. Even now, a generation before this story begins, we're out there in terms of interconnectedness. Everyone has a platform and everyone is taking video and streaming it. How much more is that going to be the case in the future? Yet time and time again in this story, the author forgets how connected his world is. Of Shelby's ultra-cyber-ized brother Eric, I read, "He doesn't know you the way I do and he doesn't understand what I've learned since we've been together." Yet this is her brother who she's constantly sending messages back and forth to, directly from her own brain. It's inconceivable that she wouldn't have given him information about Cass, even if only in snippets in all those weeks they were sharing a room. Eric even mentions that he's heard a lot about Cass when they finally meet, yet Shelby apparently thinks he knows nothing? It made no sense.
Eric tells his sister: "I'll send you the final details on the time and place we're meeting in the morning Saturday as soon as we iron out our permits." Yet they're constantly in touch in the cyber-sphere. This lack of knowledge made no sense. During a protest, Shelby again isn't communicating so we're led to believe: "We have to get up to the front and help my brother. He doesn't know we're surrounded." How could he not know when everyone is connected? She can't text him? Can't send him an image? Can't send him a video? No-one else can? Once again, the author forgets his premise.
Even in 2021, scores upon scores of people shop online and get meals and groceries delivered more routinely than ever, yet I read, "She rode the elevator down to the ground floor and headed out to the street. It was time to get some shopping in." This was to buy food. Apparently a generation from now there's no more delivery? The author hasn't thought it through. With regard to test-taking we learned, "the professor can turn off access locally. The classrooms utilize a sort of virtual Faraday cage to shut down my implant's access during tests and quizzes. That ensures I actually learn the material." Yet they can't shut down local storage. Shelby could have entire textbooks stored in her implant and cheat up the wazoo, yet the author apparently never considers this.
Naturally 'dad of Cass' discovers his daughter's implants despite her efforts to lie to him and despite the fact that never once does she consider trying to ease her dad into her new way of life. Never once does she try to present an opposing view to his. Never once does she offer the argument that, "dad, if you don't want his stuff, that's fine! No-one' forcing you, but neither do you have the right to force others to live their lives like you want them to!"
There were so many ways that Cass could have eased the passage and been the very bridge she claims she wants to be if she'd had even half a spine, but she repeatedly fails. Predictably this results in dad finding out accidentally because he comes back to her dorm room after they think he's left and their door is open. The question is though - since he'd left the building, how did he manage to get into a secure building when he has no pass? This is quietly glossed over.
Psycho father flies off the handle and swears Cass is done with this school, but inexplicably, he doesn't try to drag her out of there! Instead he's talking about her finishing out the semester, so later, Cass tells Shelby, "No, you go and talk to Eric. That's important too." Why does she need to 'go and talk to Eric' about this when she can video-conference him right out of her brain? Again, the author hasn't thought his own world through.
Talking of which - in passing - there are no robots or drones mentioned at all in this world despite the fact that we have them ubiquitously even now. No robots helping the police quell a mob? No news drones filming from above? Again the sparsity of technology and the lack of foresight in this world was sad.
When Eric is injured during a protest rally, he's told, "Eric, we have to do something about what they did to you. We have to tell someone and take them to court or something." And we're apparently expected to believe that with all these cyber-enhanced people, and all the news media, and all the private citizens who have cell phones, not a single one of them recorded or live-streamed any of this?
This is a constant theme in the novel - of how utterly-connected the enhanced people are, but how appallingly sparse is the video coverage, even of activity like this. It made zero sense and constantly betrayed the author's prime position. And on top of this, we're expected to believe every police officer hates the enhanced, despite the fact that there would doubtlessly be enhanced officers and officers with enhanced children or spouses. Given the crime-fighting advantages a connected officer would have, there would more than likely have been an enhanced squad of police, just like there's a bomb squad and a SWAT team. Again, the author hasn't thought his world through, and it suffers for it.
It was for all of these serious writing problems and plot holes that I cannot consider this a worthy read.
