Eric Mesa

It's the future. Earth has been destroyed, and the only thing that survived is early 21st century social commentary. I got the audiobook with an open mind (Brendan Fraser lending his talents certainly helped) and hoping for an engaging story. But I was disappointed by a ramblind, disjointed, and poorly written story where people do stuff and everyone tries to speak like a narrator. I definitely think the epistolary style failed the story- not due to incompatibility, but in execution. Having the characters relate their events necessitates a writing style that mimics speech. When narrating an event, nobody tries to embellish their speaking with unnecessary fluff ("I asked gently", or "they stood up menacingly"). In that way, the author pushed his narration style into the characters' mouths and forced them to sound like they were desperation for literary approval. Other than that, the near-constant movie & pop culture references, as well as socially polarized terms (like 'dead-named') only served to make the environment feel less like the future and more like the present. There were also weird twists and turns in the plot that were as unpleasant as they were expected, which felt as if they were put there only to heighten tension (which they didn't). Finally were issues with physics that were so glaringly obvious that they exceeded this reader's ability to suspend disbelief. For instance, if the world were to be liquified it would require so great an energy input as to completely destroy everything around it. There's no escaping that. Again, shoehorned plot. Blech. On the positive side, the story did end. I'm very grateful for that. Keep that part going, please.