Joel Padgett

wanted to enjoy this more. A little political intrigue;a little queerness and wrapped into a bow of Vietnamese heritage. But the rhythm of the writing was off for me. So much that I only made it halfway through before giving up.

This one should have been a slam dunk for me and ultimately I will read the next one if it happens but hopefully the author will get a more knowledgeable editor.

The protagonist’s thing is linguistics and having her diagram sentences frequently is cool and expected but having those sentences only in the diagrams breaks the focus of the reader (me).

Make sure the author is up to the mettle of her budding genius creation. If someone says “…he could care less”, there is no way someone has pendantic as Maggie wouldn’t flag that as incorrect even if only in her thoughts.

But worse for me is the avoidance of action. We only hear about most of that as exposition from mostly Maggie after the fact.

I enjoyed the plot, the story and the storytelling. The author, though, kept attempting unique turns of phrases or descriptions but they were not grounded enough to evoke or describe their targets.

I enjoyed this immensely.  I was lured in by the analytical serial killer premise, which is a favorite area of interest, but then it blossomed into other fun directions which skirted my own past. I am around the same age as the protagonist and grew up in the world of BBSes, phreaking, etc.... Some might be turned off by the technospeak as the author dives into lower level details, but I ate it up. It was also a bit jarring that federated social media is a focal point given it is so relevant to today but was written almost 10 years ago. Already start book 2 and then jumping to the author's other series.  

Unfortunately this one was more a long set up for the next book than a standalone.