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WTF did I just read?

Ever been in one of those situations where you know something is wrong? Alarm bells are ringing, red flags waving, and yet you can't really identify the problem. You see hints of it maybe here and there, but there is nothing definite, nothing solid. And at so many levels.

Everything about this setup is so wrong. I'm going to spoiler tag the rest of this because I just can't think of any way to talk about it without spoiling. Understand, this is not a long story and everything seems significant one way or another.

Why does no one ever go there? Both of them have jobs, they have coworkers. There needs to be something around, someplace where these people live. Where they buy their groceries. Where their kids go to school, and similar. But yet, Junior and Hen might be the only people on the planet as far as we can tell.

Why do they never talk about anyone else? Or, for that matter, anything else? Again, they have jobs, they have coworkers. And yet neither one ever mentions a funny story from work, a joke shared among coworkers, a coworker who royally pissed you off. Nothing. They have screens but yet never speak about anything they see or read? This is weird.

Why do neither of them appear to react to Terrance and the news he brings? I mean seriously, if someone showed up one day and gave a line of bull like Junior and Hen got, I'd be telling everyone I knew. I'd be contacting the police. Is this for real? Is this legit? WTF! And yet, Junior and Hen seem almost completely unaffected by the news. Unrealistically passive.

And it gets better. Someone moves from a house and leaves a piano in the basement that just gets randomly found? They would leave live chickens in the barn without making arrangements for their care?

Junior and Hen have no pasts. The most we get of their lives before they got married is the first time Junior saw her. And again, no mention or anyone or anything else. No matter how introverted, our lives are a long string of personal connections going from birth to the now. And yet for Junior and Hen, there is nothing. its like a giant abyss. Notice how the description of Hen's home growing up is a run down farm house, just like the one they bought after they married?

Terrance walks into the mill where Junior works like he already knows the place. Knows exactly where the bathroom is located. Where is everyone and why does no one show up until after Terrence goes to the bathroom. Why does no one blink an eye about Terrance being there? How can Terrence instantly replace Junior at his job?

Nothing changes. Its always hot summer. It never rains. Hen is always wearing her black tank top.

And the beetles. Literal bugs in the system. To spy? Possibly. Symbols of bugs in the code? Also possible.

Notice how both replacement Junior and replacement Hen freeze staring at one of those beetles, neither reacting to them in any way and staying that way for way way too long.I had hopes that when real Junior returned that their relationship would be better. And yet that Junior was every bit as self centered as the replacement.

And near the end I wondered, maybe Replacement Junior and Replacement Hen might have been happy together and pity original was back.

And then I wondered, is this all for original Junior? This was his happiness. It was where he wanted to be, how he wanted his life to be, not Hen. He was the only one who attempted to get rid of one of the beetles too. Even original Hen didn't do that. Was this all for him? Though it doesn't explain why he was the one who went away initially.

Or did he even ever go away? Was he ever there? The first line in the book is Replacement Junior seeing the headlights. Was there a past before that moment?

There is a lot to digest in such a short book. I'm going to have to reread it at some point.

Taking down half a star due to what I felt were some pacing problems.

As a very long time fan of speculative fiction, I'm gonna say something.

This is not a horror book.

Now maybe some more hard core horror fans might disagree, but having glanced through reviews after having finished, I suspect at least some of the lower rated reviews are because of misled expectations. Because this is not a horror book.

This is a Science Fiction book.

All through the book I kept waiting for horror elements. Other than a couple of very minor things early on, and the very very last bit, there really didn't seem to be any. And the entire time I kept thinking that I felt like I was reading a SF dystopia novel instead.

Yeah, its not in the future. There's no advanced tech or space travel. No robots or alien intelligences. There is nothing that says this could not be happening at this very instant in our very real world. But the ideas seem very SF to me.

I recommend this book. I enjoyed it. But check your expectations at the door.

Please sir, can I have some more?

My inner 8 year old squeed through the entire book.

This review will refer to my review of the first book here
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1369172522

So, this was much improved. Unlike the first, there was no real preaching, which was much appreciated. I don't like being preached at, even if its something I agree with.

Unlike the first book, there was also conflict and character development, which was a huge improvement. There was tension, I was actually curious on what was going to happen instead of waiting for something interesting to actually happen.

But what makes this earn its 4th star are the journeys both Jane\Pepper and Lovelace\Sidra took. Similar but each unique to themselves.

A few of the ideas that come up are things like being shaped by others, finding your identity, and independence. There may have even been some body dysmorphia in there as well

If this had been the first book, I might be eager to continue with the rest of the series. But the actual first book left such a bad taste in my mouth that its dampening my enthusiasm. I likely will, but I need a break first.

–edit–
I read reviews of the next book. Nope, that's it for me. Lets leave this at a high note.

This was an odd book. The characters are likable enough, but it seemed to be lacking in an overall story, more feeling like a long stream of semi random events in the lives of the characters.

There was also no real conflict. I mean things happened that the characters had to react to, but once the immediate was done, it was done and over. I honestly have no clue where this series might be going. Actions that might have been the source of conflict between different characters in other stories were just brushed aside way too easily.

It was also somewhat heavy handed when it came to its messages. Its not that I disagree with them, but they were blatantly obvious and tended to happen one after the other. It sometimes felt more like I was being preached to than reading a story for enjoyment.

Which makes it seem somewhat odd as well given one particular scene.
When Jenks changes his mind about the the body kit, Lovey just says something along the lines of "its ok, I was only doing it for you" and that was that, resolved and done. It felt rather creepy to me that Lovey was supposed to be a person to his eyes and yet all she was doing was molding herself to his desires and this was ok. No discussion about how it should have been her real choice, it was just ok. If Lovely is supposed to be a person, supposed to be sentient, that would absolutely not be ok in any way, shape, or form.Yes, the body kit comes into play at the end of the book, but instead they could have decided to wait until after the mission to go through with the change, and then the events that transpired caused Lovey's death, which would have added to Jenks' grief. He would have been so close to getting his desire. Blaming himself thinking if they hadn't been delayed that she would have survived.
Given the messages in the rest of the book, this just came across as rather creepy.

And then there was what happened between Corbin and Ohan.This was not ok, not in the slightest. Ohan's right to make their own personal choices about their own body and life was violated. This would have been a wonderful opportunity to discuss conflicting morals. When does a persona's right to live their life as they see fit, to die as they see fit (death with dignity anyone?) end? Jehovah's Witnesses believe its against God's will to receive blood transfusions, even if it would be life saving. Is it ok for a doctor to force the subject against the patient's wish? If it is, then where do we draw the line?

Whether or not I agree with what was done, the result was just Ashby shrugging his shoulders and saying its over now so its ok. The author shows no interest in actually delving into what a true diverse society actually is, a huge mass of compromises and conflicting ideas, morals, societies, cultures, and similar. Instead it was “the right thing” to happen because it was the author's personal belief and she designed the story to make it so.

And then the scene with Rosemary and Sissix after their visit to her world. I have no problems with interspecies relationships. I've been reading SF/F for most of my life, this is nothing new. But the way it happened feels creepy to me again. Rosemary realizes that the crew is Sissix's Feather Family and its not the same as the affection and custom's Sissex would normally have. She wishes to offer Sissex more and that's perfectly fine. But it immediately goes straight to the sex part. It would have worked better if Rosemary had shown some kind of interest in Sissex like that prior to visiting her world. Instead it comes across more like Rosemary molding herself to what she thinks Sissex needs instead of it being something she already desires and has found the opportunity to move forward with it. It again is something that comes across as creepy to me and it also stands out in my mind that in both cases it is happening to female characters.

I will continue with the next book. As I said, the characters were likable enough that I'm willing to keep going to see if it gets any better, less preachy, or maybe even finds some kind of character growth. Something other than a novel full of “diversity is wonderful!” and nothing more.

I don't know if you can say I am a fan or horror. Instead its more accurate to say I enjoy a specific spooky creepy type flavor that can be so difficult to find. If anyone can tell me what that flavor actually is and help me find a way to find more of it, I'd be eternally grateful.

So, the description of the book really drew me in. It sounded like it might be right up my alley. And the scene with the video mentioned in the book's description pretty much nailed it. Sadly, it was the only such scene in the book. However, plot wise, I was still quite drawn in.

Yes, the title character is a complete and utter self centered egotistical ass. And I was tempted to stop early on thinking an entire book of this guy was going to be too much. But again, the plot kept dragging me on. Overall it was a worthwhile read even though it wasn't exactly what I had hoped it would be.

minor non plot spoiler
Plus I am a sucker for unreliable narrators. Once we started getting the inserted text from others who had witnessed events, it started to become clear that what we were being told was a rather edited truth and I was also eager to see how the picture would eventually turn out.

Note: spoilers for Birdbox

What I loved so much about Birdbox was that out encompassed everything I like about horror. So much is unknown. We don't know what they are, how many of them there are, why they are here, where they came from, what are their motivations, do they even notice us or are we as inconsequential as a small ant on the wall? All that is known is that looking at them will cause you to go violently insane. That in my mind is horror. The mind goes wild imagining the possibilities, terror building at every second.

And, in the end, it ended like a good horror book should end. Perhaps safety, but no answers. If you've got answers, you lose so much of the terror.

This book, while good, was missing some of the magic of the first.

Olympia being immune seemed too convenient. Tom's mirrored glasses took away too much of the unknown. And the known just doesn't hold the same terror.

So yeah, I was a little disappointed. However the scene in the pit was downright excellent. I would be tempted to rate this as 3 stars, but that one scene brings it back to 4.

Months later and I'm still still stumbling around here.

There were some happenings in this book, especially in the later parts, which basically made the hair on the back of my neck stand up straight and I was left with a very uneasy feeling that it sheds the events in both books in an entirely new light.

I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this.

Its not often I read a book where you get grabbed roughly in the first couple of paragraphs and then forcefully dragged along until the very end. Starting this on a Sunday afternoon meant I was missing some serious sleep on Monday morning. :)

I am an odd fan of horror, if you can actually call me that. The usual horror tropes I find to be dull, boring, unimaginative, and frankly an insult to my intelligence most of the time. I think its because they tend to lean too heavily on the tropes without adding any creativity to the mix.

Someone passing out or dying from fright because they are in a graveyard (yes I have read this!) makes me roll my eyes. I spent a good chunk of my childhood family vacations in county court houses and graveyards because my mother was into genealogy. I played games among the headstones. They are not scary or spooky. They are calm, peaceful, and somewhat sad.

Death and the dead do not frighten me. I have sat by too many death beds in my lifetime. I have held the hands of dead family members, kissed their cheeks before the coffin lids were closed.
I know exactly what the skin of a corpse feels like. Death is not scary, it is just sad.

I am not afraid of ghosts, goblins, demons, or similar. Maybe its my SF/F background where those very types of characters can be the PoV/heroes.

Monsters: if it can be identified, it can be defeated. Period. Maybe its the SF/F background again.

So yeah, assuming I will get all scared and similar because a demon popped up in the middle of the room . . . sorry ain't enough for me. My first reaction is, well is it going to do anything? Perhaps its its turn to buy drinks? In my opinion its a very lazy author who assumes something will be frightening or unsettling or spooky all by itself with no effort on their end.

Bird Box is NOT one of these books. Nothing is visible. Nothing is identified. Nothing is known. All we see are the effects, what happens to the people who see . . . something. Something which drives them utterly insane, to murder, to suicide.

Its the terror of the unknown. The claustrophobic environment. Keep your doors closed and locked. Keep your windows closed, blinds closed, drapes closed, blocked by cardboard and wood and beds and anything else that can be found. Keep your eyes closed.

Hunger, exhaustion, loneliness, fear. Terror of the unknown, the undefined, the unknowable. Now that can be scary, that can be spooky.

Now imagine being a mother with 2 small children all alone in this environment. That is terrifying.

So to start this off . . . I am not a fan of thrillers. They tend to fall towards a lot of action, less actual plot, and mostly unmemorable characters. And this made me nervous. But I was blown away by [b:The Last Conversation 47969237 The Last Conversation (Forward collection) Paul Tremblay https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1567229097l/47969237.SX50.jpg 72182739] and enjoyed [b:Growing Things and Other Stories 41212413 Growing Things and Other Stories Paul Tremblay https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1556906952l/41212413.SY75.jpg 64888211], so I decided to give it a try anyway.And for the first little bit I was thinking, oh no, this is indeed a thriller. Do I even want to continue? I was tempted to just put it down. But I kept going.And I'm glad I did.Action was surprisingly minimal and fit perfectly with the plot. No gratuitous violence (though there is violence), everything that happened had a reason and a purpose.The characters were really good. Interesting, fleshed out, always behaved in character, even if that behavior was . . . odd.And the plot was surprisingly well thought out. As events unfurled I suspect I reacted exactly as the author intended. I was genuinely fascinated by what was going on, gasping or crying out exactly where I suspect the author wanted me to do so. And, as expected from this author, I spent the entire time wondering what was and was not real. Its not what I initially hoped it would be, but I enjoyed it. IMO a very well done story.

A let down after the first two books.

The story starts. It takes a turn into left field and doesn't return until about half way through the book. That lengthy visit into left field had very very little to do with the rest of the story. Both pieces ended up being unsatisfying.

This book is mostly targeted towards the interested enthusiast, someone who may not have the formal education, but is somewhat familiar with at least some of the subjects.

For this reason, the book doesn't go into great detail on any of the covered subjects and avoids the use of equations, but does include a detailed bibliography where you can find more information.

I would have liked a little more depth in some areas personally, but I think the book accomplishes what the authors set out to do.

And hey, I liked the humor. So sue me. :D

Wow, brutal. but then, brutal has been a keyword of the entire series. In some ways, I kind of find it refreshing.

Grimdark fantasy before grimdark came to mean cool assassins and women dressed in skin tight leather with tattoos. Basically before it became superficial. There is nothing superficial here.

I would have preferred more time spent on the experiments and less on circumstances around them.

If I could give this a 4.5, I would.
I might come back later and change it to a five.
Excellent story.

wow

Really a 4.5. I might come back later and change this to a 5.

An excellent story and I loved how the perspective changed.

Everything was just really well done and I greatly enjoyed it.

Just seemed pointless.

More like 3.5

While this is not my usual type of thing, I ended up really enjoying this one. The tone, the pace, it all seemed to be designed to be right up my alley.

Is the book verbose? Yes. I don't mind that if it works, and it does here.
Is there a lot of action? Given the world, the characters, there is surprisingly little, for which I am extremely grateful. Honestly, I am not an action oriented person, and I enjoyed the plot.

The funny thing, and I suspect one of the reasons this works so well for me, is that my guesses on where things were going almost always turned out incorrect in some vital way. And I'm honestly very happy one of my guesses turned out wrong near the end.

But, most important of all, this one pulled me along. I lost a lot of sleep and I suspect the next two will be the same.

Its a rare situation where a book drives me to write a review.

To start off, while I like horror, I am not a slasher/monster type horror. These subgenres bore me to tears. I am not a reader of action. Action scenes that drag on also bore me to tears, or more likely a nap. While I adore Science Fiction, the same aspects in it also put me to sleep.

Ideas people, IDEAS!

And, to start off, this book had ideas, and then it turned into a bad B horror movie.

So. The sirens were interesting. The fact that they appeared intelligent was interesting. The fact that they had not one language, but three, was interesting. Siren mimicry was interesting. The idea that they could use that mimicry for their own communication was fascinating. Siren autopsy, also quite cool (with an exception of Dr Toth). The idea of deep sea amphibians was cool.What was not cool? Everything else.Dr Toth's entire purpose was to stand around passively, sigh when something went wrong, tell everyone she could have told them that, and then go on to lecture (info dumps) in an overly dramatic and condescending manner.Mr Blackwell was incredibly passive. His entire job was to make sure no one got a couple brains cells moving and got the ship the heck out of there. Oh and to give something else for Dr Toth to be annoyed about.The relationship between Victoria and the reporter/personality (I forgot her name) made NO sense. They hate each other and then all of a sudden they are high school girls talking about how they have the hots for one another. And while blood shed and carnage goes on around them, go back to a cabin to have hot sex.Oh, and at the end of the book. They have just spent the last few days or so in hiding, being hunted, slaughter, dissolving bodies, horrors beyond belief, long swims in the ocean, trapped, almost drowning, and similar. And what do they do on the trip back to land? Have sex of course. Because everyone craves hot passionate sex immediately after this kind of emotional and physical trauma.Two female scientists, with the threat of siren attack imminent, abandon their deaf lab partner, go back to a cabin, get drunk on brandy with the door open, talk like 16 year old valley girls, and get slaughtered. Because the bad girls always die early in slasher horror movies. And this seemed to be the only reason for their very existence.I can't think of any character who wasn't flat or who actually followed any consistent behavior.Establishing communication with a Siren was cool. In a matter of a day or so be able to have built trust in that siren enough that it keeps the scientists from being slaughtered by others of its kind, communicate that it was a prisoner, and yet not have them even attempt to free it, was not consistent.And the shutters. Of course the shutters didn't work. They couldn't work. If they did, we wouldn't have as much of a bad B horror movie. Why the ship would be sent out with defensive shutters that did not work, I cannot comprehend. They knew what was out there. They knew what was very likely to happen. And yet, it worked 2 out of 5 attempts in testing, good enough!There wasn't even surprise about it. We knew the shutters didn't work as soon as we learned about the ship. In fact there was nothing surprising in the entire book. It was so obvious what was going to happen from the start.And we won't even go into the stupid. So many stupid things were done, just so we could make sure the siren attacks happened and kept happening. I hate stupid as an excuse. Its lazy. Characters make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. But OMG over and over and over, stupid after stupid after stupid.

Another frustrating part was that nothing was really answered. But, it looks like this is going to be a series, so I am more forgiving there. I'm assuming some answers might come later in the series. I have no desire to read them though.

Honestly, I'm giving this two stars because of some of the cool factors and could have been something more. Otherwise, it wouldn't even manage one star.

Chapter 21 - How I Failed My Rental Car
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

An interesting story, and i liked the ending, but there are a couple of logic inconsistencies that are driving me nuts.

First, if the world is so over populated that humanity has to live as brains in jars, why is reproduction being mandated? Don't reproduce, population issue solved. Second, I see no reason why the subjects have to have what is basically virtual sex in order for that to happen. Get their consent for it to happen, allow them to choose who it's with if they care, and that would seem all that's needed.

I expect better of Sanderson.