Golden State

Will review soon at www.fantasyliterature.com.

This book was hard to get into at first, but once I did it consumed my attention. My only complaint about this book is the ending, including the events that lead up to the ending. I feel it had more potential for a satisfying ending, but it left something to be desired of. My heart aches because there were parts of the book I was unsure were true. There were other times I thought I knew everything, but I was proved wrong. I enjoyed that part very much. The idea of living in a world where people can sense a lie and even get symptoms when a lie is told is interesting. I found myself not liking Lazlo at first but as the story went on I grew to appreciate him and was sympathetic towards him in some situations. Unfortunately I feel there were a lot of characters I did not get to really know, I know Lazlo was the star of the show, but I would have liked to feel closer to the others. Maybe get a different side of them so I could verify my own speculations. Overall I am impressed with this novel and am glad to have been introduced to a new author.

Favorite quote: “Love isn't how you feel when you're together, it's how you feel, how often you feel it, when you're apart”

I am glad I listened to the audiobook as the reader felt PERFECT for the first person narration. He had a Nick Offerman vibe - exactly whom I'd have play the main character in a film version of the novel. Golden State is what remains of (at least) S. California at some point in a distant future. It has a utopian surface - achieved through erradicating all lying. How this is done is clever as it involves both high and low tech. The narrator is part of a special police force who use a physical gift (the origin of which is never explained) to detect when someone is deploying a mistruth. The mystery of the story while borderline elaborate, doesn't make full sense in the story-world. And the end has deus ex machina elements which leaves it unsatisfying. The most thoughtful aspect of the story, in light of the "post-truth" world we live in today, is the exploration of whether a society-wide commitment to total truth makes citizens happier and more free. Our nation feels unmoored and unsustainable b/c "true" for one cult-like group is quite different than what is actually, factually, real. Yet, would a world in which everything was recorded and documented and thus true, be better - or would it just be full of different problems?