Hum by Helen Phillips
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I'll be honest here: I didn't like this book.

I'm not saying it's not well written. It's competent and does what it sets out to do: show how dystopian our ad-filled world is, the ubiquitousness of AI and how consumerism is squeezing the very life out of us, how insane that being able to live simply is now forever out of reach.

In other words, it's a close-match to our own world, where we're constantly being upsold just to breathe.

So why didn't I like this book? Didn't it accomplish everything it set out to do?

Well, yes, it did, and if it had been one of the first five books I've read in the last five years that do the same banal every-day living tack of dystopia with exactly the same suburbia tropes, if not the same focus, but with almost exactly the same kind of voice as if it was a carbon-copy tale, I might have been a bit more generous with my review.

But I didn't even like those all that much, or much at all. It's not only boring and dull, with hardly any spark of imagination, it's almost glorifying the BORING of our own dystopia, as if we aren't actually LIVING it, as if it isn't OBVIOUS from two seconds spent online that we have a custom-curated concierge to hell.

What I don't like is the fact that THIS is the kind of book that publishers think need to be popular.

You know, instead of something that's actually provoking or creative or vibrant. The last thing I want right now is to be shown how desperate we all are, and how powerless, how absolutely CRAVEN the ads and the ringleaders would like to paint us.

So yeah, I kinda HATE this book. But I'll be clear: it's not that I hate the writing or the author. It's the knee-jerk reaction I have to both the subject and the highlight of the subject.

We live in interesting times already. Let's either elevate the subject or blaze a trail through the weeds.

My apologies to all who might have loved this book. Please excuse me.



Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews is be interested in reading my SF (Very hard SF, mind you), I'm open to requests.

Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

Arctunn.com

View all my reviews