The Wind-up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
I was truly disappointed in this book after reading the rave reviews. The plot looked fascinating and many people obviously loved it. But once I began, I realized how bleak the story truly is. One down.
The writing itself is very descriptive and the atmosphere of the future world is a huge part of the story. The author’s expressive style is truly intricate, and I admire that above many other things.
The point of view changes from one character to another and seems quite vague sometimes, a device I don’t like, although it allows the author a lot of room to explain backstory, etc. But there was just too much leeway for my taste. I felt as if we weren’t getting quite enough true feeling from the characters. Were we inside their heads or not?
Most of the characters are unpleasant, to say the least, so perhaps I didn’t want to be inside their head after all. No matter how well-written a story, I must have characters I can care about — either good or bad. In this case, I simply lost interest. They may have come together later in the story, but by that time, I was outta.
Another problem with the characters was names, which normally don’t affect me as much. But the mix of Asian names and the large number of characters was a distinct detriment for me.
I’m no sci-fi or fantasy prude, but this dreary science-ruins-the-world-and-big-business-takes-advantage story was not in my favorites bin.
Amazon.com link: The Windup Girl
© Jan McClintock of We Need More Shelves