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Popco
Alice is quietly becoming the star of PopCo's 'ideation' team. Now she's been called to a mysterious 'thought camp' in Devon where they are brainstorming over the toy market for teenage girls. Alice thinks she's cracked it, but suddenly she's not sure she wants to unleash it on the world.
437 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 2004
142 people are currently reading
3805 people want to read
About the author
Scarlett Thomas
33 books1,840 followersScarlett Thomas was born in London in 1972. Her widely-acclaimed novels include PopCo, The End of Mr Y and The Seed Collectors. As well as writing literary fiction for adults, she has also written a literary fantasy series for children and a book about writing called Monkeys with Typewriters. Her work has been translated into more than 25 languages.
She has been longlisted for the Orange Prize, shortlisted for the South African Boeke Prize and was once the proud recipient of an Elle Style Award. She is currently Professor of Creative Writing & Contemporary Fiction at the University of Kent in the UK. She lives in a Victorian house near the sea and spends a lot of time reading Chekhov and Katherine Mansfield.
She is currently working on a new novel and various projects for TV.
She has been longlisted for the Orange Prize, shortlisted for the South African Boeke Prize and was once the proud recipient of an Elle Style Award. She is currently Professor of Creative Writing & Contemporary Fiction at the University of Kent in the UK. She lives in a Victorian house near the sea and spends a lot of time reading Chekhov and Katherine Mansfield.
She is currently working on a new novel and various projects for TV.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 634 reviews
September 22, 2024
After reading second novel by Scarlett Thomas I can certainly say that she's an interesting author but definitely not for me.
So, this story was supposed to be about treasure hunt, family secrets and revealing evil corporate marketing schemes. Well, unfortunately it didn't deliver.
So basically, it's about a woman who works for a big toy corporation and one day goes on a work gathering where she's been chosen for a special team to develop product for teenage girls which takes her memories back to her own childhood. Sounds intriguing but sadly those childhood memories were the only good part of a book. The evil corporate secrets turn out to be endless boring dialogue between pretentious people who compete with each other to be the most edgy and original. and those dialogue also extremely unrealistic. I mean, when did you last hear real people discussed math paradoxes and religious concepts for hours and still being polite and civil to each other?
The main character herself is "not like other girls", does everything not to fit in. Nevertheless, she manages to find friends and perfect boyfriend within the same corporation in just a few days. Am I reading romantasy Wattpad or a book written by person who teaches creative writing at uni, or so they claim?
Last but not least frustrating thing about this book was author's obsession with homeopathy. I have nothing against alternative medicine, but that had zero contribution to the plot, and I still had to read a lot of pages of about "the art of homeopathy".
So, it for sure had interesting ideas but turn out to be dull uneventful plotless book about cryptography with a lot of math.
So, this story was supposed to be about treasure hunt, family secrets and revealing evil corporate marketing schemes. Well, unfortunately it didn't deliver.
So basically, it's about a woman who works for a big toy corporation and one day goes on a work gathering where she's been chosen for a special team to develop product for teenage girls which takes her memories back to her own childhood. Sounds intriguing but sadly those childhood memories were the only good part of a book. The evil corporate secrets turn out to be endless boring dialogue between pretentious people who compete with each other to be the most edgy and original. and those dialogue also extremely unrealistic. I mean, when did you last hear real people discussed math paradoxes and religious concepts for hours and still being polite and civil to each other?
The main character herself is "not like other girls", does everything not to fit in. Nevertheless, she manages to find friends and perfect boyfriend within the same corporation in just a few days. Am I reading romantasy Wattpad or a book written by person who teaches creative writing at uni, or so they claim?
Last but not least frustrating thing about this book was author's obsession with homeopathy. I have nothing against alternative medicine, but that had zero contribution to the plot, and I still had to read a lot of pages of about "the art of homeopathy".
So, it for sure had interesting ideas but turn out to be dull uneventful plotless book about cryptography with a lot of math.
October 30, 2010
My earlier review of this book was unduly vicious. I've revised it slightly below and taken Popco off the "utter dreck" shelf. Unfortunately, for this book at least, she still gets stuck with the 'intellectual con artist' label.
Scarlett Thomas is the author of "The End of Mr Y", an impressive book which was highly original and quite entertaining. So I had high hopes for "Popco". Unfortunately, this time it seems that Ms Thomas may have bitten off more than she could chew. The discipline that was evident throughout the tightly constructed "The end of Mr Y" is sorely missing here - one senses early on that things are spiralling out of the author's control.
This is an ambitious, but also a profoundly irritating, book. The author clearly has a point to make, but does so in a fashion that manages to be both preachy and clumsy. There's a lot of faux-erudition, the parading of little tidbits of knowledge for no particular reason. But the author fails the basic requirements of the writer's trade -- she doesn't tell a credible story, and her habit of breaking off the narrative to include assorted heavy-handed, poorly thought out, mini-lectures on everything from prime factorization to networking is disruptive and pointless. These various digressions do not move the plot forward, and ultimately lead nowhere - the account of how the final code is cracked is presented at such a sketchy level of detail that the reader simply has to take it as a given - so why all the little lessons in codebreaking along the way?
Ultimately, the book just collapses under the weight of the various digressions, whose relevance is never really made clear.
Better accounts of some of the topics dragged into this book can be found in:
Simon Singh's "The Code Book"
Naomi Klein's "No Logo"
Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point"
A more successful synthesis of some of the ideas, incorporated in a skillfully told story is in Neal Stevenson's "Cryptonomicon".
But give this book a miss. Hopefully Ms. Thomas will regain her earlier form next time out.
Scarlett Thomas is the author of "The End of Mr Y", an impressive book which was highly original and quite entertaining. So I had high hopes for "Popco". Unfortunately, this time it seems that Ms Thomas may have bitten off more than she could chew. The discipline that was evident throughout the tightly constructed "The end of Mr Y" is sorely missing here - one senses early on that things are spiralling out of the author's control.
This is an ambitious, but also a profoundly irritating, book. The author clearly has a point to make, but does so in a fashion that manages to be both preachy and clumsy. There's a lot of faux-erudition, the parading of little tidbits of knowledge for no particular reason. But the author fails the basic requirements of the writer's trade -- she doesn't tell a credible story, and her habit of breaking off the narrative to include assorted heavy-handed, poorly thought out, mini-lectures on everything from prime factorization to networking is disruptive and pointless. These various digressions do not move the plot forward, and ultimately lead nowhere - the account of how the final code is cracked is presented at such a sketchy level of detail that the reader simply has to take it as a given - so why all the little lessons in codebreaking along the way?
Ultimately, the book just collapses under the weight of the various digressions, whose relevance is never really made clear.
Better accounts of some of the topics dragged into this book can be found in:
Simon Singh's "The Code Book"
Naomi Klein's "No Logo"
Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point"
A more successful synthesis of some of the ideas, incorporated in a skillfully told story is in Neal Stevenson's "Cryptonomicon".
But give this book a miss. Hopefully Ms. Thomas will regain her earlier form next time out.
November 20, 2014
This is the third book I've read by Scarlett Thomas, who is quickly becoming one of my favourite modern authors. I was introduced to her books by The End of Mr. Y (very, very good) and recently read her latest novel Our Tragic Universe (absolutely brilliant). PopCo came before both, originally published in 2004 and repackaged after the success of Mr. Y. I have to confess that I knew of the author before her most recent books, and I think I'd even looked at an earlier version of PopCo and rejected it - the very late-90s-style, brightly coloured covers of Thomas's previous works led me to believe they were either chick-lit in the 'ladette' mould or some kind of slightly more grown-up YA novels (my local library's copy of PopCo has a cover featuring a woman's heavily made-up eyes and lips - god only knows why, as this has nothing whatsoever to do with the content). I quite literally judged her books by their covers, and am beginning to realise this was a huge mistake. I'm now trying to make up for it - I'm attempting to get hold of the earlier ones as we speak - but in any case, PopCo turned out to be excellent.
Having read three of Thomas's novels, I've started to notice patterns in the stories they tell. They all have flawed and kind of neurotic, but really likeable and believable, female protagonists; they're all full of big ideas - this one has lots of stuff about complex mathematics and code-breaking - presented in an accessible way; they all have a central mystery, but they're really about much more than that, about people, relationships and life itself. PopCo is ostensibly about Alice Butler and the mysterious coded messages she receives while on a company retreat, with flashbacks to her somewhat troubled childhood, but there's a lot more to it than that. It's a record of Alice's thoughts about her career, relationships/sex and friendships - particularly the the titular toy corporation (which she works for), the ethical implications of marketing products to children, and the dilemma of choosing between the boss she fantasises about and the new colleague who desires her. Even the young Alice, in flashbacks, ruminates on the difficulties of 'fitting in' (providing several laugh-out-loud moments as she strives not to be labelled a 'gyppo', 'slag' or 'weirdo' by her new, cooler friends) and the mysteries contained within her own family. This all cleverly links back in with the adult Alice's attempts to develop a new must-have toy for teenage girls and the moral battles she has with herself as a result.
If there's anything wrong with this book, it's that Alice's over-analysing and questioning of everything can be a little too much at times. This didn't bother me much as I really liked and in many ways related to the character, but I can see it being off-putting for some other readers. There are also points when the flashbacks, many of which involve Alice learning about maths and cryptography from her grandparents, just seem like a device to simplify these details by approaching them from a child's perspective (a lot of them still didn't make sense to me, to be honest, but you don't need to fully understand all the concepts discussed to 'get' what actually happens in the story). My final complaint is that I really wanted to see Alice with Georges, not Ben! But the relationships Thomas's characters have are nothing if not realistic, and it's fitting that Alice should end up in a believable, imperfect relationship rather than the fantasy option.
It's funny that Mr. Y was the book that introduced me to Thomas, as it's turned out to be my least favourite of the three I've read so far. Her novels always seem to make me have the same reactions; I wish I was best friends with her characters, I envy the conversations they have with one another, and I wonder where/how I can meet people like these, if they even exist! PopCo is a fantastic, ambitious, thought-provoking book (the conclusion certainly got me thinking about the concept of corporate sabotage from the inside, for a start) and well worth a read.
Having read three of Thomas's novels, I've started to notice patterns in the stories they tell. They all have flawed and kind of neurotic, but really likeable and believable, female protagonists; they're all full of big ideas - this one has lots of stuff about complex mathematics and code-breaking - presented in an accessible way; they all have a central mystery, but they're really about much more than that, about people, relationships and life itself. PopCo is ostensibly about Alice Butler and the mysterious coded messages she receives while on a company retreat, with flashbacks to her somewhat troubled childhood, but there's a lot more to it than that. It's a record of Alice's thoughts about her career, relationships/sex and friendships - particularly the the titular toy corporation (which she works for), the ethical implications of marketing products to children, and the dilemma of choosing between the boss she fantasises about and the new colleague who desires her. Even the young Alice, in flashbacks, ruminates on the difficulties of 'fitting in' (providing several laugh-out-loud moments as she strives not to be labelled a 'gyppo', 'slag' or 'weirdo' by her new, cooler friends) and the mysteries contained within her own family. This all cleverly links back in with the adult Alice's attempts to develop a new must-have toy for teenage girls and the moral battles she has with herself as a result.
If there's anything wrong with this book, it's that Alice's over-analysing and questioning of everything can be a little too much at times. This didn't bother me much as I really liked and in many ways related to the character, but I can see it being off-putting for some other readers. There are also points when the flashbacks, many of which involve Alice learning about maths and cryptography from her grandparents, just seem like a device to simplify these details by approaching them from a child's perspective (a lot of them still didn't make sense to me, to be honest, but you don't need to fully understand all the concepts discussed to 'get' what actually happens in the story). My final complaint is that I really wanted to see Alice with Georges, not Ben! But the relationships Thomas's characters have are nothing if not realistic, and it's fitting that Alice should end up in a believable, imperfect relationship rather than the fantasy option.
It's funny that Mr. Y was the book that introduced me to Thomas, as it's turned out to be my least favourite of the three I've read so far. Her novels always seem to make me have the same reactions; I wish I was best friends with her characters, I envy the conversations they have with one another, and I wonder where/how I can meet people like these, if they even exist! PopCo is a fantastic, ambitious, thought-provoking book (the conclusion certainly got me thinking about the concept of corporate sabotage from the inside, for a start) and well worth a read.
June 24, 2011
PopCo by Scarlett Thomas is one of those books that is a revelation. Every now and then, I come across a book wherein I know the author’s ideas and beliefs line up so well with mine that it is very nearly eerie. PopCo encapsulated so many of my own thoughts that I likely annoyed everyone around me as I recommended this book to one and all, even going so far as to purchase several copies at a book clearance store so I could give copies away.
PopCo is hard to categorize. While the heroine, a certain Alice Butler, solves two mysteries, she also contemplates veganism and the ethics of marketing to children. She discusses her knowledge of homeopathic medicine, crossword puzzles, high level math, cryptography and cryptanalysis, and the Voynich Manuscript. Her attempts at developing her own identity ring truer to me than any other coming-of-age descriptions in recent memory. And far from finding her childhood with her grandparents boring, I wondered what I would be like had I been raised by genius, eccentric grandparents, and found the prospect attractive. Alice has within her head the Vigenère square, Gödel’s code and prime factorization in the same manner as I have the world’s best chocolate chip cookie recipe memorized. Alice is self-contained, cool under pressure, utterly geeky and wholly earnest – in short, a heroine unlike anyone I have ever read before. Read my entire discussion here.
PopCo is hard to categorize. While the heroine, a certain Alice Butler, solves two mysteries, she also contemplates veganism and the ethics of marketing to children. She discusses her knowledge of homeopathic medicine, crossword puzzles, high level math, cryptography and cryptanalysis, and the Voynich Manuscript. Her attempts at developing her own identity ring truer to me than any other coming-of-age descriptions in recent memory. And far from finding her childhood with her grandparents boring, I wondered what I would be like had I been raised by genius, eccentric grandparents, and found the prospect attractive. Alice has within her head the Vigenère square, Gödel’s code and prime factorization in the same manner as I have the world’s best chocolate chip cookie recipe memorized. Alice is self-contained, cool under pressure, utterly geeky and wholly earnest – in short, a heroine unlike anyone I have ever read before. Read my entire discussion here.
May 16, 2014
Sheer bloody-mindedness, and disliking not finishing a book, made me trundle through this 400+ page steaming pile of egregious nonsense. It sounds promising, the concept is interesting, I have a vague interest in codes and there is always a slight creepiness to children's toymaking. How wrong I was.
Let's start with the main character. This woman is an uber hipster - can't possibly do anything that anyone anywhere might see as 'cool', but to the point where it actually stops her doing things. The first ~100 pages are just wandering drivel, with what the author assumes is poetic literary prose but what actually comes out is just boring meanderings of a mind that we don't care about.
Once you hit the 150 mark a few interesting things happen, and I'll admit that I got into the story for about 50 pages. It's about trying to think like a teenager, Alice is hearing children playing when there are no children nearby, some interesting people turn up. But that 50 pages quickly descends back into nonsense and you're lost again. Some of the dialogue is so contrived it's unbelievable, characters are laughable caricatures, and yet this 'extreme' world is watered down into nothingness by exploring Alice's childhood, or pages are devoted to discussing how a particular code works. I get maybe explaining a code briefly, but don't give me a mathematical lecture on it.
So when you have a plot that goes nowhere and a main character who is insufferable, the only way that this could get any better is if you start to get the moral high ground shoved down your throat. Not only should you be vegan, you should practice homeopathy and not be pressured into conforming by advertising and huge corporate companies. If these were character traits that were mentioned in passing it would be fine, but by the time you read the third description of why pharmaceutical companies are the devil, you realise that the author actually believes in this stuff. Reading some other comments, apparently all of Thomas' characters in all of her books have some element of homeopathic treatment and it magically works. Not all of your characters should mirror your beliefs in the exact same way, it's lazy.
Really, and I think this was the main problem, this is a book about three different things. You have Alice as a child, solving puzzles with her Grandparents and working out what this necklace may mean. Then you have her work with PopCo trying to develop products and this creepy place they've been sent to. Thirdly you have an introspective look at Alice as a person, with lots of stream-of-conscious-like passages where not much makes sense but you get a good feeling for who Alice is and what motivates her, concerns her etc. If Thomas had chosen one of these paths and run with it she may have come out with a half decent book (though she needs to work on her dialogue).
Sorry Cat, I know you enjoyed it, but I never want to see it's alluring blue pages ever again.
Let's start with the main character. This woman is an uber hipster - can't possibly do anything that anyone anywhere might see as 'cool', but to the point where it actually stops her doing things. The first ~100 pages are just wandering drivel, with what the author assumes is poetic literary prose but what actually comes out is just boring meanderings of a mind that we don't care about.
Once you hit the 150 mark a few interesting things happen, and I'll admit that I got into the story for about 50 pages. It's about trying to think like a teenager, Alice is hearing children playing when there are no children nearby, some interesting people turn up. But that 50 pages quickly descends back into nonsense and you're lost again. Some of the dialogue is so contrived it's unbelievable, characters are laughable caricatures, and yet this 'extreme' world is watered down into nothingness by exploring Alice's childhood, or pages are devoted to discussing how a particular code works. I get maybe explaining a code briefly, but don't give me a mathematical lecture on it.
So when you have a plot that goes nowhere and a main character who is insufferable, the only way that this could get any better is if you start to get the moral high ground shoved down your throat. Not only should you be vegan, you should practice homeopathy and not be pressured into conforming by advertising and huge corporate companies. If these were character traits that were mentioned in passing it would be fine, but by the time you read the third description of why pharmaceutical companies are the devil, you realise that the author actually believes in this stuff. Reading some other comments, apparently all of Thomas' characters in all of her books have some element of homeopathic treatment and it magically works. Not all of your characters should mirror your beliefs in the exact same way, it's lazy.
Really, and I think this was the main problem, this is a book about three different things. You have Alice as a child, solving puzzles with her Grandparents and working out what this necklace may mean. Then you have her work with PopCo trying to develop products and this creepy place they've been sent to. Thirdly you have an introspective look at Alice as a person, with lots of stream-of-conscious-like passages where not much makes sense but you get a good feeling for who Alice is and what motivates her, concerns her etc. If Thomas had chosen one of these paths and run with it she may have come out with a half decent book (though she needs to work on her dialogue).
Sorry Cat, I know you enjoyed it, but I never want to see it's alluring blue pages ever again.
April 29, 2017
This book is about a girl, a necklace and some buried treasure.
But it is also about a worldwide toy company, cryptoanalysis and the creation of ideas. It's about the factorisation of prime numbers, the mass production of milk and the obsessions of teenage girls. It's about rubbish parents and loving grandparents. It's about the Voynich manuscript, paradoxes, crossword puzzles, corporate bullshit, cricket, World War 2, games of logic, Gödel's Theorem of Incompleteness, virtual worlds, miso soup, probability, the Vigenére square, 18th century pirates, mass marketing, the intrinsic value in being cool, letters written in code, transfinity, bird sanctuaries and that awful time when people were wearing skirts over trousers.
It's about what animals you'd see if you were camping in a suburban garden, which homeopathic remedy you should take if you felt like you were made of glass and why you should always change your mind when choosing a surprise prize on a game show.
It's about obsession, greed, love, creativity and a secret kept for twenty years. It's about doing no harm and stopping others from doing harm. And it's brilliant.
But it is also about a worldwide toy company, cryptoanalysis and the creation of ideas. It's about the factorisation of prime numbers, the mass production of milk and the obsessions of teenage girls. It's about rubbish parents and loving grandparents. It's about the Voynich manuscript, paradoxes, crossword puzzles, corporate bullshit, cricket, World War 2, games of logic, Gödel's Theorem of Incompleteness, virtual worlds, miso soup, probability, the Vigenére square, 18th century pirates, mass marketing, the intrinsic value in being cool, letters written in code, transfinity, bird sanctuaries and that awful time when people were wearing skirts over trousers.
It's about what animals you'd see if you were camping in a suburban garden, which homeopathic remedy you should take if you felt like you were made of glass and why you should always change your mind when choosing a surprise prize on a game show.
It's about obsession, greed, love, creativity and a secret kept for twenty years. It's about doing no harm and stopping others from doing harm. And it's brilliant.
September 12, 2007
PopCo kind of wants to be Cryptonomicon, but shorter and with less discussion of math, types of economies, and anything else more complex than marketing. It makes me want never to work at any company larger or more corporate than a shoebox. That's kind of the point of the book; it ends up literally saying so. The end was really annoying, due to aforementioned flat moralization plus a boring/not particularly believable solution to the main mystery. The rest of the story was all right, though nothing special. My main problem is that though I agree with the sentiment of the book, I find the execution too shoddy. I really wanted to like it, but came out disappointed.
February 22, 2011
This is a love it or hate it book. Because of the significant social issues contained in this story, such as the mistreatment of animals, corporate misdeeds, and guerilla marketing, this will appeal more to socially conscious individuals and those whose principles stand in opposition to the current CEO-type establishment. But, even then, counterculture types may still not like it if they don't want to see these issues advanced in a novel. That said, I applaud Scarlett Thomas for weaving these controversies in without sermonizing and laying on dull exposition. Thomas is clearly brainy and imaginative. She is subversive without being cynical, intellectual without condescending.
Two storylines alternate throughout the novel, and eventually merge into a complex whole. As a child, Alice Butler was raised primarily by her grandparents, as her mother died when she was very young and her father took off to find a buried treasure. Alice's grandfather is a formidable cryptanalyst, cracking codes and ciphers and teaching Alice the essentials of prime numbers, poly-alphabetic ciphers, Vigenere enciphering, and other forms of codes and ciphers. The reader is exposed to some fundamental lessons that are thrilling and mind-boggling. The author infuses this in the story so naturally that it feels organically part of the storyline.
Alice's grandmother has been working on the Riemann Hypothesis for many years but has not solved it. Alice's upbringing has made her hyperaware of the layers of complexity that exist in her surroundings, and she is a lover of paradoxes. She is often alienated from her peers, and develops a tough shell due to the immaturity and abuse she endures from her classmates (as well as some teachers). I have never read a book that illuminates adolescent behaviors so well--such as taunting, striving for popularity, the desire to fit in. Not even Margaret Atwood, known for her stark portrayals of teenage predatory behaviors, has illustrated the harrowing anxieties, shame and adversity so baldly and authentically.
As an adult, Alice works for the corporate toy company, PopCo, the third largest toy company in the world. The story opens as Alice is on her way to a "thought camp" retreat. Her job is coming up with marketing strategies aimed at teenage girls. Her team is designated to design a new product, with specific potential to become a craze. Essentially, create a desire where none exists and persuade teenage girls that they have to have it. The ideation seminars at the thought camp instruct PopCo employees to create identity manias, a veritable fever that infects girls and coaxes them to covet a trend and crave a product.
In lesser hands, this could easily become an elongated slogan or a sententious rant. However, Thomas is a gifted writer with a blazing, generous spirit. She is out-of the box and brimming with provocative, piercing ideas that are fleshed out and powerful. This imaginative novel is unclassifiable and yet compelling. The author has a keen sense of adventure, keeping the reader in suspense. Alice's narrative voice has a vital, dynamic sensibility that is suffused with compassion and wisdom beyond her years. The prose is eloquent and her characters fully developed. Thomas is an enormous, brilliant think tank of a writer.
Two storylines alternate throughout the novel, and eventually merge into a complex whole. As a child, Alice Butler was raised primarily by her grandparents, as her mother died when she was very young and her father took off to find a buried treasure. Alice's grandfather is a formidable cryptanalyst, cracking codes and ciphers and teaching Alice the essentials of prime numbers, poly-alphabetic ciphers, Vigenere enciphering, and other forms of codes and ciphers. The reader is exposed to some fundamental lessons that are thrilling and mind-boggling. The author infuses this in the story so naturally that it feels organically part of the storyline.
Alice's grandmother has been working on the Riemann Hypothesis for many years but has not solved it. Alice's upbringing has made her hyperaware of the layers of complexity that exist in her surroundings, and she is a lover of paradoxes. She is often alienated from her peers, and develops a tough shell due to the immaturity and abuse she endures from her classmates (as well as some teachers). I have never read a book that illuminates adolescent behaviors so well--such as taunting, striving for popularity, the desire to fit in. Not even Margaret Atwood, known for her stark portrayals of teenage predatory behaviors, has illustrated the harrowing anxieties, shame and adversity so baldly and authentically.
As an adult, Alice works for the corporate toy company, PopCo, the third largest toy company in the world. The story opens as Alice is on her way to a "thought camp" retreat. Her job is coming up with marketing strategies aimed at teenage girls. Her team is designated to design a new product, with specific potential to become a craze. Essentially, create a desire where none exists and persuade teenage girls that they have to have it. The ideation seminars at the thought camp instruct PopCo employees to create identity manias, a veritable fever that infects girls and coaxes them to covet a trend and crave a product.
In lesser hands, this could easily become an elongated slogan or a sententious rant. However, Thomas is a gifted writer with a blazing, generous spirit. She is out-of the box and brimming with provocative, piercing ideas that are fleshed out and powerful. This imaginative novel is unclassifiable and yet compelling. The author has a keen sense of adventure, keeping the reader in suspense. Alice's narrative voice has a vital, dynamic sensibility that is suffused with compassion and wisdom beyond her years. The prose is eloquent and her characters fully developed. Thomas is an enormous, brilliant think tank of a writer.
March 25, 2007
I read this after reading Thomas' more recent novel "The End of Mr. Y", which I adored. I actually think that PopCo works better as a cohesive whole, and I enjoyed it quite a bit, though it didn't have quite the same resonance with me in terms of having a specific set of ideas I was excited to read about as Mr. Y did. I definitely reccomend this one to others, though. It's got a very strong anti-commericalist, anti-herd-mentality, anti-fashion-in-all-aspects-of-life bent, and that's very good. Plus it's got puzzles and mathematical theory packaged into a really engaging and readable narrative.
September 4, 2012
This is a pretty terrible book, somewhere between the DaVinci Code and a Babysitter's Club Camp Mohawk Super Special. It's not entirely unreadable and in 571 pages has maybe 4 to 5 good lines. Plot lines never line up together, gratuitous dialogue which is only meant to give exposition, and an unhealthy obsession with the amount of fantastic food the heroine can get are wearying. I only finished the book because I've been trying to finish every book I start this year.
The writing is almost unforgivably bad in parts, as if the author didn't have an editor. I would go look up the line but I don't want to, anyhow, there's a portion that says something like "The landscape changed abruptly. And I say abruptly, because the change was abrupt."
The puzzles are unfascinating, the characters dull, the plot line unconvincing, and the overall movement contrived. Easy pass.
The writing is almost unforgivably bad in parts, as if the author didn't have an editor. I would go look up the line but I don't want to, anyhow, there's a portion that says something like "The landscape changed abruptly. And I say abruptly, because the change was abrupt."
The puzzles are unfascinating, the characters dull, the plot line unconvincing, and the overall movement contrived. Easy pass.
April 27, 2024
The Perfect Book for Intellectuals: Ciphers and a Complex Story
So sometimes I find the most amazing books by searching for a book to fit a challenge I am doing on Goodreads. This is such a book... And something about the description was appealing to me; the stuff about the ciphers and codes. Then once I started reading it got even better! The main character, Alice Butler, is an introvert like me. So I could relate to her even though she lives in the UK. Plus how the book is written, the first person writing style, just pulled me right in. I was hooked! And no matter what the book was talking about I was never bored at all - even when it was going on about all of this prime number stuff (I am bad at math) or about very complex codes that I really didn't understand. And that alone is very amazing!! because normally I should get bored or frustrated. But I didn't! Alice had my full attention.
And this book is way more than just about a woman (who is 29 years old) going down on a special retreat for the toy company she works for. Its about ideas. Idea generating and lateral thinking. And its also about lies and propaganda; about how ads convince you that yes you really need that new thing when in reality you don't need that thing at all. And mixed into these themes is a historical story about a man who went off to sea; a treasure. And a treasure map! Plus its about Alice when she was a girl and a teenager too. We learn so much about her.
And I basically loved all parts of this book - except for one thing. And that is why I am rating this 4 stars and not 5 stars. I got really annoyed at the constant vegan - vegetarian stuff in here. I mean it was practically shoved down my throat. Now I have friends who are vegetarian. It doesn't bother me. But when a book is saying that one should go out and commit crimes (knock over egg displays at store to break the eggs, etc) then it is going way too far. And it was near the end of the book where these "friends" of hers was telling her how to do these things. They also thought it was ok to tear open toy packages in the store so the store could not sell the products. That just really bothered me. And I was think about that last night when I was trying to fall asleep. Its just very disturbing. Do these "friends" want Alice to go to jail? That whole part of the book soured for me and it made me feel that she had not learned anything.
Otherwise I would have rated this 5 stars.
But this is a very deep book. And I absolutely loved reading all of the adventures Alice had when she was a teenager and even later when she was in college. The historical parts with Francis Stevenson were excellent too!
In many ways this book is about peer pressure and standing up for what you believe in. But you need courage to do that.
Many of the codes and ciphers were way above my head but that did not stop me from reading this. You don't need to understand it. But this is a very creative character driven story that is very complex and it has very detailed backgrounds too. Even way back to the 1600s.
But be aware its more drama than thriller. Its not exciting. But it did totally grip my attention. I even found myself doing lateral thinking! But what the book says in here about ads is correct. Ads often lie. They try to influence you. And if you can understand that then maybe you will enjoy this book.
So sometimes I find the most amazing books by searching for a book to fit a challenge I am doing on Goodreads. This is such a book... And something about the description was appealing to me; the stuff about the ciphers and codes. Then once I started reading it got even better! The main character, Alice Butler, is an introvert like me. So I could relate to her even though she lives in the UK. Plus how the book is written, the first person writing style, just pulled me right in. I was hooked! And no matter what the book was talking about I was never bored at all - even when it was going on about all of this prime number stuff (I am bad at math) or about very complex codes that I really didn't understand. And that alone is very amazing!! because normally I should get bored or frustrated. But I didn't! Alice had my full attention.
And this book is way more than just about a woman (who is 29 years old) going down on a special retreat for the toy company she works for. Its about ideas. Idea generating and lateral thinking. And its also about lies and propaganda; about how ads convince you that yes you really need that new thing when in reality you don't need that thing at all. And mixed into these themes is a historical story about a man who went off to sea; a treasure. And a treasure map! Plus its about Alice when she was a girl and a teenager too. We learn so much about her.
And I basically loved all parts of this book - except for one thing. And that is why I am rating this 4 stars and not 5 stars. I got really annoyed at the constant vegan - vegetarian stuff in here. I mean it was practically shoved down my throat. Now I have friends who are vegetarian. It doesn't bother me. But when a book is saying that one should go out and commit crimes (knock over egg displays at store to break the eggs, etc) then it is going way too far. And it was near the end of the book where these "friends" of hers was telling her how to do these things. They also thought it was ok to tear open toy packages in the store so the store could not sell the products. That just really bothered me. And I was think about that last night when I was trying to fall asleep. Its just very disturbing. Do these "friends" want Alice to go to jail? That whole part of the book soured for me and it made me feel that she had not learned anything.
Otherwise I would have rated this 5 stars.
But this is a very deep book. And I absolutely loved reading all of the adventures Alice had when she was a teenager and even later when she was in college. The historical parts with Francis Stevenson were excellent too!
In many ways this book is about peer pressure and standing up for what you believe in. But you need courage to do that.
Many of the codes and ciphers were way above my head but that did not stop me from reading this. You don't need to understand it. But this is a very creative character driven story that is very complex and it has very detailed backgrounds too. Even way back to the 1600s.
But be aware its more drama than thriller. Its not exciting. But it did totally grip my attention. I even found myself doing lateral thinking! But what the book says in here about ads is correct. Ads often lie. They try to influence you. And if you can understand that then maybe you will enjoy this book.
Read
October 8, 2022Update: I'm finally done with this book, and gladly so. It offered the biggest let down I've experienced while reading. First 250 pages, pretty damn good. Last 250 pages, absolutely awful.
I kept going because I was hopeful the ending would at least be properly satisfying. It was not. Don't get sucked in. It's not worth it.
---
While reading: I am 75% through with PopCo and am struggling with the desire to finish it. Here's my issue: I was really, really into this book up until about 250 pages in. Then, the mentions of homeopathy go from simply informing the character (as they had slightly earlier), to becoming a roughly (thus far) 100 page commercial for how they REALLY work and THEY don't want you to believe it.
Simply put, it's heavy-handed propaganda that is doing nothing but distracting from the little bit of plot that had interested me. The author made a serious mistake here.
This book should have been much shorter, and the homeopathy crap introduced much earlier. At least then I wouldn't feel so cheated having spent so much time with it already, I would know what to expect. Instead, she introduces a decent story and then the story just stays in bed and eats diluted arsenic.
I kept going because I was hopeful the ending would at least be properly satisfying. It was not. Don't get sucked in. It's not worth it.
---
While reading: I am 75% through with PopCo and am struggling with the desire to finish it. Here's my issue: I was really, really into this book up until about 250 pages in. Then, the mentions of homeopathy go from simply informing the character (as they had slightly earlier), to becoming a roughly (thus far) 100 page commercial for how they REALLY work and THEY don't want you to believe it.
Simply put, it's heavy-handed propaganda that is doing nothing but distracting from the little bit of plot that had interested me. The author made a serious mistake here.
This book should have been much shorter, and the homeopathy crap introduced much earlier. At least then I wouldn't feel so cheated having spent so much time with it already, I would know what to expect. Instead, she introduces a decent story and then the story just stays in bed and eats diluted arsenic.
August 13, 2009
I loved this book. It got a little heavy handed at times, toward the end especially, but it sort of had to and it was still just fun and exciting and all around a great read. Someone said it was chicklit for geeky chicks. I don't see the chicklit part, but it was definitely geeky and totally awesome for it. It's packed full of weird cryptanalyst stuff and lectures on math and history (an entire chapter is dedicated to the life story of some presumably made up dude from the 1600's), but it's all written in a totally accessible way that made it fun to read.
I can definitely see someone getting super bored by the details, but there are also a few unexpected turns in the book that add to the fun factor. So even if you don't understand all the math and codes, I think it still has a lot of levels to it.
Anyway, as I said I loved it. I've learned so much bizarre stuff from this book.. some I guess I already knew from my enjoyment of math growing up, but it was just a fun refresher and a fun tie in. I guess that's the geeky part, to which I embrace willingly and enthusiastically...
I can definitely see someone getting super bored by the details, but there are also a few unexpected turns in the book that add to the fun factor. So even if you don't understand all the math and codes, I think it still has a lot of levels to it.
Anyway, as I said I loved it. I've learned so much bizarre stuff from this book.. some I guess I already knew from my enjoyment of math growing up, but it was just a fun refresher and a fun tie in. I guess that's the geeky part, to which I embrace willingly and enthusiastically...
December 17, 2021
The book was not as awesome as some of Scarlett Thomas' others, but good nevertheless. It explores a few different areas, including marketing, the toy world, logic puzzles, & mathematics. I felt that the pacing was a little less than great... She might have been trying to weave more stories than was optimal for this book... It was, as always with Scarlett Thomas, a most informative, intriguing book, however, with as much information Re: Cryptanalysis as I could wish to learn from any nonfiction title... w which is what I have always loved about her books, because, at least for me, when such information is revealed to me in the context of a good story, I find that I can retain the information a lot better.
August 19, 2014
Fantastic, although I enjoyed a little bit more with "The End of Mr Y" .
I'm becoming a fan of Scarlett Thomas; she is great in her way of doing things, telling things, making you think about "the world" in general... In this book she mix childness with adultness, a toy company with Philosophy, Mathematics and Cryptanalysis, games, problems to solve, treasures, love, madness, friendship, vegetarian and vegan food...
I will go on reading more of her books, I'm sure.
I'm becoming a fan of Scarlett Thomas; she is great in her way of doing things, telling things, making you think about "the world" in general... In this book she mix childness with adultness, a toy company with Philosophy, Mathematics and Cryptanalysis, games, problems to solve, treasures, love, madness, friendship, vegetarian and vegan food...
I will go on reading more of her books, I'm sure.
June 28, 2011
Disclaimer: questo libro fa emergere la cretina che c'è in me, per qualche strana ragione; la recensione sarà dunque viziata da ciò. Il che è solo un modo elegante per dire che sarò lievemente (e simpaticamente) polemica, e visto che la polemica ce l'ho nel sangue, sarò anche prolissa. Mi scuso.
Prendete una puntata tipo della Signora in giallo. Va bene anche qualsiasi telefilm del genere, ma io sono una fan di Jessica, Jessica über alles! Nella mia mente una puntata tipo della signora in giallo si conclude con un trio: Jessica, il colpevole, e uno sfigato qualunque che si trova in scena solo come espediente narrativo. Jessica scopre abilmente il colpevole, perché lei è intelligente e astutissima, pessima da avere come zia o amica da invitare a casa vostra però, perché immancabilmente finirete o morti o accusati. Dicevamo, Jessica smaschera il colpevole, e prontamente svela anche al colpevole stesso, nonché allo sfigato di turno (duole dirlo, ma spesso costui è lo sceriffo), il piano diabolico nei minimi dettagli. Jessica sa, il colpevole pure, il terzo dunque serve solo a giustificare il fatto che lo stiano spiegando. Ecco, io ho sempre cordialmente detestato queste scenette, e non manco mai di farne oggetto delle mie polemiche acide. Sì, sono una persona simpaticissima, I know.
Tutto questo per dire che la Scarlett Thomas è un'autrice che mi è tanto simpatica, è tanto cara e si vede anche acculturata, nonché attenta nel descrivere con cognizione ciò di cui parla, ma a tratti sembra prendere per fessi i propri lettori. Come se dovesse spiegare proprio tutto-tutto-tutto. Esempio? La protagonista per sua stessa ammissione ha giocato a videogiochi e giochi di ruolo virtuali...come può essere mai possibile che, in una conversazione, chieda al suo amico informatico cosa è un avatar, e che lui glielo spieghi con un linguaggio svilente? Cara Scarlett, non mi sento presa per fessa perché hai sentito il bisogno di spiegarmelo, ma perché pensi che io non possa capire che è inverosimile che parlino in quel modo.
Anche tutte le pagine a parlare dei vari tipi di crittografia! Scarlett, tesoro mio, se ho voglia di approfondire mi faccio una ricerca su google, di certo quando hai scritto questo libro non ti era molto chiaro come tenere il lettore con il fiato sospeso. Almeno Jessica in cinque minuti spiega tutto, tu sbrodoli invece per pagine e pagine (e pagine! tante!), come inserendo tanti saggi all'interno di un romanzo.
La protagonista deve presenziare ad un seminario su un tal argomento? E noi lettori presenziamo insieme a lei, subendo - giustamente, mica possiamo essere così scortesi da non starle vicini, eh - insieme a lei una lunga agonia, perché se il seminario fittizio dura mezz'ora, noi realmente impieghiamo mezz'ora a leggere. Se siete me poi aggiungete cinque minuti buoni spalmati nella mezz'ora per qualche parolaccia gratuita qua e là. Perché ho provato sincero odio per i personaggi che facevano domande al fittizio relatore, come quando all'università il professore sta per dichiarare finita la lezione interminabile del venerdì pomeriggio e si vede un ditino alzarsi accompagnato da uno "scuuusiii?". C'è da dire che la capacità di trasportare il lettore nella scena l'autrice la dimostra. Peccato che sia straziante.
Risultato? Accantonato. Il fulcro della storia poteva anche intrigarmi, peccato che a metà libro (cioè dopo 240 benedette pagine cartacee, duecentoquaranta!) il fulcro lo vedo solo in lontananza. Vorrei tanto continuarlo perché sento che prima o poi ci sarà qualcosa di buono, perché la protagonista mi è simpatica, perché non è del tutto male, e altri perché, ma l'idea di dover superare altre duecentoquaranta pagine così non mi alletta.
Ci sono tanti altri libri che meritano il mio tempo, questo sinceramente ora no.
Prendete una puntata tipo della Signora in giallo. Va bene anche qualsiasi telefilm del genere, ma io sono una fan di Jessica, Jessica über alles! Nella mia mente una puntata tipo della signora in giallo si conclude con un trio: Jessica, il colpevole, e uno sfigato qualunque che si trova in scena solo come espediente narrativo. Jessica scopre abilmente il colpevole, perché lei è intelligente e astutissima, pessima da avere come zia o amica da invitare a casa vostra però, perché immancabilmente finirete o morti o accusati. Dicevamo, Jessica smaschera il colpevole, e prontamente svela anche al colpevole stesso, nonché allo sfigato di turno (duole dirlo, ma spesso costui è lo sceriffo), il piano diabolico nei minimi dettagli. Jessica sa, il colpevole pure, il terzo dunque serve solo a giustificare il fatto che lo stiano spiegando. Ecco, io ho sempre cordialmente detestato queste scenette, e non manco mai di farne oggetto delle mie polemiche acide. Sì, sono una persona simpaticissima, I know.
Tutto questo per dire che la Scarlett Thomas è un'autrice che mi è tanto simpatica, è tanto cara e si vede anche acculturata, nonché attenta nel descrivere con cognizione ciò di cui parla, ma a tratti sembra prendere per fessi i propri lettori. Come se dovesse spiegare proprio tutto-tutto-tutto. Esempio? La protagonista per sua stessa ammissione ha giocato a videogiochi e giochi di ruolo virtuali...come può essere mai possibile che, in una conversazione, chieda al suo amico informatico cosa è un avatar, e che lui glielo spieghi con un linguaggio svilente? Cara Scarlett, non mi sento presa per fessa perché hai sentito il bisogno di spiegarmelo, ma perché pensi che io non possa capire che è inverosimile che parlino in quel modo.
Anche tutte le pagine a parlare dei vari tipi di crittografia! Scarlett, tesoro mio, se ho voglia di approfondire mi faccio una ricerca su google, di certo quando hai scritto questo libro non ti era molto chiaro come tenere il lettore con il fiato sospeso. Almeno Jessica in cinque minuti spiega tutto, tu sbrodoli invece per pagine e pagine (e pagine! tante!), come inserendo tanti saggi all'interno di un romanzo.
La protagonista deve presenziare ad un seminario su un tal argomento? E noi lettori presenziamo insieme a lei, subendo - giustamente, mica possiamo essere così scortesi da non starle vicini, eh - insieme a lei una lunga agonia, perché se il seminario fittizio dura mezz'ora, noi realmente impieghiamo mezz'ora a leggere. Se siete me poi aggiungete cinque minuti buoni spalmati nella mezz'ora per qualche parolaccia gratuita qua e là. Perché ho provato sincero odio per i personaggi che facevano domande al fittizio relatore, come quando all'università il professore sta per dichiarare finita la lezione interminabile del venerdì pomeriggio e si vede un ditino alzarsi accompagnato da uno "scuuusiii?". C'è da dire che la capacità di trasportare il lettore nella scena l'autrice la dimostra. Peccato che sia straziante.
Risultato? Accantonato. Il fulcro della storia poteva anche intrigarmi, peccato che a metà libro (cioè dopo 240 benedette pagine cartacee, duecentoquaranta!) il fulcro lo vedo solo in lontananza. Vorrei tanto continuarlo perché sento che prima o poi ci sarà qualcosa di buono, perché la protagonista mi è simpatica, perché non è del tutto male, e altri perché, ma l'idea di dover superare altre duecentoquaranta pagine così non mi alletta.
Ci sono tanti altri libri che meritano il mio tempo, questo sinceramente ora no.
November 6, 2021
I have loved both of the previous books I've read by Scarlett Thomas, so PopCo is an utter disappointment.
This book was all over the place. It took me a good 70-80 pages to accept Alice as a protagonist. Her inner monologue is frankly irritating. What really ticked me off was how elongated the entire narrative was. Alice's character is pretty clear from the get-go, and Thomas did not need to pad this narrative and convince us of the validity of Alice's current choices with endless flashbacks to Alice's childhood and schoolgirl days. I actually do not see what importance her school experiences had on the present-day narrative, and they were incredibly dull, boring and repetitive (as teen girl experiences tend to be). If the storyline of the teen girl product development had actually been completed and had connected the two, then I could have accepted the hundred pages of peer pressure/locker rooms/I don't wear the right clothes. But then Thomas goes and drops that storyline when a subversive movement introduced in the last 50 pages upends the 400 pages prior - this was supremely irritating, not only because it throws the previous 400 pages under the bus, but also because her friend goes into a 20-page long diatribe on their counterculture movement, a la Ayn Rand, and it is incredibly obvious and pedantic.
I feel like I was laboriously led down one garden path for 400 pages, and then had an alternative ending shoved forcefully down my throat in a lengthy lecture on the evils of capitalism and materialism. This is not what I signed up for. Thomas is obviously very intelligent and her ideas are bright and interesting, but this book strayed way more into conventional anti-meat/anti-sweatshop/anti-profits agenda than into putting those bright ideas about math, coding, and treasure hunting into a more original story, as she succeeds in doing in The End of Mr. Y and Our Tragic Universe.
What a shame.
This book was all over the place. It took me a good 70-80 pages to accept Alice as a protagonist. Her inner monologue is frankly irritating. What really ticked me off was how elongated the entire narrative was. Alice's character is pretty clear from the get-go, and Thomas did not need to pad this narrative and convince us of the validity of Alice's current choices with endless flashbacks to Alice's childhood and schoolgirl days. I actually do not see what importance her school experiences had on the present-day narrative, and they were incredibly dull, boring and repetitive (as teen girl experiences tend to be). If the storyline of the teen girl product development had actually been completed and had connected the two, then I could have accepted the hundred pages of peer pressure/locker rooms/I don't wear the right clothes. But then Thomas goes and drops that storyline when a subversive movement introduced in the last 50 pages upends the 400 pages prior - this was supremely irritating, not only because it throws the previous 400 pages under the bus, but also because her friend goes into a 20-page long diatribe on their counterculture movement, a la Ayn Rand, and it is incredibly obvious and pedantic.
I feel like I was laboriously led down one garden path for 400 pages, and then had an alternative ending shoved forcefully down my throat in a lengthy lecture on the evils of capitalism and materialism. This is not what I signed up for. Thomas is obviously very intelligent and her ideas are bright and interesting, but this book strayed way more into conventional anti-meat/anti-sweatshop/anti-profits agenda than into putting those bright ideas about math, coding, and treasure hunting into a more original story, as she succeeds in doing in The End of Mr. Y and Our Tragic Universe.
What a shame.
July 25, 2011
Having greatly enjoyed Ms. Thomas' "The End of Mr. Y", I picked this up with high (probably too high for my own good) expectations.
After a "painful" month (which should, by itself, say something), trying to stick with it, I finally read the long-awaited conclusion a few minutes ago -and, frankly, feel it was hardly worth the hassle :(
Despite the fact that the characters were interesting (if with loads of unexplored potential) and the criticism of today's society thought provoking (if a bit preachy at times) -I found the book, overall, to be highly tiresome. From its insanely long, unnecessary descriptions of the lives of bullied, teenage girls, to the endless presentations of their buying habits during company "ideation" meetings -it was all a bit too much for me. Not to mention I'll probably have to kill someone if I hear another word about homeopathic remedies..:roll:
Having said all that, I have to admit I've read mixed reviews and heard a lot of different opinions while discussing this with friends. However, considering my personal experience, I would definitely not be quick to recommend this to anyone (anyone I don't seriously dislike anyway :P)
If, despite all of the above, you are one of the people that just have to know for themselves then by all means take a shot at this. No, seriously: I dare you...
After a "painful" month (which should, by itself, say something), trying to stick with it, I finally read the long-awaited conclusion a few minutes ago -and, frankly, feel it was hardly worth the hassle :(
Despite the fact that the characters were interesting (if with loads of unexplored potential) and the criticism of today's society thought provoking (if a bit preachy at times) -I found the book, overall, to be highly tiresome. From its insanely long, unnecessary descriptions of the lives of bullied, teenage girls, to the endless presentations of their buying habits during company "ideation" meetings -it was all a bit too much for me. Not to mention I'll probably have to kill someone if I hear another word about homeopathic remedies..:roll:
Having said all that, I have to admit I've read mixed reviews and heard a lot of different opinions while discussing this with friends. However, considering my personal experience, I would definitely not be quick to recommend this to anyone (anyone I don't seriously dislike anyway :P)
If, despite all of the above, you are one of the people that just have to know for themselves then by all means take a shot at this. No, seriously: I dare you...
March 10, 2012
Wow! Ok, sì, non è un capolavoro di alta letteratura, e sicuramente le 5 stelle sono più emotive che oggettive, però c'è da dire che mi ha tenuto incollata dall'inizio alla fine (con un breve momento di allentamento verso la metà, ma che si riprende col finale), contiene praticamente tutte (no beh...quasi, và) le cose che più mi piacciono: c'è matematica, ci sono paradossi, numeri, giochi di pensiero laterale e logica, strategie di marketing e giochi psicologici sul gruppo e affini...insomma, è stato un fuoco d'artificio per la mia mente! Poi ok, c'è tutta la parte su omeopatia, veganesimo, etica, consumo equo ecc...diciamo che lì su alcune cose sono d'accordo, su altre lo sono più nella teoria che nella pratica, su altre non mi trovo, ma in ogni caso non mi hanno infastidito all'interno della storia.
Se proprio devo trovare un difetto, per quanto io adori la Newton & Compton, devo dire che questo testo era zeppo di refusi...inoltre mi chiedo il perché di copertine che fanno pensare a libri per ragazzi, quando in realtà non è che proprio proprio sia la lettura più adatta a una dodicenne, ecco. Ma a parte questo è stato amore!
Se proprio devo trovare un difetto, per quanto io adori la Newton & Compton, devo dire che questo testo era zeppo di refusi...inoltre mi chiedo il perché di copertine che fanno pensare a libri per ragazzi, quando in realtà non è che proprio proprio sia la lettura più adatta a una dodicenne, ecco. Ma a parte questo è stato amore!
October 4, 2008
Honestly, I picked this book up because the cover looked cool. I'm not above it. And the book turned out to be *dope*! It's nice to see a female protagonist who is really smart, kind of geeky, and a bit of a loner, but who still manages to do things that most people do, like smoke cigarettes, get laid, and be, you know, not socially retarded. Theme-wise, 'PopCo' reminded me a bit of 'Fight Club,' if 'Fight Club' was geared towards British librarians. That sounds really pejorative, but it may, in fact, be the highest compliment I can pay to a book. This book has the anti-consumerist bent , the slightly morbid humor, the impeccable research, and the bizarre-but-dead-on insights that 'Fight Club' has, only instead of a crazy guy who wants to beat the living shit out of people at its center, it has a remarkably lucid girl who likes to crack codes. Or more accurately, ciphers. There is a difference, which is just one of the many random, useless, but awesome bits of information that I learned from this book. I also picked up a recipe for vegan cake.
November 2, 2015
I've had it with Scarlett Thomas. Been let down too many times. This could have been a great story, but the author forget to develop the plot, and instead decided to lecture readers about the evils of meat eating, medicine, fashion, toys, games, products in general, marketing, money, and companies. But drugs are OK, drugs are cool. And so is homoeopathy. Homoeopathy is so much better than medicine, which is evil.
February 7, 2011
PopCo by Scarlett Thomas - published 2004
contains spoiler
Let's be honest, Thomas is an english lit geek who writes for other english lit geeks. I have no problems with this as I neatly fall into that niche. PopCo is not the first book I read, The End of Mr Y was my introduction to Thomas and it was quite something.
I felt dubious about reading another book by Thomas, was it going to be equally inventive, rich and unputdownable? Or was it going to be more of the same, but less so...
PopCo's blurb was attractive enough:
“PopCo tells the story of Alice Butler -- a subversively smart girl in our commercial-soaked world who grows from recluse orphan to burgeoning vigilante buttressed by mystery, codes, math and the sense her grandparents gave her that she could change the world.”
As with "Mr Y", Thomas is capable of creating a complex, intriguing, smart female character who hooks you into the story from the first page. These women are individual, flawed, off-beat, intelligent and curious about the world, this alone makes me a fan of Thomas' writing.
The story starts promising. We find out that Alice is headhunted crossword compiler now working for a toy company called PopCo. She is on her way to a PopCo event where members from different branches will come together for a creative weekend filled with team-building excercises.
Alice, like the reader, soon finds out that more is at stake. Alice is among a group of specially selected PopCo 'creatives' who will work on a new project. They can't tell anyone, can't do anything else and can't go home - should they choose to accept this mission. They will stay at the luxurious encampment that is Hare Hall and develop a product that will appeal to the most mercurial of target markets: the teenage girl.
So much for the present. Next, we learn about Alice's upbringing. Her mother dead and father off on an undisclosed mission, she is raised by her grandparents - possibly the most interesting pair of grandparents I'v ever come across in fiction. Grandma worked as a decoder on the Enigma project and now spends her time trying to prove the Riemann Hypothesis, while grandpa is a rogue, independent, humourous, walking piece of intellect who introduces Alice to the art of codebreaking. We find out that grandpa is actually responsible for some groundbreaking work and is renouned in his field.
So that's it, in the present Alice is part of a company trying to 'de-code' the mystery of the teenage girl's shopping desires and in the past Alice in having a hard time but lovingly taken in by her quirky math-loving grandparents. Well, not quite. Because Thomas has more to say.
As she narrates the classes and excercises the Popco workers attend, the reader begins to experience a nausea that builds into open mouth appalledness. Perhaps it's a revelation of my own naivety, but does this kind of evilness really happen? Employees posing as peers, recommending products and spreading the buzz about the next 'cool' thing. Purposefully creating fake independent brands to reach those kids that don't want to buy into the big brands. Ripping of independents all over the place. In her acknowledgements, Thomas gives a list of books the reader might find interesting and unsurprisingly the list includes Naomi Klein's superb No Logo. There are definate echoes of the issues Klein raises, this time from inside the belly of the beast. And they make interesting food for thought.
The story starts to build a second strand of equally inventive material. As grandpa teaches Alice he teaches us, and there is some seriously fun stuff to be learned, even if you have been a-mathimatical your entirly life - ahum. As it turns out, her grandfather hasn't been teaching Alice about maths and codes just because he is a numbergeek. He is teaching her for the same reason he has given her a mysterious necklace that she must never take off - and hasn't. When Alice starts receiving encoded messages at Hare Hill, I felt safe to assume that at some point these two strands would come together.
For the first 200 pages or so, I believed I had just met my new favorite book. The two seperate stories were equally intriguing, the characters felt real and worth my investment and the story seemed to be about retaining a sense of individuality even when part of a group that doesn't reject anything. How can you rebel against that never disagrees?
Unfortunatley however, soon after the middle of the story, the novel lets itself down. Alice, it turns out, has found herself in the right place in the right time, because the resistance has been watching. This 'resistance', aptly called NoCo has been growing and they're planning to kill the machine from the inside. It's fun to read and you certainly go along with these characters for some of the way. Wouldn't it be great if all these independent minds - who make no effort to hide the fact that there so very different from the rest - e.g. they're all vegans - would rise up and create a counterstructure to put an end to the branding tirants that are slowly pulling us into a black hole of uniformity.
Alice, who has never had many friends suddenly finds herself surrounded by likeminded individuals, and it turns out the encoded messages weren't from scary unseen strangers with dark agendas, not even from her father. No they were from the NoCo crew. All that mystery surrounding the Stevenson/Heath manuscript...and she just figures it out it one of the most anticlimactic denouemants I've read in a long time.
This is the real flaw of the novel: the first half is so promising that it has a hell of a job to deliver a mindblowing ending. Possibly Thomas tried to do too much and now has too many ends to tie together in a satisfactory way. I feel like the reader has been allowed to peek into these fascinating people's lives, blinked and then the point of interest disappeared.
It is not a completely bad novel, there is enjoyment to be had. Perhaps the problem is that I enjoyed Mr Y so much that I had unrealistic expectations, but I can't help but feel that there was potential for a brilliant story and instead it's just ok.
contains spoiler
Let's be honest, Thomas is an english lit geek who writes for other english lit geeks. I have no problems with this as I neatly fall into that niche. PopCo is not the first book I read, The End of Mr Y was my introduction to Thomas and it was quite something.
I felt dubious about reading another book by Thomas, was it going to be equally inventive, rich and unputdownable? Or was it going to be more of the same, but less so...
PopCo's blurb was attractive enough:
“PopCo tells the story of Alice Butler -- a subversively smart girl in our commercial-soaked world who grows from recluse orphan to burgeoning vigilante buttressed by mystery, codes, math and the sense her grandparents gave her that she could change the world.”
As with "Mr Y", Thomas is capable of creating a complex, intriguing, smart female character who hooks you into the story from the first page. These women are individual, flawed, off-beat, intelligent and curious about the world, this alone makes me a fan of Thomas' writing.
The story starts promising. We find out that Alice is headhunted crossword compiler now working for a toy company called PopCo. She is on her way to a PopCo event where members from different branches will come together for a creative weekend filled with team-building excercises.
Alice, like the reader, soon finds out that more is at stake. Alice is among a group of specially selected PopCo 'creatives' who will work on a new project. They can't tell anyone, can't do anything else and can't go home - should they choose to accept this mission. They will stay at the luxurious encampment that is Hare Hall and develop a product that will appeal to the most mercurial of target markets: the teenage girl.
So much for the present. Next, we learn about Alice's upbringing. Her mother dead and father off on an undisclosed mission, she is raised by her grandparents - possibly the most interesting pair of grandparents I'v ever come across in fiction. Grandma worked as a decoder on the Enigma project and now spends her time trying to prove the Riemann Hypothesis, while grandpa is a rogue, independent, humourous, walking piece of intellect who introduces Alice to the art of codebreaking. We find out that grandpa is actually responsible for some groundbreaking work and is renouned in his field.
So that's it, in the present Alice is part of a company trying to 'de-code' the mystery of the teenage girl's shopping desires and in the past Alice in having a hard time but lovingly taken in by her quirky math-loving grandparents. Well, not quite. Because Thomas has more to say.
As she narrates the classes and excercises the Popco workers attend, the reader begins to experience a nausea that builds into open mouth appalledness. Perhaps it's a revelation of my own naivety, but does this kind of evilness really happen? Employees posing as peers, recommending products and spreading the buzz about the next 'cool' thing. Purposefully creating fake independent brands to reach those kids that don't want to buy into the big brands. Ripping of independents all over the place. In her acknowledgements, Thomas gives a list of books the reader might find interesting and unsurprisingly the list includes Naomi Klein's superb No Logo. There are definate echoes of the issues Klein raises, this time from inside the belly of the beast. And they make interesting food for thought.
The story starts to build a second strand of equally inventive material. As grandpa teaches Alice he teaches us, and there is some seriously fun stuff to be learned, even if you have been a-mathimatical your entirly life - ahum. As it turns out, her grandfather hasn't been teaching Alice about maths and codes just because he is a numbergeek. He is teaching her for the same reason he has given her a mysterious necklace that she must never take off - and hasn't. When Alice starts receiving encoded messages at Hare Hill, I felt safe to assume that at some point these two strands would come together.
For the first 200 pages or so, I believed I had just met my new favorite book. The two seperate stories were equally intriguing, the characters felt real and worth my investment and the story seemed to be about retaining a sense of individuality even when part of a group that doesn't reject anything. How can you rebel against that never disagrees?
Unfortunatley however, soon after the middle of the story, the novel lets itself down. Alice, it turns out, has found herself in the right place in the right time, because the resistance has been watching. This 'resistance', aptly called NoCo has been growing and they're planning to kill the machine from the inside. It's fun to read and you certainly go along with these characters for some of the way. Wouldn't it be great if all these independent minds - who make no effort to hide the fact that there so very different from the rest - e.g. they're all vegans - would rise up and create a counterstructure to put an end to the branding tirants that are slowly pulling us into a black hole of uniformity.
Alice, who has never had many friends suddenly finds herself surrounded by likeminded individuals, and it turns out the encoded messages weren't from scary unseen strangers with dark agendas, not even from her father. No they were from the NoCo crew. All that mystery surrounding the Stevenson/Heath manuscript...and she just figures it out it one of the most anticlimactic denouemants I've read in a long time.
This is the real flaw of the novel: the first half is so promising that it has a hell of a job to deliver a mindblowing ending. Possibly Thomas tried to do too much and now has too many ends to tie together in a satisfactory way. I feel like the reader has been allowed to peek into these fascinating people's lives, blinked and then the point of interest disappeared.
It is not a completely bad novel, there is enjoyment to be had. Perhaps the problem is that I enjoyed Mr Y so much that I had unrealistic expectations, but I can't help but feel that there was potential for a brilliant story and instead it's just ok.
October 23, 2012
My 2009 bookcrossing review:
The End of Mr Y was not a fluke or a one-hit-wonder. This was such a brilliant book. I loved it. I am going to have to get my hands on everything she has ever written. It is great on so many levels. It is an engrossing read. It has fantastic characters who are so three dimensional and interesting you want to be friends with them. You learn things during the course of the story, and you are also made to think about so much. The mind boggles, and it's something I can imagine will work being read several times. I will not be parting with my copy.
This one is about a woman called Alice Butler who works for an international toy company. She works on a series of products for children interested in being spies, writing codes etc. She is sent to a company retreat on Dartmoor (team building etc - sounds like hell) and during this, she starts getting encrypted messages from a mystery person. What can be going on? And what about the family mystery of her childhood about an encrypted manuscript and a coded necklace she has been told she always has to wear??
Everything about branding, advertising and marketing really makes you think in this book. It's especially depressing in this book because it's all aimed at children. It's like there's nothing wholesome left in life. Makes you think about brands and how much we are manipulated. Also with these major labels and their slave shops where the products are made. We pay a fortune for the label, which goes into marketing and branding, and nothing essentially goes into the wages of the people who make the crap, and so quality and workmanship become unimportant... yet this should be the most important part of the product!!! You are paying all that money literally for the label. I have to admit that I am put off buying clothes all together these days. I can't afford the expensive stuff and I don't think it's right that you should be able to buy a jumper for under 10 pounds. I have been doing dressmaking for the last couple of years, and some of the items that I have made have taken 3 days to make. When you take off cost of materials, shops' and retailer's profits etc, how much is actually left for the sod who made it? Plus these days the quality has gone right down - cheap nasty fabric, cheap thread... leads to clothes that don't last that long. And certain styles and designs can't be done because they are too labor intensive. To be honest, if it's possible for me to make it now, I will make it rather than buy it.
Also the stuff about how we follow the crowd - whether it's joining in with the school bullies, buying brands or going along with what we are told because that's what everyone else does. (Honestly, this leaves you with so much to think about).
The only thing I have issues with is the extreme veganism and animal rights. Ok, I don't support animal crueltly or anything like that. And I actually don't eat red meat because I think it's revolting. But I don't think you can cut animals and animal products out of the food chain completely. And the way it's brought up, is as if it's on par with the branding and the commercialism and all that crap. Farming and domesticating animals for our own use has been going on for thousands of years. Way before corporations, advertising, marketing and all that meaningless crap that makes me wonder that after all these millions of years of evolution, science, discovery and development - this is what we've got to??!?!?! We are, afterall, animals ourselves, and we have teeth for eating meat. Animals should be farmed and killed humanely, I definately think, but I don't think veganism should be promoted to the "right way" as opposed to the "wrong way" slung in with all the other crap of modern living. There are a lot of people on the face of the earth, and we need farming to feed them all. Also, all the animals that get killed for meat would never even have come into existence if there were not a demand for meat. If an individual wants to be a vegan, fine, we have all got the right to live our own way, but don't look on the world in rose tinted spectacles and think we should all quit using ALL animal products for the world to be a better place.
Anyway, rant over. It's a great book to read and it does make you reflect on your own life. And remember, just because someone else does/doesn't is no excuse for you doing or not doing it.
The End of Mr Y was not a fluke or a one-hit-wonder. This was such a brilliant book. I loved it. I am going to have to get my hands on everything she has ever written. It is great on so many levels. It is an engrossing read. It has fantastic characters who are so three dimensional and interesting you want to be friends with them. You learn things during the course of the story, and you are also made to think about so much. The mind boggles, and it's something I can imagine will work being read several times. I will not be parting with my copy.
This one is about a woman called Alice Butler who works for an international toy company. She works on a series of products for children interested in being spies, writing codes etc. She is sent to a company retreat on Dartmoor (team building etc - sounds like hell) and during this, she starts getting encrypted messages from a mystery person. What can be going on? And what about the family mystery of her childhood about an encrypted manuscript and a coded necklace she has been told she always has to wear??
Everything about branding, advertising and marketing really makes you think in this book. It's especially depressing in this book because it's all aimed at children. It's like there's nothing wholesome left in life. Makes you think about brands and how much we are manipulated. Also with these major labels and their slave shops where the products are made. We pay a fortune for the label, which goes into marketing and branding, and nothing essentially goes into the wages of the people who make the crap, and so quality and workmanship become unimportant... yet this should be the most important part of the product!!! You are paying all that money literally for the label. I have to admit that I am put off buying clothes all together these days. I can't afford the expensive stuff and I don't think it's right that you should be able to buy a jumper for under 10 pounds. I have been doing dressmaking for the last couple of years, and some of the items that I have made have taken 3 days to make. When you take off cost of materials, shops' and retailer's profits etc, how much is actually left for the sod who made it? Plus these days the quality has gone right down - cheap nasty fabric, cheap thread... leads to clothes that don't last that long. And certain styles and designs can't be done because they are too labor intensive. To be honest, if it's possible for me to make it now, I will make it rather than buy it.
Also the stuff about how we follow the crowd - whether it's joining in with the school bullies, buying brands or going along with what we are told because that's what everyone else does. (Honestly, this leaves you with so much to think about).
The only thing I have issues with is the extreme veganism and animal rights. Ok, I don't support animal crueltly or anything like that. And I actually don't eat red meat because I think it's revolting. But I don't think you can cut animals and animal products out of the food chain completely. And the way it's brought up, is as if it's on par with the branding and the commercialism and all that crap. Farming and domesticating animals for our own use has been going on for thousands of years. Way before corporations, advertising, marketing and all that meaningless crap that makes me wonder that after all these millions of years of evolution, science, discovery and development - this is what we've got to??!?!?! We are, afterall, animals ourselves, and we have teeth for eating meat. Animals should be farmed and killed humanely, I definately think, but I don't think veganism should be promoted to the "right way" as opposed to the "wrong way" slung in with all the other crap of modern living. There are a lot of people on the face of the earth, and we need farming to feed them all. Also, all the animals that get killed for meat would never even have come into existence if there were not a demand for meat. If an individual wants to be a vegan, fine, we have all got the right to live our own way, but don't look on the world in rose tinted spectacles and think we should all quit using ALL animal products for the world to be a better place.
Anyway, rant over. It's a great book to read and it does make you reflect on your own life. And remember, just because someone else does/doesn't is no excuse for you doing or not doing it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 16, 2008
This was really an awesome and exciting book. I couldn't really name what kind of book this is, as it interweaves so many topics (and well) that it's unbelievable. Foundational themes include cryptanalysis and marketing, but the author also touches on several other interesting areas, including 17th-century pirates, artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, virtual worlds, gaming, mathematics in general, and British schoolgirl life in the 80s. I loved the nod that Bletchley Park got, as I worked on a project there during my time in England.
As you might imagine, the story is kind of unusual for bringing all of these things together in a coherent way. The basic premise is that Alice Butler works for PopCo, an internationally successful toy company. She was brought into a long-term focus group that was supposed to come up with a Big Idea relating to a specific demographic that the company has trouble selling to. The group is staying at an isolated estate, cut off from the Internet and any other non-PopCo-related media. They go to all these seminars and mingle with each other and so on. While she's there, Alice is getting mysterious encoded messages from some unknown person. The book sleeve made it sound like this was a huge part of the story, but really it's not, at least until the end. A bigger part of the story is her relationship with the people at the estate and the tale of her childhood, right after her father abandoned her. The other constant theme is marketing, marketing, marketing.
One of the things that's interesting about the book is that before you read it, you are given the impression that PopCo is sinister or evil. But in reality it's not really different from any other company, as it's just a normal company with normal, aggressive marketing tactics. People sometimes forget that with capitalism, the number one goal is for the individual to make as much money as possible, without consideration for the safety/sanity of others. And companies are just collections of individuals. These ideas come out in the end of the book.
I do have two slightly negative things to say about the book. First, it was a really slow read for me. I can't say exactly why, but it took a long time for me to get into it, even though I found it interesting. And even then, my reading pace didn't really speed up like it normally does. I read that Thomas is part of a group of writers who intentionally write in a very simple, straightforward manner. Personally, I think a little embellishment doesn't do any harm and sometimes can really move things along. The other thing is that I do have to admit that the ending did disappoint me just a little. It was just a bit of a let-down, as it didn't stand up to the rest of the book somehow. I just expected something more impressive. But I still thought it was great, overall. So read it but be forewarned.
As you might imagine, the story is kind of unusual for bringing all of these things together in a coherent way. The basic premise is that Alice Butler works for PopCo, an internationally successful toy company. She was brought into a long-term focus group that was supposed to come up with a Big Idea relating to a specific demographic that the company has trouble selling to. The group is staying at an isolated estate, cut off from the Internet and any other non-PopCo-related media. They go to all these seminars and mingle with each other and so on. While she's there, Alice is getting mysterious encoded messages from some unknown person. The book sleeve made it sound like this was a huge part of the story, but really it's not, at least until the end. A bigger part of the story is her relationship with the people at the estate and the tale of her childhood, right after her father abandoned her. The other constant theme is marketing, marketing, marketing.
One of the things that's interesting about the book is that before you read it, you are given the impression that PopCo is sinister or evil. But in reality it's not really different from any other company, as it's just a normal company with normal, aggressive marketing tactics. People sometimes forget that with capitalism, the number one goal is for the individual to make as much money as possible, without consideration for the safety/sanity of others. And companies are just collections of individuals. These ideas come out in the end of the book.
I do have two slightly negative things to say about the book. First, it was a really slow read for me. I can't say exactly why, but it took a long time for me to get into it, even though I found it interesting. And even then, my reading pace didn't really speed up like it normally does. I read that Thomas is part of a group of writers who intentionally write in a very simple, straightforward manner. Personally, I think a little embellishment doesn't do any harm and sometimes can really move things along. The other thing is that I do have to admit that the ending did disappoint me just a little. It was just a bit of a let-down, as it didn't stand up to the rest of the book somehow. I just expected something more impressive. But I still thought it was great, overall. So read it but be forewarned.
March 10, 2009
PopCo was the novel Scarlett Thomas wrote before The End Of Mr Y, though it's now being re-marketed after the success of the former. I found it as compelling as Mr Y but not as satisfying, particularly the ending.
It's the story of Alice, a twenty-something working for a global manufacturer of kid's toys. At a Thought Camp for creatives in Dartmoor, intended to help the company devise a new hugely successful product to be aimed at teenage girls, Alice wakes up to the immorality of the organisation she works for and discovers that there are others who share her revulsion for this kind of exploitation.
Woven into the plot is the backstory of Alice's upbringing by her grandmother, a respected mathematician who worked at Bletchley Park during the war, and her grandfather a cryptanalyist who is obsessed with unravelling two mysterious documents: the Voynich Manuscript (a real document from the fifteenth century) and the Stevenson/Heath manuscript ( a fictitious one created for the novel).
Like Mr Y, Popco is a book of ideas, many of them mathematical but none of them beyond a reasonably intelligent reader. It's zeitgeisty and clever but for me, the intelligence of the writing is not matched in the political analysis which forms the backdrop to the end of the book. This is all a bit stoned politics undergaduate. Despite this failing, Popco is enormous fun and I couldn't stop reading it.
It's the story of Alice, a twenty-something working for a global manufacturer of kid's toys. At a Thought Camp for creatives in Dartmoor, intended to help the company devise a new hugely successful product to be aimed at teenage girls, Alice wakes up to the immorality of the organisation she works for and discovers that there are others who share her revulsion for this kind of exploitation.
Woven into the plot is the backstory of Alice's upbringing by her grandmother, a respected mathematician who worked at Bletchley Park during the war, and her grandfather a cryptanalyist who is obsessed with unravelling two mysterious documents: the Voynich Manuscript (a real document from the fifteenth century) and the Stevenson/Heath manuscript ( a fictitious one created for the novel).
Like Mr Y, Popco is a book of ideas, many of them mathematical but none of them beyond a reasonably intelligent reader. It's zeitgeisty and clever but for me, the intelligence of the writing is not matched in the political analysis which forms the backdrop to the end of the book. This is all a bit stoned politics undergaduate. Despite this failing, Popco is enormous fun and I couldn't stop reading it.
June 9, 2021
Un libro perfetto da portare in spiaggia: un po’ di mistero, accenni di crittografia, una protagonista che potrei essere io, e qualche principio etico vestito leggero, perché è pur sempre estate.
June 29, 2021
I'm still in doubt weather to give this book 3 or 4 starts, but probably 3 is enough. I appreciated the style, a lot. It's vivid, fluent and entertaining. However I've found some flaws in the plot. First of all, the two storylines (the one that begins in the 80s and mainly deals with cryptanalysis and the present one, at Popco) are not well connected. They are both entertaining, but put together they make the book lack of cohesion. Secondly, the novel could have been shorter, without all those unnecessary parts about maths, cryptanalysis, code-breaking etc... There are interesting details and explanations, but they are often too long and complicated. I'd have preferred more cohesion and more plot twists. Maybe a sudden revelation come at the Popco camp or something like that.
To sum up, a good writing style, well built characters but some more cohesion and plot twists would have been appreciated.
To sum up, a good writing style, well built characters but some more cohesion and plot twists would have been appreciated.
October 13, 2019
A self-indulgent, anti-corporate, post-adolescent, semi-autobiographical parable: ideal for the XR generation, I suspect.
Plenty of entertaining interludes, insights into the life of a troubled but talented teenager, and stacks of hardcore cypher / codebreaking technical detail.
It felt a lot like spending a weekend trapped in a student flat with half a dozen semi-wrecked philosophy undergrads, rambling on about being unconventional iconoclasts (while simply adhering to a slightly different set of conventions to the previous generation).
Some of the writing is excellent, and there was just enough intrigue to keep me plodding through to the end.
Was it worth it? Nah, not really.
But I did enjoy the opening sequence about catching the night sleeper: the author nailed that, at least.
5/10
Plenty of entertaining interludes, insights into the life of a troubled but talented teenager, and stacks of hardcore cypher / codebreaking technical detail.
It felt a lot like spending a weekend trapped in a student flat with half a dozen semi-wrecked philosophy undergrads, rambling on about being unconventional iconoclasts (while simply adhering to a slightly different set of conventions to the previous generation).
Some of the writing is excellent, and there was just enough intrigue to keep me plodding through to the end.
Was it worth it? Nah, not really.
But I did enjoy the opening sequence about catching the night sleeper: the author nailed that, at least.
5/10
July 1, 2025
DNF. Started in 2023 and I literally could not finish it even though I was 70% done. It was incredibly math heavy and the MC had so much potential to be interesting but it was too much going on and the tangent lasted forever.
December 24, 2021
This is one of her books appealing to me more, not only because it feels like being in an echo chamber with people who share my values. I really enjoyed the writing, the alternation between her childhood experiences and where she is now as an adult. I enjoyed the mysteries and the discussions about marketing and its ethical questions.
I highly recommend this if you liked The End of Mr Y or Bright Young Things by her.
I highly recommend this if you liked The End of Mr Y or Bright Young Things by her.
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