Neon Utopia

by Marie Adams

Beckoned by a virtual voice, she wakes into a world she doesn't remember. Together, she and her unlikely ally must find a way to save strangers from a threat without falling victim to it themselves.

519 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 2, 2021

Reviews

[buwan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book took me so long to finish. I wanted to DNF at more than a few points, but I finished it. And. I mean. That's it, I finished it. I have a lot I want to say about what getting through this book was like so putting it behind a spoiler, you're welcome.

⚠️ DISCLAIMER: THIS REVIEW IS NOT MEANT FOR AUTHOR CONSUMPTION. This review is for fellow readers. If you are the author or anyone related to the author in any way, this review is NOT for you.

Let's get this over with. Neon Utopia is a cyberpunk dystopia about Eden Fairchild: a young woman who wakes up in a lab and escapes the looming threat of execution with the help of a mysterious voice in her head. Led to a shabby apartment in the heart of the bustling and dangerous city of Utopia, Eden meets her savior: a dying man named Kinkaid kept alive only by machines, speaking to her through a link in his computer. Eden is his only chance at survival, and if she wants to save the man who saved her, she must use a power she doesn't remember having. She has to transmutate this man's human body. After her power goes awry and Eden merges Kinkaid and his medical assistant android, Kinkaid is an extraordinary merging of human and machine. With new identities, new abilities, and a new friendship, the two set out to make new lives for themselves in the slums of Utopia. However, the people hunting Eden, a megacorporation called BioSynch, won't be idle for long. When people start to get sick with a strange illness, Kinkaid and Eden are determined to find out why and will uncover BioSynch's involvement to get there.

Kay. All of that said, I was recommended this book by a friend who knows I love cyberpunk and robots and kissing robots. I, theoretically, should've loved this book. Anyway here's some things I really disliked about this book.

1.) Get a Beta Reader. And an Editor.
I'm convinced this book is the first draft. This book is in serious need of some editing and a second (or third) pair of eyes to read over it because it is riddled with mistakes, fluffing, and plot holes. There are points where characters explain things to you twice on the same page, written as though the scene was written multiple times but the author forgot to delete one of the versions. There are points where the characters will say things like, "Oh this must be (thing). But if (person) doesn't explain it, I'll ask about it." And then the other character will explain the thing. I don't understand why I have to be privy to every thought and observation these characters have when I'm going to get an explanation in a more concise and natural way anyway. There are points where characters seem to just forget they've already figured something out and then figure it out again a chapter or two later.

Characters will also contradict themselves. Kinkaid does this a lot. There's a scene where he says, "We need to meet this person, we don't know them so let's be careful until we know we can trust them." And then immediately after says, "Oh yeah he came to my house when I was human, I know him." Bro.

There are sentences that don't flow and really just need to be rewritten and probably would've been caught if someone was reading and actually paying attention to the wording. There are way too many commas, the wrong dashes are used, sentences are clunky, words are repeated, etc.

"She winces at the sudden burst of sound that bursts in when the doors swing on their hinges."
"Calming, aqua-colored lights gaze back at from beneath that dome-like eyes."
"She exhales tiredly through her nose as the chemical-heavy tasting water fills her mouth."

These are all within the first two chapters.

There's also a lot of description in this book that feels like it's just fluffing up the word count. We have to get a very detailed description of everything Eden and Kinkaid do: Eden observing every article of clothing she wears and thinking about it for a long time, Eden going to the bathroom in the morning, Kinkaid and Eden going from Point A to Point B even if no plot or development actually happens in that time, there is an excruciating amount of time dedicated to pointless dialogue that doesn't serve any purpose than to... I dunno. Fill space. The very first paragraph reads as:

"So what do you think?" she says, watching the way her daughter's pitch-black hair shimmers in the sunlight as she slides her fingers through its silken, weightless tresses.
Colors reflect from it like rainbows meant for the sky above that is as cloudless as the most precious of diamonds. It creates such a beautiful, heavenly contrast to her earthen-colored eyes. She lets the strange of midnight flow across her fingers and her face drifts to her daughter's round face. She can't help laughing at her daughter's skeptical expression, her raised brow and lips upturned into an unimpressed smirk.

This is, somehow, simultaneously exactly how the rest of the book reads and yet not at all.

Another goes: She thinks on it, worrying her lip with her teeth before glancing back up to them. "Eden ... Call me Eden. It's simple and reminds us of where I've come from. I still feel out of place like I'm still asleep back there so I can only think of Eden."

Girl, just say your name is Eden.

2.) Things That Gave Me the Ick
After transmutating Kinkaid, Eden goes through this moment of guilt and self-hate where she thinks that Kinkaid looks really scary and she fucked up his new body, and now he must hate her for not giving him a normal human body. Keep in mind that Kinkaid literally didn't have any specifications, he just wants to have a body that works because he's been a chronically ill paraplegic up to this point.

(NOTE: I say "paraplegic" here because that's what the author says, but at this point in the story, Kinkaid had no use of his body and had to be kept alive via machines and moved via a medical assistant android. He is only able to speak through the link in his computer (presumably to his brain), but cannot physically speak or move his body. I don't know if the author meant to say "quadriplegic" or if there's just a part of Kinkaid's backstory that was never explained, or maybe I just don't know what a paraplegic is.)

So anyway, Eden turns Kinkaid into a sort-of-android-sort-of-human hybrid and then Eden gets mad because he doesn't actively hate it. She literally calls him a liar and brings up multiple times after this how she refuses to believe that he doesn't secretly hate this body and wanted a "normal life" as a human. Even after Kinkaid says, "You have no idea what I wanted. [...] I wanted a body free of faults—healthy—and you made this. Gave me a body that can't decay," Eden really tries to drive home for a long time that no one would ever want what she did. Feels bad. Sounds guilt-trippy. Sounds gaslight-y. Do better, Eden.

Eden feels like she's written as a self-insert who doesn't know what part she's supposed to play. Her amnesia is convenient at the best of times, making her a perfect subject to infantilize and fawn over for Kinkaid but also making sure you remember things like her childlike appearance doesn't mean she isn't a grown woman. She also conveniently remembers that she has tokophobia despite not remembering anything about herself or the world she lives in, which seems like a somewhat useless character trait since Eden's "daughter" is brought up maybe twice and never again, one of which is the first chapter's opening dream sequence. Btw, that dream sequence is the only one of its kind and none of Eden's past or memories are speculated on or brought up at all unless Kinkaid specifically tells her something about herself. She has no real personality outside of whatever is most convenient to move the story along, however slowly and messily it does: from random bouts of self-hate, confusion, and panic about the world to her bleeding heart about the fate of humanity to the random bursts of courageous badassery in the form of crossing her arms and speaking a little more sternly than normal.

⚠️For this next part, a disclaimer: I am not accusing the author of ableism, racism, or homophobia. I understand that unconscious biases are a thing and I do not believe the author wrote anything in this story with malicious intent. As with most of my reviews, I'm pointing out things that stuck out to me as being questionable, problematic, or just tasteless for the sake of review and critique.⚠️

There're also generalized statements about Kinkaid's disability that seem a little too generalized for my liking. For example: "Eden worries the inside of her cheek. Of course, a person confined to a bed and unable to speak without help from a computer must be proficient in understanding the things people don't say. When someone can't move or speak, they have to get used to examining and scrutinizing those who can so they can't be taken advantage of." I wish this was just written to be about Kinkaid specifically and not just disabled people as a whole, which is how it comes off.

The diversity in this book is questionable at best. The only Black woman in the story is a gang boss's ex-girlfriend named Kal'isha who is described as an attention-seeking lesbian that tries to rape Eden. She is also one of two confirmed queer characters, the other being her ex who is the gang boss that antagonizes Eden and Kinkaid. There's another character who seems queer-coded but is an unnamed villain who makes one appearance before being threatened out of the story. I only say they're queer-coded because the description the author gives them is really playing up their androgyny to the point that Eden can't figure out if they're a man or a woman, which is the typical gender-queer go-to. There are two confirmed Asian characters. I think. One is the unnamed lieutenant of the gang boss identified only by her thick "East Asian" accent (I particularly have a problem with this because if you know what to listen for, the different East Asian accents sound very different from one another. But on the other hand, I guess the fact that it's labeled an "East Asian" accent and not just "an Asian" accent is already a step above a lot of people.)

The other character is... I hesitate to call him this, but the "main villain" of this book, Dr. Kwan. Dr. Kwan is never given a description but I'm assuming that based on his name, he's meant to be East Asian. He's a doctor who knowingly hides the fact that he infects people with a deadly disease that spreads so far that people, infected or not, are forced into overflowing clinics, mask regulations, and quarantines. I don't know when writing on this book began, but in a post-COVID world, this being our only named East Asian character sits very oddly with me. :/

Not to mention, the author seems allergic to describing Asian people? Idk if she was scared to do it or what, but white characters like El, Jerry, or the gang boss, and even a throwaway character who doesn't get brought up again have no problem being described in excruciating detail. Kal'isha gets a decent description too. But Dr. Kwan? The lieutenant with an accent? Couldn't be bothered.

There's also a very long scene where Eden talks about how white her skin is.

[Kinkaid] chuckles and looks down at her, giving that slight smile. "Of course. Look at us. You're as white as snow and I'm ... well ...."
Her brows furrow and she reaches up to twirl some of her hair with her fingers, examining it as she loops the straight strands around her index finger. "Is my skin and hair color really that odd? I can't imagine no one hasn't already used—I don't know—some kind of surgery or something to look like this too."
"No, you're right. An appearance like yours is very achievable and I'm sure quite a few have undergone the chemical treatments for it, but there's just something different about you. [...] The coloring isn't quite the same. See, there's always a tint to it. Where you're white, they are more of an ivory. Snow compared to porcelain. Even your hair. I've never seen anything reflect light the way it does. [...] You're more beaut—"

I'm sorry, this sounds dangerously close to skin bleaching. I dunno, maybe I'm just picking at nothing. I feel like this could've been avoided by just saying that she had an iridescence to her skin, or maybe just... not commenting that she's prettier than everyone else because her skin is lighter. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this, since Eden is written to be the innocent and compassionate white girl who is whisked away by the violent giant black robot.

3.) Disappointing
Anyway, I hesitate to call Dr. Kwan a villain because the actual conflict involving his devious plans to infect unaware citizens doesn't actually begin until about 80% of the book. Before that, we spend just about all of our time doing fuck all and having no plot or character development. Dr. Kwan is officially introduced and killed within about 3 pages at the 96% mark.

I say no character actually gets developed because our main characters (and just about every character, for that matter) stay exactly the same as when we started. Eden is the voice of compassion, the bleeding heart who thinks every life is worth saving, even if they are literally shooting at her, and Kinkaid just wants to protect Eden and spends a lot of time punching a lot of people.

Actually, I lied, Eden doesn't stay the same. Because right as she and Kinkaid are confronting Dr. Kwan, she lets Kinkaid kill him.

There's a pause as they watch the man struggle to catch his breath. She feels like Kinkaid is waiting, seeking an answer, and realizes it's because of her. He's waiting to see if she'll stop him, protest to taking another life like she's been constantly doing.
She can't. When it comes down to the choice of letting the man live, she fails horribly and sees no solution for him but death. Yet, she can't force herself to be ashamed for wanting it.

Then Kinkaid shoots Dr. Kwan and we just move on, like there's really... nothing more to it.

So Eden's entire character point, which is insisting on everyone be spared (which is also the exact plan going into this final mission: don't kill anyone), means absolutely jack shit when it came down to it. We could've had her fight to spare Dr. Kwan but he makes it impossible and the only way out is to kill him (bonus if she has to kill him by her own hands and not Kinkaid's), or Eden chooses to spare Dr. Kwan and it bites her in the ass later, leading her to have a conflict in her own morals.

You could argue that she lets Kinkaid kill Kwan because she does realize she has to save the many over every individual life, but there's very little if any build-up to this, and since Dr. Kwan is named, introduced, and killed within about the same 10% of the book at the very end, his death doesn't even feel triumphant or narratively rewarding in any way. It is a one-and-done villain with no bearing on our main characters.

Speaking of main characters, why is Eden even on this heist. Or any heist. She's completely useless other than the fact that she runs and hides and begs Kinkaid not to kill anyone (right before letting him kill Kwan, of course). She's supposedly only there because Kinkaid wants her there. At no point in the story past Kinkaid's own transmutation does she use her abilities for any reason. Now that I think about it, I don't even remember it being mentioned. No one was like, "Hey, Eden, you should maybe practice your abilities since that could be super useful." It's completely pointless aside from the fact that Kinkaid used it once and that's it.

She is about this useful in every instance of conflict in this book. Every time Eden seems like she's going to use her Talk no Jutsu to solve a problem, Kinkaid solves it for her with a gun or his fists or both. At no point do these two really let each other's strengths shine or make up for each other's weaknesses, they just kinda fumble through their own story like the whole thing is an accident.

Then the story ends, obviously, really quickly after Dr. Kwan is obliterated by poor conflict resolution. Eden gets shot because for some reason she went into this mission, knowing that the guards would be armed and ready to shoot on sight, without a bulletproof vest of any kind despite the fact that Kinkaid really emphasizes that he wants to protect her. But thank god she wears a jumpsuit and puts her hair in a bun for that bullet she eats. A nonfatal shot, might I add, because we wouldn't want our MCs to face any actual life-threatening conflict.

There's a lot more to talk about, specifically about the ending, but at this point, I think I've spoken so much about the problems I have with this book, it wouldn't matter even if I did talk about them. I'm assuming that since a lot of things were talked about very briefly and then never brought up again are put there for sequel bait.

TLDR: Needs an editor and beta readers, little to no plot or character development, questionable character choices, unrewarding ending. I've definitely enjoyed "bad" books before, but this one isn't even bad in a fun way, I'm just glad it's over. 1.5/2 stars.

[T.M. Kohl · Rating 5 out of 5]

What drew me in first was the cover. A beautiful work, and props to whoever made the art! as I read, I was taken in by a mysterious voice the main character hears as he helps her escape from a biotech lab. I don’t want to spoil too much, but when she escapes and finds her helper, it gets pretty dang interesting!

Overall, I enjoyed the romance aspect the most. It was a nicely paced slow burn with lots of sweet moments between the two main characters. I liked both Kinkaid’s and Eden’s characters, as they were pretty different but also complemented each other well. Some of the side characters were also a hoot, such as von Everec.

I thought the plot could be a *little* more cohesive—the main villain was apparent throughout the whole story, but the event that triggers the climax could have had a little more lead up in my opinion. Otherwise, the plot moved along at a steady pace and the events built upon each other.

I also want to mention the setting. I’ve not really read any cyberpunk stories (though I love games like Deus Ex), and this was an entertaining introduction to the genre. It highlighted different cyberpunk themes like class divide, problems with technology, and transhumanism. I recommend this read if you enjoy romance and cyberpunk.

[K. Dezendorf · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun romp through a futuristic world! The author outdoes themselves in regards to building a world with very rich and colorful descriptions and a pair of very engaging main characters. The slow-burn romance is very sweet and the supporting cast is also very engaging with some memorable antagonists on the side.

The only part I struggled with was, while the author does amazing at description, at times, there felt like there was too much of it, to the point where things felt repetitive or redundant.

Pick up this book if you want to see the birthing of a new power couple!

[Lydia Gates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool Scifi

I thought the worldbuilding was interesting, though there is definitely more to learn, and I liked the characters a lot. This book does have a pandemic plot, though it is different from the real one. The pacing is a bit odd; there isn’t much foreshadowing before everyone is suddenly sick, and the book ends pretty abruptly but not really on a cliffhanger, since you know the major plot points of the romance and pandemic are resolved. I would have liked to see more payoff on the romance than just a few kisses. I would read a second book!

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great, believable, and immersive cyberpunk world with truly intriguing characters! I'm a sucker for slow-burn romance, and the dynamics between these two have a very innocent, sweet feel. I feel like there could've been more build up to the pandemic because it confused me when Eden started wearing her mask; I hadn't picked up on any indicators of people being sick before then (though I may have just not registered the signs). I'd love to see a second book with more revelations to the main characters' pasts and their growing relationship.