Joey is a Reality Controller in near-future Delhi. Her job is to supervise the multimedia multi-reality livestreams of Indi, one of South Asia’s fastest rising online celebrities—who also happens to be her college ex. Joey’s job gives her considerable culture power, but she’s too caught up in day-to-day crisis handling to see this, or to figure out what she wants from her life.
Rudra is a recluse estranged from his wealthy and powerful family, now living in an impoverished immigrant neighborhood. When his father’s death pulls him back into his family’s orbit, an impulsive job offer from Joey becomes his only escape from the life he never wanted.
But as Joey and Rudra become enmeshed in multiple conspiracies, their lives start to spin out of control—complicated by dysfunctional relationships, corporate loyalty, and the never-ending pressures of surveillance capitalism. When a bigger picture begins to unfold, they must each decide how to do the right thing in a world where simply maintaining the status quo feels like an accomplishment. Ultimately, resistance will not—cannot—take the same shape for these two very different people.
This was such an intriguing book. The ‘plot’ is largely ‘here’s what this area of near-future India is like.’ We see how the caste system still affects everyone. The question arises, ‘Did this person end up in this situation from their own merits or because of their name?’ In terms of a straightforward ‘go from A to B’ plot, there’s not much there. I think this could bother some people hoping for a clear-cut story. While understandable, I liked the more hazy atmosphere of the storytelling. We’re thrown into the action, not really knowing who to trust. What bothered me, though, is that after one of the perspective shifts near the end, we learn things about one of the POVs that feels like it came out of nowhere. It’s like there was this time skip that we’re supposed to infer happened, but instead it just felt like a whole section of the book was missing.
The characters to me felt like they were more there to show us the setting rather than people to really focus on. As odd as this sounds, I don’t mean this in a bad way at all. While this may not have been the intention, I still think it worked out. This is a book that makes you think, ‘Something like this isn’t that far off from actually happening.’ It feels like there’s no hope, but we do find little moments of goodness throughout. Moments of taking a stand and moments of finding people you can truly trust. The ending is still uncertain, but this novel shows that it doesn’t have to be void of hope.
Overall, I thought this was a great read. While there were aspects that bugged me, they ultimately did not hinder my enjoyment.
(I received an ARC from the publisher.)
I’ll be reading this book very soon. Great review (and heads up)!