By Heather A.
4 out of 5 stars ★★★★☆
Del Rey
sci-fi
Synopsis:
Briddey is a high-powered exec in the mobile phone industry, overseeing new products from concept (‘anything to beat the new apple phone’) to delivery. And she works with her wonderful partner, Trent. They’ve been together for six magical weeks, in a whirlwind of flowers, dinners, laughter and now comes the icing on the cake: not a weekend away or a proposal but something even better. An EDD. A procedure which will let them sense each other’s feelings. Trent doesn’t just want to tell her how much he loves her – he wants her to feel it. Everything is perfect. The trouble is, Briddey can’t breathe a word of it to anyone (difficult, when the whole office is guessing) until she’s had two minutes to call her family. And they’re hounding her about the latest family drama, but when they find out about the EDD – which they will – they’ll drop everything to interrogate her. And it might just be easier to have the procedure now and explain later. Only Apple are poised to deliver an amazing new product and she has to be one step ahead …if she can only persuade their tech genius, C. B., to drop his crazy ideas about a ‘privacy phone’ with its ‘do not disturb’ settings, and focus on what people really want: more efficient, instinctive and immediate ways to communicate. The race is on: not just for new, cutting-edge technology, but also for a shred of privacy in a public world and – for Briddey – a chance for love at the heart of it all.
A galley was provided by the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.
This was so cute! There’s a market for sci-fi romantic comedies and this book fills that void. This was also my first Connie Willis book so I was pleased with the writing and will definitely be reading her other books–hope they have the same genuine humor I found in this story.
Willis navigates a “millennial” problem in her book. The characters work for a communication/ tech company, CommSpan. Their main competition is Apple. The employees are constantly communicating about work, and for Briddey, her family is constantly communicating with her as well to the point where she has to turn off her phone because they keep calling and texting at all hours. The theme of constant communication is further developed with the implant that Briddey gets with Trent, where supposedly they would be able to feel each others emotions.
Are you really connecting more with your partner if you can feel their emotions? Is there such a thing as too much communication? For CommSpan many would disagree, but for the case of Briddey’s actual love interest, C.B., he sees that communication is saturated. As Briddey starts to figure out she’s telepathic, it becomes more obvious that the way in which we communicate becomes the problem and not communication in an of itself. She forms a bond with C.B. just because he can hear her and help her more directly than Trent ever could.
As all this is going on, there’s also a lot of humor that would transfer well to a screen adaptation. Maeve is hilarious, and Briddey’s family and co-workers seem to come out of an episode of the office, always interfering. Plus, the visualization exercises with C.B. were great metaphors for their actual fears.
This book was certainly underrated this year! It has humor, depth, and a very sweet love story. What more could you ask for? Sometimes sci-fi takes itself too seriously and this is the right dose of humor. It’s like the movie “What Women Want” with a sci-fi twist. Read this!!
