2022 Reading List

Oh goodness. What an emotional book.

The characters are written well, and I think the fairly small cast helps with that. The plot is engaging. I like the pacing: it continues along steadily like a nice stroll.

Also, I love Eleanor's fancy vocabulary.

The emotional catharsis was satisfying.

Oh, and the narrator of the audiobook is great. I listened to the book slower than normal just to enjoy it more easily.

I liked Costis, the main POV character.

I also enjoy the writing: it's not confusing, and there are funny bits.

The story was kinda boring though: it was like watching a really long magic trick that doesn't look special until the very end. It would have been more fun if the reader was in on the surprise a little bit more.

The characters seemed a bit flat, no one seemed to grow or change much except maybe Costis. The king also might have, but it's also easy to think that he was just acting the whole time, so he's still the same person in the end.

I didn't like watching the king behave like a fool for so long. It started to drag.

Also, I stumbled over the pacing at the end a little bit. Once the "bad guy" was dealt with the story just.. kept going? I dunno. Maybe it was just me, but the post-climax part of the book seemed oddly drawn out.

Dystopias are fun.

For comparison, I think 1984 is a more realistic dystopia than this one, making 1984 more dreadful (this one is fantasy/sci-fi), and Hunger Games is more focused on romance and has less mystery.

I like the characters; it's easy to like the good guys, and the bad guys were good at upsetting me. The plot was interesting, with lots of mystery. The setting is also very nice: I love the completely alien world that Fforde has dreamt up.

This book has slight romance.

That said, I kinda wish I had waited to read this until the whole trilogy was out... The ending was okay, but there's so much left unanswered!

I liked the characters and the setting a bunch, and the mystery plot had me guessing the whole time, even with all the hints. I liked it a bunch.

The system of magic was fun, too. Reminded me a bit of Middlegame.

I didn't realize it was a series, though; I thought I'd checked that, and then the book ends very clearly requiring a sequel! Luckily it's not a cliffhanger, the ending is satisfying.

That was fun! I like Sophos. I enjoyed watching him grow up a little in this book. Finally seeing some character growth in this series was satisfying.

Also, I found the political intrigue more interesting and easier to follow in this one than the last one.

Very fun, different book. I enjoyed the creepy setting at the school, and the mostly grey characters. At one point in order to advance a character needs to do something morally repugnant- -not in order to become a bad person, but to reach their potential... It's hard to explain.

The whole book is kind of like that: hard to explain.

I enjoyed reading about Sasha and the other characters, and the slow and steady plot was well-suited to the rest of the creepy atmosphere. I listened to the audiobook slower than I normally do, just to immerse more in the book.

The ending isn't a cliff hanger, and it's even kind of satisfying. I hope the sequels get translated soon so I can return to this world.

That was a in one! It had almost no political intrigue, so was very easy to keep track of what was going on. XD

I liked the main character a lot, it was fun seeing his transition from slave to free man. I hope we get more of him in the next book.

I still like Costas.

I guessed the twist almost from the beginning, so it wasn't surprising, but it was still a fun story.

The setting was a lot of fun: most of the book is a lot of travelling, which I find entertaining.

Very good book, marred only by the fact that Dostoevsky didn't get to write the intended sequel.

The whole thing is very character-driven, and a large section of the book is a fun murder mystery whodunnit.

The romances are very dramatic... Almost every character is in some way extreme.

How many brothers k are there?

Wow! What an intriguing book!

I liked the english characters and the surprising plot. And the pretty settings were fun. I got goosebumps when Jane said she's not a bird...

The english-elitism was a bit annoying, but that's part of the time period, right?

(Vague spoilers in next paragraph...)

Orphan story, governess story, ghost story, love story, homeless story, surprise inheritance, secret wife, surprise family, rejected proposal, schoolteacher, disability, missionary, house fire, reunion...

I didn't get it...

I got that the guy was evil—threatening the natives and even his friends—and that the narrator lied to the woman. I got that the heart of darkness could refer to both the physical unexplored location on the map, or the evil guy's heart.

But I feel like I'm missing a lot. There didn't seem to be much character development, and the plot and setting were both kinda boring.

It didn't click for me this time. Maybe some other time.

Fun! The beginning was a little bit slow, but it got going really well. I enjoyed this finale.

It's written fine, but it's not pleasing, not to me. It might be a great book, but I didn't like it. This is the second book I've read by Margaret Atwood, and they've both felt like this. I'm leaving this review mainly as a note to future-me to avoid reading other stuff by her.

The way the book is written makes it feel like sex is the only purpose to human life. It's as if Atwood took the "men think about sex at least once every 7 seconds" joke seriously, and extended that to all people. It feels depressing.

Creepy fun.

The book is written in small sections, following a different POV character each time. I liked the structure. I liked the characters, too.

The story is fun. The overarching plot fairly predictable, but still satisfying.

I liked the setting, too.

A lot of the magic is explained, but not all of it, which creates a kind of enjoyable air of mystery.

I was in a reading slump through the whole first half of this book (not the book's fault), and took nearly three weeks to read that much. And then I finished the second half in one evening. It was quite fun entertainment. :) I liked Poirot.

I need to keep this around for my own personal reference. :)

Good book, with actionable ideas for raising kids.

The last bit of the book is a age-based guide, which I think would be more useful as a reference than simple reading material.

The writing was very pretty. I listened to the audiobook, and the experience was very calming. I liked it.

The way the story was told was initially confusing, but I accepted the confusion and it was nice.

I liked the characterization.

I feel like this is one that could benefit from a couple re-reads.

The plot was very very light. Almost non-existent.

Fun book. The characters were okay. Not great, but fine for me. The story was fine, too. The sci-fi time-dilation and changing societies are what kept me hooked.

Okay story. Writing was a bit annoying. The whole thing was pretty predictable.

The best part was when the new guy (Rob?) showed up.

The writing felt odd in places, enough so that I couldn't get into the book.

This is a fun one.

I thought the characters were great: they have plenty of secrets and backstories, and even a little bit of character growth (in the first novel of the series). The plot was intriguing, easy to follow, and not at all guessable. The setting is fantastic.

The story of looking for his lost/stolen wife reminds me of the John Carter series, though, which used that plot excessively... But that's just me.

"So it is with God."

I liked this book. I liked the characters, and the winding plot with exactly 100 chapters, and the setting. At one point I was snacking while listening to the audiobook, and I had to stop snacking when he described eating the tiger's excrement... The whole book was very immersive. I liked the ambiguous ending. The theme of storytelling. It was an interesting way of painting faith.

Fun romp. Interesting characters. Odd storyline, overall good. A typically-sudden ending (for Stephenson). I liked Anathem more.

The story is fun: a romp in space with talking martians and invisible godly masters of the planets. Lewis was definitely not a physicist, though: his astronaut floated higher in water on Mars because the gravity was less (and other similarly small details).

A sci-fi alternative version of the (non?)fall of Adam and Eve. Parts of it were really fun, parts of it were boring. I really liked the setting on Venus: an ocean dotted with floating islands undulating in the waves. The characters were kinda boring, though, except for the devil figure.

Fun book. I enjoyed the characters and the setting. The plot was interesting, but not all that satisfying. Although, it's only the 2nd in a big series, so I suppose that's to be expected.

What a fun chunk of sci-fi!

Wormholes and aliens and conspiracy theories and immortality and independent AIs and giant superstructures and elves all play interesting roles in the story.

The book is long, and took a bit to get going, but once it started it didn't stop.

The setting is incredible. So many places, and the story is told from many fun points of view.

The characters are decent.

Also, the ending is almost literally a cliff-hanger. I wish I had the second book in my hands right now.

Full of practical (and memorable) advice and realistic stories from other parents.

Some takeaways:

1. It's okay to express emotions, but some actions need to be limited.
2. Listen to feelings.
3. The problem-solving method sounds good. It seems the hardest suggestion to implement, though.

Inspires a great perspective shift.

A short paraphrasing: "Embrace the truth about your limited time and limited control over that time. It's empowering to embrace the truth."

You cannot do everything, so spend some time deciding what you won't do, and let go of the urge to control the future.

I liked the audiobook narrator.

My notes from the appendix:

1. Adopt a fixed-volume approach to productivity. You won't get everything done, so choose. Maybe make two lists: an unlimited to-do backlog, and a limited list of only 10 items or so.
2. Serialize (don't parallelize). Train yourself to be patient enough to work through to the end of projects.
3. Decide in advance what to fail at. What areas of your life will you choose to bomb?
4. Focus on what you've already completed, not only what you still need to finish. Keep a "done" list.
5. Consolidate your caring. Social media makes us care about more than we can effectively care. " Focus your finite capacity for care."
6. Embrace boring and single-purpose technology.
7. Seek out novelty in the mundane. This makes the years go by less quickly. Draw attention into the present.
8. Be a researcher in relationships. Adopt a stance of curiosity instead of worry.
9. Cultivate instantaneous generosity. Act on any such urges.
10. Practice doing nothing. Resist the urge to manipulate your environment. "Nothing is harder to do than nothing."

I liked this book. It had cool settings and a fun story. The characters were decent. Normally I might only give it 3 stars, but it's especially cool being the book that came up with cyberspace and the matrix.

I was never really hooked on it, but I did enjoy all of it.

Fun book. Lots of stuff going on. Very long, though. A lot of novelty, but not as much as the first book. The really cool thing is the worldbuilding.

(spoiler alert)

A cool collection of short sci-fi stories.

The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate - hopeful time travel. One of my favorites.

Exhalation - a universe populated by robots where all energy is derived from a difference in air pressure.

What's Expected of Us - predictors exist: buttons that light up exactly one second before being pressed. The implication follows that there is no free will. Best strategy: pretend free will exists anyway.

The Life Cycle of Software Objects - raising AIs like zoo animals or children, with themes of agency, personhood, and kindness.

Dacey's Patent Automatic Nanny - eh. Robot nanny makes kid only like robots.

The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling - looks at a parallel between a sudden (futuristic) transition to perfect memory vs a sudden (historical) transition to literacy. Positives and negatives from each.

The Great Silence - meh. Apparently parrots are intelligent, and think it's silly that we look for aliens in outer space. Very short.

Omphalos - what if the universe was obviously made by a creator only some thousands of years ago? And what if our creation was clearly an accidental side-effect? (ie: there is an obvious center of the universe, and it's not us)

Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom - cool parallel world structure: terminals that—when initiated—cause a quantum event, creating two parallel universes, and allows them to communicate (until its data pad fills up). Do we have agency? If I behave one way in this universe and some other way in another, what kind of person am I? If starting a terminal has side-effects, how responsible am I for those?

This was great. The concept of "splintering" was cool, and I got to care for the characters, and the settings were interesting. The plot had fun turns.

There was so much fun sci-fi stuff here. Humans-turned-aliens of several varieties, different types of machine conscience, giant space constructs, a mysterious space anomaly, and everything is on an interstellar time scale. I think that was one of my favorite things about this: reading about a galactic civilization that doesn't have superluminal travel.

Very very fun.

Update several weeks later: I just learned about the (real life) Winchester Mystery House, which seems to be the inspiration for the crazy mom's house and nightmare (they both believed the ghosts of their victims were trying to find them, so they continually built a confusing house).

Weird. Interesting. I had a hard time following the plot. And the ending is ambiguous. None of the characters are particularly admirable.

Also, once a character takes chew-z their storyline becomes some kind of dream sequence, and the reader can never know for sure when the dream ends. I don't like it. I stopped caring what was happening, because it was all just a dream anyway, all the way to the end of the book.

This was awesome.

It took me two tries to get into it, but once I was about 10-15% into the book I was hooked.

I loved reading all the characters' stories. I started suspecting some of the twists, but in a satisfying way because the book was hinting, and I didn't get close to all of them.

The world building is great. I liked the portal system and how it affected Earth's structure.

Just as fun as the first. I find myself rooting for these characters more than usual for book characters.

This whole series is epic, and it finished with an awesome bang.

I couldn't get enough of the characters. Although I listened to the audiobook, so I'd probably misspell all the Saints' names.

Yurella (spelling?) was my favorite. I want to read more about her.

I didn't like the main character. The plot was okay, but kinda slow for the first 3 quarters. I did like the ideas though.

(spoiler alert)

The first two thirds or so were slow... The main character was spending so much time drinking I had a hard time trusting anything, which makes it hard to care what happens... Also, I feel like the lady was way too forgetful, which I blame on all the drinking... Maybe I just don't like reading about drunks?

But the characters were interesting, and the setting was well-illustrated, and the last third of the plot was fun enough that I listened to all of it at once. Although the last hour or so turned into, in the words of another review, a "teen horror." There were clues leading up to several other twists, but the last twist was jarring.

I can't believe she fell for the granny. She's only 30-something, and she's never heard of cat-fishing? Ugh. That lines up pretty well with the rest of her technological incompetence, but boy was it frustrating. "No! Don't do that, dummy!"

I had a hard time connecting with her agoraphobia at first... It didn't feel real. Further into the book, though, when she left the house for the first time, Finn makes it feel very real.

Overall, I think Finn did a good job capturing an atmosphere. It wasn't an atmosphere I particularly enjoyed, but the ending was pretty fun.

Fun little book. :)

Nothing groundbreaking when compared to LotR, but it's well written and the characters are enjoyable and it seems wholesome.

Still enjoying the series. :)

Still fun! I enjoy the cute little romance, and Garian learning magic. The monsters and cave-people are nifty, too.

This one seemed a bit more derivative of LotR, with our "fellowship" breaking into two groups: a small group to sneak up and attack the big baddy, and everyone else to gather an army as a distraction.

• Minority Report (5 stars)

Knowing a prophecy changes the future, rendering the prophecy invalid.

• Total Recall (4 stars)

What if:

1. Secret agents' memories could be wiped?
2. Detailed false memories could be manufactured?
3. An unwitting secret agent asks for false memories that correspond to the real ones that had been wiped?

• Paycheck (3 stars)

Man with access to a time-scoop (time-scope?) Who is about to have his memory erased plays god with his future, directing himself right where he wants to be.

• The second variety (4 stars)

Machines made for war to indiscriminately kill all life are good at what they do, and develop inter -type weapons for machine-on-machine warfare. The creation takes after the creator.

How did the main character not see the ending coming??? Argh!

• The eyes have it (2 stars)

Paranoid man doesn't understand figurative language?

Some of the parts got pretty creepy. I think my favorite part of the whole book was the beginning, when Jonathan was trapped in Dracula's castle, and the framing device leaves it very unclear if he escaped.

After that, though, things started to bug me. Like Lucy's care: why'd they leave her alone so much? It was like the book was trying to be a comedy of errors And a horror story at the same time.

And Dr. Van Helsing—the odd speech was distracting, and made it hard to feel creeped out. It just seemed like comedy at the expense of the foreigner.

Later on there was a sea captain talking about his beliefs of sailing—his superstitions were to Dracula's gain, and the gypsies on his boat had different superstitions to Dracula's loss, and he called them out for being superstitious. Was the book trying to be satirical here?

That's not to say I didn't enjoy the book. I liked Mina and Jonathan a lot. I thought the madman's storyline was interesting, but I ultimately didn't get it (I'll look it up later). The settings were generally nice. And I really liked the framing device as a way of telling the story, because there's no way of knowing who will survive.

I want a physical copy of this book so I can re-read it and try to untangle this fun puzzle.

The six stories are all different, and they're all very enjoyable.

Watching a single soul drift across time is engrossing.

The most maddening part is I don't understand how Timothy Cavendish fits in with the rest. XD

Oh goodness, the feels.

This was such a satisfying book. The characters all become more sympathetic as you read, and the plot is so fun.

There was a lot of misdirection. Most of it was fun, some of it seemed too much.

I listened to it with my wife, and it was a wonderful experience.

Cute book. Fun story. Satisfying end. Maybe a little syrupy, but that's nice sometimes. And I liked the characters. So many of them are just good people, in their own different ways. It was nice seeing so many good examples of imperfect people doing their best. I liked this series.

Fun book, with some interesting characters. It's structured a lot like Cloud Atlas, but not as balanced, and with no narrative differences to differentiate the sections. I liked the settings and the plot. I didn't care much for some of the characters, but I got to see how my favorite characters fared (the Greenwood boys), which was nice.

It didn't make sense how the hobo kept the baby alive.

It also didn't make sense how the girl hid a thick journal (over an inch thick) in her windbreaker. But maybe I misunderstood that.

The dying carpenter giving up was disappointing.

The stories of the Greenwood boys, much longer than the other stories, were easily my favorite.

Interesting book. Similar to the Count of Monte Cristo, but with major differences. The sci-fi elements were neat. The main character, Gully Foyle, is interesting and utterly unlikeable. I enjoyed the plot and the setting very much. This world where mental teleporting is part of every day life was especially neat.

I'd be willing to read it again.

Also, from Wikipedia, this is cool:

Bester's description of synesthesia is the first popular account published in the English language and is also quite accurate.

I'm not sure if I got more worked up about the vampire gore or the bullying injustice.

I liked this one. The characters were interesting, the setting was gritty, and the plot was nice. The main thing I didn't like was reading about the pedophile.

The ending wasn't very satisfying. I learned there's a short story that wraps things up though; maybe that'll help.

I listened to the audiobook, with Brené Bown as the narrator, where she provided some fun commentary not in the book.

I found this valuable. Emotions have never been my strong point, and seeing here stories and explanations of how different emotions can be related but different ways helpful. It seems like a good reference, or a good way to teach children.

One of my favorite principles was that of "near enemies": an emotion like pity can be a near enemy of compassion, because it feels and can seem similar, but is not as beneficial.

Well that was a weird book.

It's a history of six generations of the Columbian Buen Días family. They seem mostly stuck up, proud, and in love with themselves (which I think explains the incest).

The whole story is told in the same tone no matter what's happening: the technology of magnets and flying carpets are similarly almost-dismissed. The narrator is never surprised, not be levitating priests or yellow butterflies or the mass murder of 3000 striking workers. This tone is, I think, what made the book so enjoyable for me. The narrator doesn't try to impress, they just recount.

And I really liked the story. It feels like the source of a family or cultural myth; instead of "I heard Uncle ate 87 iguana eggs at once when he was in Columbia," this book tells the story as fact, "He loved the native cuisine so much he once ate 87 iguana eggs in one sitting."

The plot was fun, but the characters are pretty flat and the setting and writing are too D&D-ish for me. I probably won't read any more of the series.

And here are my thoughts as I read the book...

• The D&D-ness of the book takes getting used to. I get thrown a little bit when I read about characters "using elvensight" or reading sentences like, "Maybe he's got enough woodslore to hide from goblin search parties for days, but I doubt it." Or even simple things like the leader of the party having to ask the mage/wizard to put out his magic light. I'm assuming the book won't change, so I'm trying to adjust myself.

• "It was then Tanis realized his elven vision was gone. He should have been able to see the warm, red outlines of his companions, but they were nothing more than darker shadows against the starry darkness of the glade."

  Oh my goodness, I'm reading a role-playing game. XD

• "'Thee must come with us,' the centaur ordered."

  I am groaning. Why are the centaurs misusing thee vs thou?

  "Thee is in no position to ask questions."

  And now the centaur is rebuking me. Poorly. XD

• The exposition sometimes reads like an encyclopedia entry. In the middle of stuff:

  "Gully dwarves—or Aghar, as their race was known—were truly a miserable lot. The lowest caste in dwarven society, they were to be found all over Keynn, living in filth and squalor in places that had been abandoned by most other living creatures, including animals. Like all dwarves, they were clannish, and several clans often..."

• I'm enjoying this book. I probably would have liked it a lot more in middle school.

• "We've got a cleric now [...] and that'll come in handy."

  Sometimes I can almost forget this is a D&D book, until I get to a line like this. :)

• It seems I only update when I come upon a newly egregious line.

  "At the age of eighty—about twenty in human years—Tanis left Qualinost."

  Why describe his age like that? Is he a dog?

• I'm enjoying this. :)

• "Crouching low, Verminaard swung Nightbringer in an arc, keeping them back, forming his plans. He must even the odds quickly. Gripping Nightbringer in his right hand, the evil cleric [...]"

  And those two words throw me out of it just a little bit. Does the bad guy really think of himself as an evil cleric? That's kind of odd. Also, identifying the character by their role & alignment seems very D&D-ish. :)

A book about the theory of the primacy of the observer: "the seemingly absurd idea that the universe springs from life, not the other way around."

In sci-fi, I expect new/non-existent technology, and I hope to be shown uses of that tech that I hadn't imagined. This book leans mostly on its theory, with some tech built to take advantage of it. However, it doesn't show off many new sights. Instead of exploring the implications of the theory, large portions of the book are spent trying to convince you, the reader, of this theory.

It turns out that Robert Lanza has published before about his theory of biocentrism, which seems very similar to the in-novel theory of the primacy of the observer.

As another philosopher says of Lanza's theory: "It looks like an opposite of a theory, because he doesn't explain how [consciousness] happens at all. He's stopping where the fun begins."

I feel the same about this book: it stops where all the fun begins. It doesn't dive into the possibilities of what living in a consensually created world looks like, it has vague and sometimes contradictory descriptions of how a multiverse would work, and the moments when characters create new parallel universes out of their own minds are all somehow mundane and lacking in wonder (well, maybe except for the very last time).

Also, at least in my ARC copy, the book was so full of typos and sentence fragments that I kept getting distracted from the story. That drops it down a full star as far as I'm concerned. Hopefully those can get cleaned up before the official release.

I liked the plot and characters decently enough.

Thanks to the authors for providing me with an ARC as part of a Goodreads giveaway.

And my notes from the read-through...

• Pg. 7: The techs didn't answer, but their glances at each other spoke terabytes [...]

  Spoke terabytes? Who is this book trying to impress?

• Pg 8: Samuel Louis Watkins, genius Nobel laureate, switched on the bedside lamp and heaved himself upright in bed. Cheekbones sharp as chisels, bald head shining in the lamplight.

  What's with the odd sentence fragment?

• Pg 23: All her hopes and dreams, all the years of grueling work, all the loans she'd taken out after her mother disinherited both her and Ellen... Without a good hospital appointment, how would she be able to repay her loans?

  I think the author really wants to hint and give us information, but doesn't want to info-dump and is trying to show-not-tell. It comes across like a Facebook post fishing for attention.

• Pg 33: "I know your condition," Luskin said, a pre-emptory thunderbolt in his own voice.

  "Peremptory" or "pre-emptive" both sort of work, but "pre-emptory" isn't a proper word. Pretty sure the author meant "peremptory." Easy mistake, though.

• Pg 41: Someone named Ben Clarby was supposed to meet her at the airport. Google had offered her three dozen Ben Carbys, and she'd no idea which this one was, or what connection he had to her great-uncle. Or very much about Samuel Lewis Watkins, except for what was public knowledge.

  What's that last sentence doing?

• Pg 71: She could smell the ocean but neither see nor hear it.

  Pg 71: Too many flowers, sickening sweet.

  There are lots of little editing issues with this book. Will they be able to fix them for the January publication? I'm not writing all of them here, but I noticed two on one page and wanted to point it out. I'm having a hard time ignoring the book and focusing on the story.

• Pg 95: She and Ellen as children in the elaborate playroom their mother had filled with toys instead of her maternal presence. Caro and Ellen had never played with most of the toys.

  Am I just too sensitive to sentence fragments? They bug me.

• Pg 74: So, according to Weigert and Julian, did alternate branches of the universe, as "created" by computer chip and human decision.

  I had to read this several times before I finally realized it's a sentence fragment. It doesn't make much sense without the previous sentence (not included here because I don't want to type it out).

• Pg 84: "I'm a doctor, Julian. I save lives, not experiment on them."

  There might be a fun story here, but I'm having a hard time enjoying it with these awkward sentences.

• Pg 98: "Caro, feel free to bark all the orders you want [...]" Caro laughed. It hurt her face. "I'll bark softly and carry a big bone saw."

  This gave me a chuckle. :)

• Pg 107

  I enjoy sci-fi with weird new science (like Isaac Asimov's psychohistory), but the way this book presents its new science thing makes me feel like it's trying to convince me. It doesn't help that the sci-fi weirdness is based on Lanza's published theories. Is this book his way of evangelizing his not-quite-new-age theory? It's annoying me.

• Pg 114: She paid particular attention to entanglement, that phenomenon in which measuring ("making an observation") about one particle instantly changed a different particle with which it had been entangled—even when they were widely separated. [...] Everything the brain did was only a possibility until it actually did it, and the possibilities were unlimited, although some were much more probable than others.

  Ugh. This almost-science bugs me.

  With entanglement, measuring one particle doesn't change its entangled partner. As wikipedia puts it, "entanglement produces correlation between the measurements."

  The second sentence bugs me because it applies to everything. It sounds like it's saying something special, but it's not.

• I've been mostly enjoying the story. I still don't like the physics explanations, though.

  Pg 289: What would happen if we could change the algorithms that collapsed the quantum waves in the brain?

  As far as I understand it, you can't control the result of collapsing a "quantum wave." You can decide what property (or properties) to measure, but you can't decide what values those properties will take.

  I dunno. Maybe I'm wrong. But the science stuff here falls in an uncomfortable realm that is beyond blatant sci-fi silliness like "reverse the polarity,"but falls short of seeming real. I wish there was less explanation & arguing of how it's supposed to work.

• Pg 309: There was no way to be sure of course, since there was no way to have communication between branches [of the multiverse].

  Inconsistencies bug me.

  These are the physicist's words, saying you can't communicate with other branches of the multiverse. But he has visited the same alternate branch at least three times now to see his dead wife.

  The rules of multiverse stuff in this book are both too spelled out and not clear enough.

  Another thing: death isn't the end, according to the story, but so far they haven't touched on what might precede life. They say consciousness has no end, so what about beginnings?

• Pg 347: "I need to know long you're staying with the project."

  Yes, there are still odd editing mistakes even this far in.

• I feel like this book doesn't explore the implications of its own sci-fi tech enough. Instead it focuses on trying to convince the reader.

  Pg 379: Then Kayla was the gull; the gull was she; both were the starfish squirming in Kayla's beak, and the warm ocean air rushing under the beat of her wings.

  Kayla uses new tech while sitting out in a normal chair to become a passing seagull. She becomes a body snatcher. What's to stop her from using the same tech to possess the people around her?

  Also, more fundamentally to the story, how does a consensually created world work? If I write a secret word on a blackboard, and two people go in the room separately to see it, how does this theory explain all of us experiencing the same word on the chalkboard?

An engaging book with lots of frustrating scenes and more religion than I expected.

So much frustration!

• The hateful teacher who tortures the new 2nd-grader
• The scumbag boss who puts his new hire in ridiculous and impossible positions
• The pretentious and almost family-breaking church lady
• So many gross bugs!
• And Pedophiles... (The acts are confirmed to have happened but not detailed)

The plot had me hooked, though, and I liked the protagonist family. I also enjoyed the small peek into early 80's computing and game development (which focuses more on the culture and terrible working conditions than how the computers worked, which is fine by me).

I had a fun time trying to guess who was doing what. The bugs stumped me, but Glass and the shrink's kid didn't. I guessed the main bad guy about a chapter or two before the reveal.

The last couple chapters had me hugging my little baby girl and crying.