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A review by thebookishhedgewitch
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
2.0
The premise is two misfits - a girl who can talk to birds and a boy who can create just about anything (mainly focusing on computers) find each other in high school, the powers that be separate them (for various reasons), years later they find each other. Sounds pretty good, right?
The first problem (for me) - I didn't buy the love story between Patricia and Laurence. Patricia feels like he betrayed all those years ago, Laurence loathes her (and himself). These characters just... they treated each other horribly, used each other, didn't really seem to like each other and then... they just end up together. There's absolutely no character development for Laurence, he continues to be an absolute ass to anyone and everyone and Patricia never really addresses this or expects more from him. While I'm on board with accepting your partner for who they are, they should at least treat you like a valid human.
The second thing I really disliked about this book - there's along period of time where nothing happens. And it's a pretty short book and probably at least 50-60 pages, nothing happens, the plot doesn't move forward, Laurence is just sitting in his self-loathing, judgmental glass tower judging everyone and everything.
The third thing I didn't like about this book was Laurence. He's a shit human being with relatively no character development, he doesn't seem to feel remorse, and if he does, he certainly doesn't act on it. He's a self-loathing incel for the vast majority of the book and I cannot fathom what Patricia sees in him at all except for nostalgia for their middle school relationship.
I really enjoyed the fantasy element of Patricia's magic and the juxtaposition of the sci-fi aspect with Laurence's job and what his company is trying to do. The idea of artificial intelligence really gaining sentience and then how that interacts with the fantasy aspect was fascinating and great. The ending, however, was very Ready Player One for me and it felt like Anders' was phoning it in. I won't spoil the ending, but it was wholly disappointing.
The first problem (for me) - I didn't buy the love story between Patricia and Laurence. Patricia feels like he betrayed all those years ago, Laurence loathes her (and himself). These characters just... they treated each other horribly, used each other, didn't really seem to like each other and then... they just end up together. There's absolutely no character development for Laurence, he continues to be an absolute ass to anyone and everyone and Patricia never really addresses this or expects more from him. While I'm on board with accepting your partner for who they are, they should at least treat you like a valid human.
The second thing I really disliked about this book - there's along period of time where nothing happens. And it's a pretty short book and probably at least 50-60 pages, nothing happens, the plot doesn't move forward, Laurence is just sitting in his self-loathing, judgmental glass tower judging everyone and everything.
The third thing I didn't like about this book was Laurence. He's a shit human being with relatively no character development, he doesn't seem to feel remorse, and if he does, he certainly doesn't act on it. He's a self-loathing incel for the vast majority of the book and I cannot fathom what Patricia sees in him at all except for nostalgia for their middle school relationship.
I really enjoyed the fantasy element of Patricia's magic and the juxtaposition of the sci-fi aspect with Laurence's job and what his company is trying to do. The idea of artificial intelligence really gaining sentience and then how that interacts with the fantasy aspect was fascinating and great. The ending, however, was very Ready Player One for me and it felt like Anders' was phoning it in. I won't spoil the ending, but it was wholly disappointing.