
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
3.75 stars
It wasn't until after I read the book that I noted the "A savagely satirical thriller" description provided by a reviewer. This book made me rethink my general strategy of not reading about a book before engaging, although I may have taken that to the extreme here, since the description says "A gripping psychological thriller" so I shouldn't have been in the dark.
And speaking of dark...this book is just that. And it is not *just* a "psychological" thriller, so I feel that isn't exactly a fair description. I enjoyed the book, but felt it lacked subtlety. The (truly) bad guy is so evil that he spells out his nefarious plans for us, while we have to watch as he dupes the other characters in the book. His hand is shown too early on -- I started to feel just a general sense of dread waiting for it all to come to a head. We also are treated to a lot of narration about his scheming (as a personality trait):
"His goal had been to become so ambidextrous when it came to action and reaction, move and countermove, that he would reach the point where half the games he played were won by white, and half by black; only then, he'd told himself, could he really call himself a master."
Overwrought chess analogies aside, the description says "it is an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our own survival" -- that's fair, although there's quite a bit of flinching going on in some respects. There are some real chances for character and relationship development that are stymied by the ending. Mira, the main protagonist, is a fascinating character:
"Like all self-mythologizing rebels, Mira preferred enemies to rivals, and often turned her rivals into enemies, the better to disdain them as secret agents of the status quo."
Catton reveals Mira's layers through passages like this and the complexity of her character pushed the book toward four stars for me. The pacing is frustrating -- slow and leisurely at the beginning and then accelerando at the end. The catalyst for the accelerando makes for a fun (?) plot point, however, and we do get quite some classic suspense moves, and a game of cat and mouse with several mice and several loops.
The premise engages with politics in New Zealand and environmental issues and I felt myself wanting to know a bit more (as a reader not wholly familiar with New Zealand), and not especially via bickering characters. The writing is beautiful and descriptive, and overall gives a great sense of the delicate balance (imbalance, perhaps) in which we operate as a society.
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