This is my least-favorite novel by one of my most-favorite authors. It’s a near-future tale about a woman striving to bring down an all-powerful Google/Meta/Nvidia company that controls just about everything that everyone everywhere does.
Our main character’s quest is simple: get a job at the Every and then kill the company from the inside. The way this plays out is at times satirical and at times dry. Some sections are hilarious; others are conflict-free compendia of the evils of social networks and smartphone reliance. The hero, Delaney, takes few active steps to do what she sets out to do. Her journey and conflict come across as mechanical window dressing for lengthy authorial criticism of over-reliance on social engineering through free-market techno-development. The ideas are brilliant. The dystopia is palpable. It’s an important book, but at times it just doesn’t feel like a novel.