Reviews

Immunity Index by Sue Burke

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grid's review against another edition

3.0

It would have been pretty easy to give this a pass if I’d picked it up at a bookstore... not that I’ve been in a bookstore in the last year. As it was, I’d pre-ordered this on the strength of the author’s other two books, and was completely blind-sided that it was about a pandemic much like the one we’re living through, AND includes a political climate that feels tailored to be the consequence of the Trump presidency.

I very reluctantly read the first chapter and got sucked in by the interesting characters.

Maybe 1/3rd of the way through, I joked with my wife that I probably couldn’t have read this book before Biden was elected. And my recent vaccination also helped.

But it is a compelling read, and I ended up staying up relatively late (even for me) to finish it in only 3 days.

I can’t say I loved it, but it was written very well and has a plenty satisfying ending. (At least for the main characters.) I do hope the author returns to alien landscapes in her next novel, however.

jesscoil's review

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adventurous mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

jazzypizzaz's review against another edition

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3.0

Held my close attention the entire time, unfolding with an intense action-oriented plot, and I felt connected to the characters. In particular I found the specificity of Nike's experience at her car job oddly satisfying. The novel's premise is, of course, a bit too close for comfort! and of the pandemic books I've read, quite obvious that this one was informed by 2020, but in a way that serves the fictional world and story, not in a cheap way. What knocks down my rating is that it doesn't really seem to come together in a satisfying way in the end, no cathartic climatic revelatory moments in the way it needed & that I was waiting for, tying the various threads together.

ronross's review

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challenging dark tense slow-paced

2.5

jerseygrrrl's review against another edition

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Burke started this book way before covid began, but it's too close to reality to make easy reading. I tried hard, but wasn't in the right frame of mind to read about a delta coronavirus devastating an increasingly fascist United States. If only this book had been published two years earlier or two years later... DNF for now, but I'll try again in a few years.