A review by krispe22
Code 6 by James Grippando

adventurous dark sad slow-paced

3.0

Buckle up everyone. I listened to the audiobook and there were two glaring errors with it. The VO artist said "Millennial Park" instead of "Millennium Park"...but since I don't have the print book I don't know if the author and then, the editor, just left that glaring error in there. Next, Epilogue is spelled wrong on the audiobook interface. Crazy; I've never seen such glaring errors in modern times.

Now on to the story. Within the first few pages of the book, Kate's mother allegedly commits suicide by jumping from her balcony, just minutes before Kate was supposed to arrive to visit her. While Kate mentions having a somewhat complicated relationship with her mother as her mother was an alcoholic for most of her life, Kate never even seems a tiny bit sad that her mother has died, much less died so violently. I don't remember Kate shedding a tear, not even after she identified her mother's body at the MORGUE.

Let me tell you something. My mother died in 2022 and I am still not over it. I cry all the time thinking about this tremendous loss, and I remember they said they would be rolling my mother down to the morgue and how upset I was, begging the doctor not to bring my mommy to the morgue (I was 49 at the time, full grown adult). And here, I'm supposed to believe, is a 24 year old heroine literally just taking it in stride that her mother has died violently...and a few scenes later Kate is meeting with a director about the draft of a play she has written.

Has the author never had a close relative pass away? It was incomprehensible that Kate didn't feel the loss of her mother. Also Kate's father doesn't seem to mind much that his wife has died tragically.

The rest of the story is ridiculous B-movie Netflix cybersecurity hi jinx, with the fun subplot of IBM playing a large role in helping the Nazis track Jewish people with their punch card systems. This is the plot of Kate's play, which is allegedly scandalous because her father runs a large data company.

Later in the story, Kate travels to South America to negotiate with a terrorist for the return of a boy she used to babysit who was hired by her dad's company. Sounds crazy, right? Kate seems to be more emotionally connected to this boy she hadn't seen in 10 years than her mother.

This book should have been my jam, but I can't. Don't write a story about a woman tragically losing her mother yet having no reaction to it at all, and expect me to care about her or this book.
 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings