A review by funktious
A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding by Amanda Svensson

challenging emotional hopeful mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Ooft, that was a bit of a slog.

A bit undecided on this one. The prose / translation was excellent and beautiful but somewhat dense and needed a lot of concentration to follow. The mystery ended up not being much of a mystery after all and I’m not sure why the Dad even needed to go missing. Ultimately there were a lot of extraneous details and while I get they were part of the blinding, magnificent system, they just added to the density.

I really liked Clara's parts, probably because I identify with her to a degree - the anxiety and climate fear specifically. Tilda was given a bit short shrift and Sebastian / Laura got old quickly, so I quite liked the ending there.

The real question seems to be - are you Team Bletchley or Team Gödel? I think I’m Team Gödel - I think we like to look for patterns and it’s fantastic when we find them, but I don’t think they mean anything more than that.
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