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A review by starryeyedenigma
Chosen Spirits by Samit Basu
4.0
My third read from the JCB Prize 2020 Longlist titles and I really enjoyed reading this dystopian plot set in Delhi. Samit Basu has conjured up a futuristic world where social media rules with Flows (similar to vlogs I think), but each Flow has a star and like social media today, these are influenced or managed by politicians to further their agenda or political power. There are things like smartatts and Narad that monitor where you are and keep providing you constant prompts on how to live your life.
All of this amidst the ever growing wealth disparity between the rich and privileged and the poor and discriminated. Amidst this, we have our protagonist Zoey, who comes into contact with a few interesting characters such as Uma, Zaria and Raja, and one surprise character Rudra - and how one act sets a series of incidents rolling.
I liked the world building a lot and the writing is very fast paced. However, I felt let down by the character arcs of most of the characters except for Zoey and felt that a lot of questions were left unanswered in this book. I think it has been a unanimous push from the readers now to the author, to release a sequel in Zaria's voice, to help us get closure on all those questions. I hope you're reading this Samit Basu :) ;)
All of this amidst the ever growing wealth disparity between the rich and privileged and the poor and discriminated. Amidst this, we have our protagonist Zoey, who comes into contact with a few interesting characters such as Uma, Zaria and Raja, and one surprise character Rudra - and how one act sets a series of incidents rolling.
I liked the world building a lot and the writing is very fast paced. However, I felt let down by the character arcs of most of the characters except for Zoey and felt that a lot of questions were left unanswered in this book. I think it has been a unanimous push from the readers now to the author, to release a sequel in Zaria's voice, to help us get closure on all those questions. I hope you're reading this Samit Basu :) ;)