A review by santreads
Chosen Spirits by Samit Basu
4.0
Let me just start off by saying this book was a fucking ride and I LOVED IT.
This was my first Samit Basu book and given that I had heard so many good things about him and his writing, I was excited. I was not disappointed.
The book follows a few characters - Joey and Rudra being the main ones. Joey is a ‘Reality Controller’ of a famous ‘Flow-er’ who is also her ex - she’s basically the producer for this influencer who is livestreaming his life - but it’s this concept on crack. For example, they have different feeds for people with different interests so Indi (the ex and famous Flow-er) could either be super into yoga for someone or super into books for another. WILD RIGHT? But also not too far from reality.
I know this book will be labeled as a ‘dystopian novel’, but I got thoughts on that - dystopia for me is “The Handmaid’s Tale” with Gilead or even 1984 where they take a few elements of the ‘fucked up-ness’ of today and give you this dystopian world. But what Samit Basu did was that he just leveled up (by a few notches) the world we live in now. Through the book, there were moments where I just had to compulsively highlight sections because it felt so real to me - this supposed ‘dystopia’.
There’s a lot that happens in the book from sex scandals to dealing with douche takeovers to exploring this new world’s underbelly. Even though a lot was discussed, I felt that the subject matters were dealt with wonderfully. The characters were interesting and feminist (I loved Joey) and I was here for it all!
It’s a crazy ride (as I said in the beginning) and I loved it. I would love to discuss the ending with someone though? Because I almost feel like I am missing out on something? So please go read this book asap and let’s discuss this.
This was my first Samit Basu book and given that I had heard so many good things about him and his writing, I was excited. I was not disappointed.
The book follows a few characters - Joey and Rudra being the main ones. Joey is a ‘Reality Controller’ of a famous ‘Flow-er’ who is also her ex - she’s basically the producer for this influencer who is livestreaming his life - but it’s this concept on crack. For example, they have different feeds for people with different interests so Indi (the ex and famous Flow-er) could either be super into yoga for someone or super into books for another. WILD RIGHT? But also not too far from reality.
I know this book will be labeled as a ‘dystopian novel’, but I got thoughts on that - dystopia for me is “The Handmaid’s Tale” with Gilead or even 1984 where they take a few elements of the ‘fucked up-ness’ of today and give you this dystopian world. But what Samit Basu did was that he just leveled up (by a few notches) the world we live in now. Through the book, there were moments where I just had to compulsively highlight sections because it felt so real to me - this supposed ‘dystopia’.
There’s a lot that happens in the book from sex scandals to dealing with douche takeovers to exploring this new world’s underbelly. Even though a lot was discussed, I felt that the subject matters were dealt with wonderfully. The characters were interesting and feminist (I loved Joey) and I was here for it all!
It’s a crazy ride (as I said in the beginning) and I loved it. I would love to discuss the ending with someone though? Because I almost feel like I am missing out on something? So please go read this book asap and let’s discuss this.