A review by itnotmackenzie
Repo Virtual by Corey J. White
4.0
Actual rating: 3.5
First things first (I'm the realest). Sorry, whenever I say that phrase, that lyric from Fancy always pops into my head. Anyway!! My point was I first wanted to focus on the premise - a heist? An AI? Yes. Two of my favorite things. I went into this book being pretty sure I would love it. Sadly I didn't quite LOVE it, but I still did enjoy it a lot.
The book is split into three parts, but I would say the split is more like two main arcs. The first is the heist part, which lasts about the first third of the novel. The second is the post-heist, the investigation of the heist and exploration of the AI.
I thought for sure I'd be hooked by the beginning - I mean, it's a heist! I love heists. But it draaagged and I wasn't that invested!! I had a hard time connecting and feeling anything for the characters. The world was also super interesting, but confusing! As the book went on I kind of got more of a feel for it, but at the beginning I was confused and couldn't picture it well.
However, the second part felt TOTALLY different. I LOVED it. The main difference was that there was the introduction of two characters - Enda and the AI - who really made the difference for me. I love them both. Enda is a badass bitch and takes no shit and is totally awesome - and flawed in a way that is realistic and makes her interesting to read about. The AI character is also great. For one, because I just love AIs. But two, because since you get to read from its perspective, you get to literally watch it develop a personality. That was honestly so interesting and cool to read.
Also, the pacing in the latter 2/3 felt much more even, and I wanted to keep reading to know what happened. There were more pieces and it was more complex than the simple beginning heist, and I think that made a big difference in it just being more interesting. As I said, the world also became clearer, probably just because of having been immersed and reading about it for longer.
I think my main issue with this book that prevented me from loving it was really the characters. As I said, I only really connected with Enda and the AI, and they don't show up until at least a third of the way through the book! That makes a large part of the book hard to enjoy.
I also want to talk about one particular character, Soo-hyun, who is nonbinary. Having that sort of diversity and representation on page is great, however what isn't great is that I felt like this character didn't have much agency of their own. They seemed to exist to only be used by other characters, namely one of the antagonists. This isn't a good thing for any sort of character, but it makes me especially uncomfortable when it's the one nonbinary person.
I think many people will be able to love this book, and I'm sad I'm not one of them! But as I said, I still did enjoy reading it and I do want to try more from this author!
First things first (I'm the realest). Sorry, whenever I say that phrase, that lyric from Fancy always pops into my head. Anyway!! My point was I first wanted to focus on the premise - a heist? An AI? Yes. Two of my favorite things. I went into this book being pretty sure I would love it. Sadly I didn't quite LOVE it, but I still did enjoy it a lot.
The book is split into three parts, but I would say the split is more like two main arcs. The first is the heist part, which lasts about the first third of the novel. The second is the post-heist, the investigation of the heist and exploration of the AI.
I thought for sure I'd be hooked by the beginning - I mean, it's a heist! I love heists. But it draaagged and I wasn't that invested!! I had a hard time connecting and feeling anything for the characters. The world was also super interesting, but confusing! As the book went on I kind of got more of a feel for it, but at the beginning I was confused and couldn't picture it well.
However, the second part felt TOTALLY different. I LOVED it. The main difference was that there was the introduction of two characters - Enda and the AI - who really made the difference for me. I love them both. Enda is a badass bitch and takes no shit and is totally awesome - and flawed in a way that is realistic and makes her interesting to read about. The AI character is also great. For one, because I just love AIs. But two, because since you get to read from its perspective, you get to literally watch it develop a personality. That was honestly so interesting and cool to read.
Also, the pacing in the latter 2/3 felt much more even, and I wanted to keep reading to know what happened. There were more pieces and it was more complex than the simple beginning heist, and I think that made a big difference in it just being more interesting. As I said, the world also became clearer, probably just because of having been immersed and reading about it for longer.
I think my main issue with this book that prevented me from loving it was really the characters. As I said, I only really connected with Enda and the AI, and they don't show up until at least a third of the way through the book! That makes a large part of the book hard to enjoy.
I also want to talk about one particular character, Soo-hyun, who is nonbinary. Having that sort of diversity and representation on page is great, however what isn't great is that I felt like this character didn't have much agency of their own. They seemed to exist to only be used by other characters, namely one of the antagonists. This isn't a good thing for any sort of character, but it makes me especially uncomfortable when it's the one nonbinary person.
I think many people will be able to love this book, and I'm sad I'm not one of them! But as I said, I still did enjoy reading it and I do want to try more from this author!