Anyone

I received a copy of this from the Publisher in exchange for my open and honest review.

I truly enjoyed The Oracle Year, Charles Soule debut novel that dealt with tech and the future. That is why I was so stoked to get my hands on a copy of Anyone. It was one of my most anticipated reads for 2019. Sadly, I did not connect with Anyone.

Anyone is told through multiple and interconnecting narratives. The first narrative takes place in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the lab of Neuroscientist Dr. Gabriella White. White is about to break through to a cure for Alzheimer's disease. But, instead of finding a cure to Alzheimer's, she discovers something else, something more powerful and changing for the human race as a species. Anna discovers something that she aptly names The Flash, an ability to remove oneself from your body and transport you to another body. She discovers this by transporting herself into the unsuspecting body of her husband, Paul.

The other timeline and narrative takes place 25 years into the future. We are introduced to the character Annami. Annami is a woman desperate and willing to trade her body away to earn money. She dark shares. This means she allows her body to be taken over by anonymous people to do anything they want. The price is high, but so are the repercussions for Annami. We start with her character waking from a bloodbath and someone trying to kill her, and she has no idea why.

For most of the novel, the reader has no idea why these two narratives play back and forth. For me, that was one of the significant weaknesses of the story. I did not care about either protagonist in any meaningful way. The characters I thought were more interesting, Paul and Soro, where refrigerated. I had no idea why Soule even introduced these characters if they were going to be treated as used tissue and thrown away. Another detractor, this is a personal thing, I disliked both Anna and Annami. Both of them had this tense desperation about them that was offputting — desperation in the face of intelligent decisions.

The story itself was cool. Soule does well in writing intense sci-fi/mystery plots. Much like Oracle year, the tech twists in this story were remarkable. It had a very Cryptonomican/Altered Carbon feel to it. But the lack of connection between relatable characters and the fresh plot grated on me. I almost DNF'ed this but kept going because I knew he was going to tie it all together at the end. In the end, I rated this three stars for a cool story, but my connection and enjoyment stopped there.

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