Lexicon

There is something slightly hilarious about the fact that I just read a book about manipulation because of a Reddit book club. Reddit. The site that is spiralling out of control when it comes to bullshit, agenda-driven, manipulative corporate fuckery. Ha. But hey, I just got tempted by the cool cover and... I need more books that are not part of a 34829374 books long series. Those are my excuses, I guess.
Also, Mr. Barry was genuinely really nice during his AMA thing. Seriously, he sounded extremely pleasant.

So I should actually talk about the book now, eh? In Lexicon we have an organization that is all about manipulation through words. They get to know who you are, then shout words at you, which make you easy to turn into a little slave to do their bidding. The magic word is NOT please. I don't care what your mother told you. One girl, Emily, gets taken to the magic word school and... she is one spectacular repulsive little fuckup. More of that later. The other story like is about Wil, who gets kidnapped from an airport by the word woodoo people, because they assume he is... someone. Storylines connect, hell breaks lose.

Rant begins here. Emily is such a gigantic selfish asshole I couldn't handle her. Now people who are specially picked because they are manipulators don't sound brilliant from the get go, but Emily is the worst. She had a hard life, being a runaway kid, but you know what? NOTHING makes it okay for you to run around murdering and raping, which is what our lovely protagonist does. She doesn't even act bothered by it, because... she gets away with everything. And the worst is... at the end she lives happily ever after with her very lovely, loyal and wonderful true love, without any punishment or consequences I will be honest, the reason why I didn't love this book was her. Maybe I am a dick, but I don't care.

Wil is... Wil. He's fine. He spends most of his time with another another dude, Eliot (word magic dude). They have some pleasant banter, good action scenes. They were a fine pair of individuals being forced to run together from awesome people trying to murder them. Later on he makes decisions that I found incredibly dumb. Again, annoyance, but it's complicated, so read it. Not spoiling it, ha.

The story was pretty original, which I could appreciate. To me it was getting a bit flat towards the end, so the last 20% took be about 2 days. I would even say it felt a bit rushed and I wasn't as affected by it as I expected to be. But I will give it to Mr. Barry, he really managed to suck me in at the beginning. That is how a lot of books go wrong for me; I can't get invested and it becomes a chore. This one? Made me want to read it in no time at all.

The topic was interesting. Some reviews talk about wanting to get into the actual theory of language and manipulation with some studying thrown in there. Personally I don't feel like doing anything like that now, but somehow the book managed to involve enough science for the science-y people and enough “magic” and action for me. Not sure how deliberate it was, but it did it so well. Technically it's probably a bit more sci-fi than fantasy, but from the side that could really work with fantasy people.

I will probably read more things from the author if I find anything catching my attention. Hopefully with less repulsive protagonists, haha.

Good night and think for yourself, kids.