Vicarious
Ratings2
Average rating4
15
Ratings2
Average rating4
"Winter Kim and her sister, Rose, survived growing up in a Korean orphanage and being trafficked into the United States. But they've escaped the past and started over in a new place where no one knows who they used to be. Now they work as digital stunt girls for Rose's ex-boyfriend, Gideon, engaging in dangerous and enticing activities while recording their neural impulses for his Vicarious Sensory Experiences, or ViSEs. Whether it's bungee jumping, shark diving, or grinding up against celebrities in the city's hottest dance clubs, Gideon can make it happen for you--for a price. When Rose disappears and a ViSE recording of her murder is delivered to Gideon, Winter is devastated. She won't rest until she finds her sister's killer. But when the clues she uncovers conflict with the digital recordings her sister made, Winter isn't sure what to believe. To find out what happened to Rose, she'll have to untangle what's real from what only seems real, risking her own life in the process."--dust jacket.
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This novel's kind of a Monet: when you take a step back its really beautiful but if you lean in, its a hot mess. When I got to the end, I was like, “Oh, that was really clever,” but I was never really engaged by the story. The execution keeps falling over itself trying to get out of the way and so it all seems awkward and stilted. The first few chapters really shouldn't be there at all; the cover art shows the scene where the novel should have begun (and the cover art should have been a collage of multiple scenes, imo). Most irritatingly, there are these intermittent descriptions of inane events (such as showering or getting dressed or eating) that serve no purpose other than to disrupt enjoyment of the narrative flow. (Knowing that our narrator dried herself with a towel that was fluffy and white in no way improves the story for me. She's clean, I get it! Let's move on with the story that I was almost engrossed in!)
