Radicalized is a compilation of 4 dystopian short stories.

Each story touches on serious humanitarian issues facing Americans today, Unauthorized Bread deals with poverty and the injustices faced by refugees, Model Minority deals with police brutality and the inequitable violence black Americans face compared to other people, Radicalized deals with the horrific reality of American health insurance and the toll it has on peoples lives and The Masque of the Red Death deals with the fallout after civilization collapses.

While I found each story to be unique with an interesting concept, none of them really blew me away. They were each just okay for me. While I can appreciate the importance of the content of each of these stories and how they shine a light on the problems with humanity today, I don’t understand why this is a Canada Reads finalist. I love Canada reads because finally, we get to see Canadian perspectives. Get to read stories based in our country which I find doesn’t happen often with popular literature because it is all based in America. And while yes the author is Canadian, each of these stories took place in America. I just feel like if a book is a Canada Reads finalist, it should have something Canadian as a main component of the book.

Unauthorized Bread - ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Model Minority - ⭐️⭐️
Radicalized - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Masque of Red Death - ⭐️⭐️⭐️

talked about poop too much

I liked this! I'm feeling a little stingy about the three star review, but I didn't love it and can't go to four. They were four good stories though.

Unauthorized Bread: Was good on several levels. the appliances that nickle and dime the poor remind me of PKD's Ubiq where everyone has to carry around bags of nickles and dimes to shower and turn on their radios. I liked the blending of the immigration, hacking, and community building storylines and think this was the best story in the book.

Model Minority: Interesting. How does Superman/Captain America deal with American racism and injustice? I think this is a little too pessimistic.

Radicalized: Has been done, but this isn't bad. American healthcare does seem to inspire rage. America is also full of people with guns. Why hasn't someone gone on a shooting spree at the HQ of a major insurer? Is it because American shooters are angry cowards looking for infamy and not for justice? Is it because incidents of epic bureaucratic cruelty are rare?

The Masque of the Red Death: This one might be to optimistic. It is quite possible that a plague and societal breakdown could bring about more open and just communities, but I find it hard to swallow.

I like following Cory Doctorow online and I think he has a lot of interesting things to say about technology, privacy, copyright, and similar topics. These stories, however, are just not that compelling. They are highly didactic and very plot-driven, with character development being a real afterthought. Kind of the opposite of what I normally expect from short stories. Each story revolves around a major U.S. political or cultural theme (surveillance capitalism, racism, healthcare "access", income inequality/survivalism) with a lot of lecturing towards dear reader. Maybe more subtlety could have worked, it just doesn't seem like he trusts us enough to get the themes on our own. Of the four stories I think I would recommend one (the first).

Well this was depressing and a little too on the nose.

Shout out and bonus star for having one of the best set of narrators ever to be assembled for a set of short stories.