This book was bold, exciting, and such an immersive read. I had a hard time putting it down, and couldn’t stop thinking about it while I was doing other things. 

The concept was compelling, the prose was engaging, and the romance was butterfly-inducing. I enjoyed the lack of specificity - we didn’t name our heroine, and I don’t believe we knew exactly what year it was either (unless I missed it!). That left the novel seeming unspecific (in a good way).  

This book was sad, curious, romantic, tense, funny, messy, and honestly brilliant. We would spend pages and pages in the delicious mundane, followed by racing through action and plot. The pacing was inconsistent, which both worked, and didn’t (more on this below).

I liked so much about this book, and I think the author has so much promise, but there were a few things that didn’t quite hit the mark for me.

Positives:
- The characters were fascinating. Even the ones that weren’t given the opportunity to develop much, or for us to get to know them much, they were all quite compelling, and I would read all of their files in depth! 

- The romance was sweet and tender and achingly lovely, the slow burn was slow, but the reward was great

- The concept itself was so great, I was hooked by this premise, and I honestly feel like this would make a great TV series, or book series, following bridges and their expats. It would be delightful 

- The mix of genres (science fiction, romance, literary, suspense) was great! 

- Overall the writing was strong - engaging, full of prose and melody, and very evocative

- I loved that this colourful story was told in so many shades of grey. Everything was messy and complicated, and morally ambiguous, it was DELICIOUS


Room for improvement:
- The pacing was great for so long, but the story kind of fell apart near the end. Not completely, but it did not stand strong on its own, a lot felt rushed, some stuff wasn’t clearly reasoned out, and there were so many twists and turns that panned out via the exposition of conversations that were as finessed as a brick to the head. The conclusion was clunky, and could use some work. 

- Our narrator at times would be brilliant and snarky and smart, and delightful, and at other times, she would shakily almost arbitrarily make her way through some sort of self discovery or memory, and it felt like her reflections were almost half-hearted. I especially noticed this whenever we touched on moral and social issues like race and some of the ethics to do with her work. Often it worked - life is confusing and we don’t always have fully formed thoughts, but other times it felt underdeveloped. Our protagonist would at length list microaggressions, and be so painfully self-aware at her own faults and mistakes, but then would make decisions that felt extremely out of character. While I’m all for a complicated and multifaceted main character, didn’t feel intentional, and It just felt a bit inconsistent. 

Ultimately, I really, really enjoyed this book. It was electrifying, and smart, and unforgettable. I hope to read more from Bradley soon!