Was promised something like Severance the TV show, but was served something extremely different. Couldn’t connect with the book at all. Clearly didn’t care about the main character, and confused by how much he didn’t like his un-named family. Just simply wasn’t for me.

The first 10% of this was fascinating. I love a good tech dystopia with commentary on society. But it slowly lost me. I get why the narrator is unlikeable, but there was no one to root for, and the plot wasn't interesting enough for me to keep going. Still, I ain't a quitter. I got through it. I regret it. Bummer. I am still on the lookout for a truly good internet book.

This was an interesting one. All of the technology feels very plausible in our near future, so it felt like it kind of sat on the line between present day and futuristic. I enjoyed the commentary on both technology and family and thought the way the story was woven worked pretty well. It took me a bit to get into it, but overall I liked this book. I will say that I kind of struggled with Miles. I don't think I ever fully felt for him and there weren't any other characters that I really loved either.

Sometimes I found the narrator’s commentary smart, relatable, and refreshing and other times I found it to be unnecessary mental gymnastics—sounding more like a male in tech/stem trying to make sense of life. I found the story, especially the minutia of what a tech company and a specific role in a tech company would be like very interesting and unique. Especially with it being so concurrent with our very own Metaverse. While the mystery of the story propelled me to the end, I found the the ending to be unrewarding, especially after trudging through an exhausting recording of the character’s mid-life existential crisis. I feel like a clearer ending that tied up loose ends of the book would have swayed me to rate it higher.

This ends up being a neat, slowly unspooling horror that combines the obliviousness of one man in tech of the affect he has on his wife and daughters, colleagues, and just about everyone around him, how that plays out in a company that makes virtual reality experiences and what he makes, and the slow unraveling of his life via anonymous death threats. I get the sense that we're supposed to be horrified by what happens to Miles, but really, it's actually kind of cathartic to see a white man NOT fail continually upward and actually experience something resembling consequences. Solid, definitely worth a quick read through.

Definitely not for me. Premise sounded good but the execution was terrible. The writing was muddled and the title of Users didn’t seem to fully fit. I would recommend calling it something closer to Ghost Lover but another author has already recently done that. Just didn’t work for me.

I was unfortunately not a huge fan of this one - the narrator's disconnectedness made it extremely difficulty to stay engaged despite the interesting premise. I thought there were some interesting questions raised but ultimately it was difficult to relate to the vapid and uninteresting protagonist.

This seemed like it could be super Gina fun interesting but it ended up feeling slow and dragged in for me. There wasn’t a eureka moment or a grad finale and didn’t wrap up the way i would have liked.

This novel just didn't deliver for me. I really hated the character, Lily. Every word that came out of her mouth was rude and just plain ridiculous. Her dialogue was over-the-top. Nobody talks like that. The main character was interesting, but the overall story didn't hold my attention. Even though the writing was solid, the plot just stalled too much. Not enough character development to move the story forward.

This is OK. It's a bit uneven and doesn't have the polish of a more experienced author (and maybe editor). I see the talent there shining thru, so I hope the author keeps writing.

Thanks very much for the free ARC for review!!

This shortish novel has an interesting premise and the blurb comparisons with other novels that explore tech culture had me sold. Unfortunately, this one didn’t quite come together for me, although there were certainly some interesting ideas explored here.

Unfortunately, I didn’t like this book. I thought the concept behind it was interesting, but it didn’t hold my attention. I disliked the main character. Maybe he changes later on in the book, but this was a DNF for me.

The best parts of this book were the parts were the parts that got the least amount of page-time, and that made this short-ish read feel like somewhat of a slog. I was intrigued by many aspects of this book, specifically it's comparison to many current pop-culture phenomenons, but didn't feel like many of those comparisons truly hit the mark. In essence, this is the story of a man who works for a company that curates VR experiences, but it always feels like there is some public relations nightmare or another happening that he and his colleague, Lily, are left to solve. I didn't fully grasp all of those discussions if I'm being honest, they went somewhat over my head.

The aspects of the story that I did really quite enjoy were the parts that involved Miles's family, specifically his daughters. I also enjoyed Lily's character and would have loved to read more from her.

I liked this book, but I didn’t expect nor like the “shock” of the book. Maybe it’s some people’s thing, but it wasn’t for me.