This was a confusing read with random perspective switches that occurred without warning and really confused me a few times.

The concept sounded cool: a near-future sci-fi, thriller about a struggle for control after a Civil War that is run by a ruthless government that fully censors its citizens that felt like a mix of The Matrix and The Hunger Games. While the concept seemed really cool (and certainly had some neat elements) the execution fell flat.

The story was confusing, scattered, and lacked depth, a clear backstory, and introduced too many characters out of nowhere without notice and clear explanation of who they were. I really struggled to keep things straight throughout the story and often had to pause and think about who a particular character was that the author had us focusing on because I wasn't sure who they were and where they came from.

Without giving away any spoilers, I found the ending of this story to be VERY unsatisfying and without a clear resolution. Maybe to leave room for a sequel novel, but there came a point where I almost just ended it and walked away because the description of what was going on was really disappointing.

I think the overall concept of the novel and some of the story saved this novel from being rated lower, but it was a miss for me.

The idea? Awesome. The execution? Insufferable. The world building is lacking and the characters are flat. I feel like the author is aggressively talking at me rather than showing me a story.

I think the concept in this novel is interesting and was fun to explore. The author did a good job world building in way that didn't feel out of reach. However, the plot fell short for me. I felt like there was too much going on and some of the plot devices weren't believable.


Thank you to Netgalley for providing me a copy of this book to review. This is out now!

This was a unique dystopian story, and a good example of why I would never want to take the chance of hooking my brain up to ANYTHING. lol.

The story had some surprising twists and turns. After reading over 2,000 books, it is not easy to surprise me anymore, but this book definitely managed it a few times.

The ending was a little bit frustrating, but also included a good point. You definitely can't sum up real life in a nice, neat ending. So, this ending was more like real life.

I had a little trouble connecting to the characters, but the overall storyline was interesting. The book is definitely worth a read, especially in the hopes that such things don't ever actually happen.

The plot of this book pulled me in - technology and another civil war is something that wouldn't surprise me so getting into someone's idea of what that aftermath could look like intrigued me.

After the US's second civil war society now has technology that controls the people to keep the peace. But this technology comes with a price I know many of us wouldn't want to pay. This technology alters your mind and your memories. But when our FMC, Ada, starts uncovering things about her family and her past it propels her on a journey to what I think of as freedom.

This book was completely terrifying and also very intriguing. I enjoyed the premise and can see where the author made the leap to certain aspects of this fictitious world. I haven't read much sci-fi recently but this reminded me how sci-fi can take our world, fears and all, and make it into a crazy fictional reality.

While I enjoyed the premise of this book I got lost quite a bit throughout reading it. I'm not sure if it was the way the author worded things or if it was the third person point of view or just my own inability to follow along. This was definitely a slower read for me but, overall, I enjoyed it for the most part.

The synopsis sounded good, and for about the first third of the book I was enjoying it, but then it lost me. Things just became too much, and a lot of things that could have happened/been revealed tactfully, they were blatantly stated. Most of the twists and surprises felt very in your face because of this, in a way that was hard to get past. By the end I didn't really care what happened.

I thought this was going to be more than what it was, but it just felt like some YA dystopian novel, like a version of the Divergent series or something. Not my thing.

After Thought by Nate Eckman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even heaven allows hell.


I picked this book specifically because it had a post-American Civil War in its blurb. Seemingly, that was enough for me.

As for the content, it's a bit more of a complete cyberpunk dystopia without the endless capitalist violence. Indeed, in this MANAGED society, people's very memories are suspect. It's chilling and eventually the novel really blows up in an interesting way.

Think Pol Pot if he could have gotten his hands on memory alteration tech, AI personal assistants (and more to run a total massive operation), and a complete erasure of history. No one wants to recall the horrors of war, after all. It's best to take away the bad bits. In here, we start with this as a fait accompli.


I may have had a bit of issues with the writing style at first but once we got out of the explanation modes I was quite involved with the action and reveals. I very well might continue more by this author.

Unfortunately this book didn’t hit the mark with me.

The idea behind the premise is right up my alley- I love dystopian novels especially when there’s a strong FMC (think Scott Westerfield) and explorations about technology and how humans interact with it. But this novel just fell flat and for context, I almost DNF’d this book multiple times.

At points it felt like the author/editors had thrown chapters into a thesaurus there was that much unnecessary exposition, which meant I also found it hard to follow. I also didn’t connect with any of the many characters, as they felt a little one dimensional.

The synopsis I read when choosing to pick up the book had me so hooked. I really wanted to love this book so badly. Unfortunately, even though I am a sci-fi lover, I don't think I was the target audience here. I want to finish it, but just don’t think I’m going to be able to push through the last 15%.

I will preface this by saying that I struggle with 3rd person omniscient perspectives. The head-hopping in this was jarring at times, although I think that could be a me thing. I did find myself confused by things while reading this quite frequently, and I’m unsure where the onus of responsibility lies there. It’s possible that I was just missing important details by not paying enough attention. There was quite a bit of exposition in this book, and so I think that there was a lot of extraneous information that might’ve obscured some of the more important information. Overall, I found the world super interesting, but it was greatly delivered through “telling” and I didn’t feel transported there.

I felt as though the characters were generally quite flat and none of them had unique tones or personalities. This book is definitely plot-driven, and the characters seem to be vehicles for it, lacking emotional arcs and depth. This book seems like it was meant more for chewing on the concepts philosophically than for those who want to really hunker in for the main character’s experience. I think there’s definitely merit in that, but it just isn’t something I’m looking for at this moment.

I really think the idea is a gem. The details of the world are so cool and interesting, things I’d love to dig into and get a better understanding of. I think the author has something amazing but the execution just wasn’t for me, personally. I got through the first 50% pretty quickly, and liked where it was headed, but lost my momentum in the second half. I would still recommend this to sci-fi lovers who are a little more interested in the concepts and less interested in digging into the emotions and internal lives of the characters.

This book had such an interesting premise, but the overall execution fell a bit flat on the emotional front. It was challenging to become invested in the emotional center of the story, and I found myself asking why should I care about Ada’s story? There was a missed opportunity for a stronger characterization, and despite being in this character’s perspective, I felt that I still didn’t know her. The most challenging aspect was the flow of the narrative. I often had to go back and reread sections, as there were parts where it felt like there was a paragraph of information missing and I couldn’t quite parse what was happening.

Thank you to NetGalley for an eArc of this title in exchange for an honest review.

This book lacks substance and not in a junk food way but in a how eating a piece of styrofoam has no nutritional value way. Every single character, including the protagonist is completely flat, there are no emotional arcs or depth. All the villains sit around twirling their mustaches and laughing maniacally. Worse yet there isn't even banter between characters, characters just sort of open their mouths and explain to the audience what's going on.

And it's aggressive in explaining everything to the audience, just full on Garth Marenghi: "I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards" school of writing. To the degree that when the antagonist is sitting on a snake motif chair the protagonist has to stop the action to literally ask the antagonist about the snake motif.

I'm willing to cut dystopian novels a little slack when it comes to plot and characters because more often than not these novels primarily serve as a vehicle for social criticism. Eckman's commentary seems to be having a single corporation control all information is bad which is true but isn't explored in any novel way. It's clear that this is supposed to be about content moderation on the internet and Truth but there's no actual discussions about the problems of moderation outside of just evil corporation controls all information and that's terrible.

Additionally, there's a whole anti-digitization subplot where characters go on about how digitization destroys the aura of art and it's like I get it, you read Walter Benjamin. I'm sorry that copies don't have the aura of the original object but actually accessible and indexable art is a social good and means more people can actually engage with art.

The world, the characters, and the politics of this book is simply not well fleshed out. If I could give it a zero I would, but since I can't I'm giving it a one.

4 ⭐

This was a harder read for me. I'm one for romance or thrillers - keeping me on my toes, a quick read. This book, however, was a more intense read than I anticipated and a challenge that I gave myself to try a new genre.

Each chapter unpacked more to Ada's life decisions that she is needing to make, needing to decide what's right and wrong. Really seeing how different she is compared to every other obsolete in her wing. I'm amazed how a single piece of technology can change and perceive things as true or false until that piece of technology is disabled.

This dystopian universe is definitely a book worth reading.

After Thought follows Ada as she navigates a post-civil war United States. Sixth Domain Industries (6Di) took over as the leading governing body in this dystopian world. Each individual has an implanted device created by 6Di, called a Bridg, that alters their memories, censoring what information is stored in the mind. 6Di controls what information is true or false, in an effort to create peace through censorship. Any information labeled as false is scrubbed from the mind, without the individual noticing the missing information.

I’m not sure if the book was for me as a reader. The storyline was interesting, and I had high hopes for this debut novel. I wasn’t a big fan of the writing style personally, with a narrator describing in third person what was happening and switching POVs mid-chapter, but I can appreciate the writing. The narrator monologues and philosophical thinking became a bit overdone, especially when it didn’t contribute to the plot. It was thought provoking, but the plot was more interesting to me and I wasn’t satisfied with how much we got that actually drove the story forward.

I wanted more from this novel. I wanted more back-story on the civil war that set place before Ada. I especially wanted more on the trials she faced in the competition. The plot jumped in time too quickly that it felt like so much was happening off the page that I would have liked to know.

I give this book 3/5 stars. I really wanted to like this book, but I had issues with the narrator monologue and lack of action from the characters. I had a lot of unanswered questions and felt there were plot holes unaddressed. I did however, appreciate the story and the authors attempt to get the reader to really consider how it would feel to be in this world.

Thank you to the author and publisher for giving me an ARC!! I’m excited to check back on the release date to see what others think.

An interesting take on neural technology in a dystopian setting. I found the prose a touch too dense for my taste, though, and the plot a little too slowly paced. But overall, a solid sci-fi mystery.

4 🌟 read!!!

What a debut novel! After Thought is a dystopian thriller that follows our heroine Ada as she navigates the complexities of technological control following America’s second civil war. This is definitely a page turner that keeps the surprises coming. I finished a technological thriller (Poster Girl) shortly before reading this book, but it still kept me engaged. The concept of the government using technology to control citizens and make them dependent is not as far removed as I would like it to be - so the novel really is terrifying. It’s a story of resilience, morals, and gore. If you like dystopian novels, this modern twist will keep you reeling.

I received a copy of this book as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. #AfterThought #NetGalley #LilReads

4 stars

This was a phenomenal dystopian novel. Eckman really brought it with the twists, and edge of your seat kind of writing! I was fully engrossed from page one.

Thank you to Netgalley and author for this ARC. As always opinion expressed by me, are my own. I loved this book. It was for me the pinnacle of SCIFI. It was easy to read and understand which will appeal to readers that might be new to SCIFI. I loved this mash up of Dystopian and Thriller. This book was very thought-provoking.

After Thought by Nate Eckman is a gripping and thought-provoking dystopian thriller that takes place in a future America ravaged by its second Civil War. The novel follows Ada, a woman who begins to uncover her family's past and the role a surveillance company played in the war. As Ada delves deeper, she uncovers a technology that promises everlasting peace but threatens to plunge the country into another bloody conflict.

The novel is a fast-paced and immersive account of Ada's journey, as she struggles to differentiate fact from fiction and grapples with the burden of her knowledge. The story raises important questions about censorship, punishment, and the dangers of technology that blurs the line between man and machine. Ada's experiences ultimately empower her to make world-altering decisions, but at a great personal cost.

The writing is engaging and the plot is full of twists and turns that keep the reader engaged until the very end. The characters are well-developed, and Ada's journey is both heart-wrenching and inspiring. After Thought is a must-read for fans of dystopian fiction, as it presents a chilling vision of a future that could very well become our reality.

I was engaged from the description and really glad I got to read this, it did everything that was promised and I enjoyed how good the plot was. The characters had everything that I was looking for and worked in this story. It had a great mystery element that worked with the scifi story. I enjoyed how good Nate Eckman's writing was and am excited to read more from him.

A fantastic and well written Dystopia where people complete through their work assignments to become integrated into a collective consciousness. I look forward to seeing more from this author in the future.