Wow. Where do I begin? Maybe by saying that this book has been the best one I've read this year, no doubt. And I have a feeling that only a few books will come close to how great this one was.
I would love to bring up the author's style of writing first. Because a lot of books I read have a good story. But when the style of writing is meh, the story can be the best one there is, and I won't enjoy it. And this was definitely not the case. From the first page, I was captivated. I could not put the book down at times, and mostly on how amazingly written it was.
The beginning took me by surprise with all the physics stuff. And I loved it. It's what drove me to devour every sentence, every word and I had to make pauses for how happy I was. Because this is the first book ever that I read that had all these terms and theories I love exploring, that wasn´t the school physics textbook.
In my free time, or just as a background noise, I love listening to/watching documentaries about the universe and astrophysics. Not only it´s the perfect music for my ears, as the people who dub the documentaries explain everything so that I, someone who never studied physics besides the mandatory in school, can perfectly understand it. But this book!!! The first half was like watching my most favourite documentary I know by heart, thrilled to learn new things.
Because yes, almost every other word is from physics, but even when you have a little to no knowledge of it, many of the terms are perfectly explained in a way that doesn't give the school textbook vibe.
Now, regarding the story. I am the type of person who can guess where the story leads just by reading the first few chapters. But let me tell you this. I had some predictions at the beginning, but I pretty much gave up every hope of guessing, because every chapter took a sharp corner, leading me into scenes and conclusions I had no idea were even possible.
You have the beginning of the book, the middle of the book, and the ending. And if you cut those three parts out and gave them to me separately, I would tell you that there's no way that they were from one single book. That's the proper way to surprise your readers.
If you plan to read this book, you have to be prepared to feel dread. Not because it's bad (no, it is not), but because of the state of the world. It is on the brink of a climatic apocalypse. The prologue is very graphic (and mostly shocking) about the consequences of global warming. And just by reading the prologue, I knew that the author won´t be sugarcoating anything, so be prepared for that.
When I read the book, I couldn't help but wonder, when is this awaiting us. Because we have to be realistic. The upper class, just like in this book, will sweep off the table any solution to the warming, if it means they will lose money. And when the consequences bite them in the a…, they won't listen to the scientists and people who have knowledge about the topics, and will create even worse situations to the point of no return.
This book also brings up a topic of faith blindness. I was brought up as a christian, and now I am not and I prefer evidence, just like Skyler, the main character. And yes, I banged my head onto the table a few times because of some things that were said and done. But I don't want to come into much detail, because I could go on and on about this, and it would be highly subjective. But I wanted to mention that it was really well written, when the people who don't believe and prefer the scientific truth meet with people who won't even listen to them. The frustration I felt when reading those parts was real.
So prepare for an all nighter, because you might have a slight problem putting this book down, just like me.