Everything You Ever Wanted Paperback – September 10, 2020

I read this from a TikTok recommendation, and I am 0 for 3 on truly enjoying what I have seen recommended on there. As for this book in particular, obviously the concept is interesting (ignoring actual science and mechanics, I don’t care about that in fiction necessarily), and I think character development for the main character Iris is decent, but the writing definitely feels more YA to me and not like something meant for adults to think critically about. The author does some cliche work with flashbacks and such, the story is not developed deeply other than what Iris is feeling/doing, and everything is predictable and fairly vague when it comes to dialogue and plot points. Something I’ve noticed with BookTok is people love books that “tell” and don’t “show,” and this falls into that category for sure. I read the entire book, so obviously it wasn’t bad enough to just give up, but do I feel like this is a novel of any true merit? No.

I don’t mean to be a hater but this just wasn’t it for me. It finally was good in the last 25 pages, but there were so many repeated chapters of just talking about stuff a she misses. I get it girl, but what else.. I was mislead by hype anticipating more sci-fi after it being compared to Black Mirror but I mean I finished it for a confusing or sad ending idrk.

I typically enjoy these types of stories and bought this off of BookTok recommendation. Not very exciting, typical, predictable and ending fizzled.