Stewart Hotston

Tense tech-thriller based on the growing role of blockchains, encryption and social media in society. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Yesterday, Amanda Back’s life was flawless: the perfect social credit score, the perfect job, the perfect home. Today, Amanda is a target, an enemy of the system holding information dangerous enough to disrupt the world’s all-consuming tech – a fugitive on the run. But in a world where an un-hackable blockchain links everyone and everything, there is nowhere to run…

Tangle's Game

Alexandra Mellas

DNF
Unfortunately I found Tangle's Game very difficult to follow, the heroine (Amanda) very unlikable and her character was quite erratic. (view spoiler)[She wanted nothing to do with Tangle and his ideas, but she followed his instructions, threatening strangers break into her home and she hires them to help her. Amanda values her own independence, wealth and intelligence but mistrusts it in other women. (hide spoiler)]

I struggled to get into the story, the beginning dragged and by the time I gave up, I still had not seen the point of any of Amanda's interactions, I didn't know anything about Tangle except that he treated her poorly. I didn't understand the relevance of the social ranking system, or what was actually on the drive and why it was worth endangering so many people. I also didn't enjoy the constant discussions on how as a biracial woman, Amanda does not experience privilege - it felt like condescending and irrelevant to the plot progression. It felt as through Hotston was just shoehorning the conversation in rather than developing it properly around the characters.

I hate to leave a book unfinished but I quickly lost interest in this book and haven't picked it up again. I don't intend to try it again any time soon but I would like to try a different novel by this author - maybe I'm just less interested in the technology than the story.

Tangle's Game

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