The Word Exchange Book Review

Book: The Word Exchange

 

Author: Alena Graedon

 

Given by: Doubleday Books

 

Rating: 2/5 Won-derfuls (It was okay)

 

I was so excited when I read about this book and even more excited when I was approved for an ARC! For a while it was interesting. A "word flu" breaks out and kills language as we know it. The days of print and even electronic reading are long dead. Instead society uses Memes for everything under the sun. These machines are so in tune with their owners that they order food and taxis with the merest hint from the human's mind.

One man, Doug, stands against this change and has the foresight to see the damage being done to society. He works against those trying to profit from the death of the language he loves so much. That is until he mysteriously disappears. Sounds exciting, right? Let's just say it has a lot of untapped potential.

First of all, our heroine is a bloomin' idiot. As Doug's daughter I would hope for a strong, intelligent young woman. Not so much. I love a good character flaw as much as the next person but there is only so much stupidity I can take. She's basically in love with a sociopath and frequently goes against the warnings of those she trusts most, i.e. dear old dad. I wanted to punch her right in the dome the third time this happened.

Second, the book got really confusing around the whole word flu thing. Cool idea, but deadly? There were links made between human viruses and computer viruses that were kinda cool, but really they didn't make much sense. Then people started dying. From nothing. The word flu caused mysterious fevers and eventually death but I couldn't quite figure out why. As far as I can tell there was not a virus as we know them that effected the brain and, therefore, speech and language. I could see that becoming septic and killing someone. But I don't know how having a device controlling one's language would lead to their death. Did I miss a key part of the story? Am I thinking too much about it? I don't know. What I do know is that I wanted the book to end long before it did.

Basically, awesome idea. Great potential. It didn't hit the mark with me.

If you want to check out the book yourself or see what others have to say look here.