/lit/ - Literature

>>16998984
Providence - Max Barry (2020)

Normally I would have dropped this early on, but since I've read all his previous novels and thought they were all at least decent except for one, I decided to push through to the end. This was a mistake. The entire time I thought that there would be a twist and it wasn't going to be what it kept telling me it was. I simply couldn't believe it was going to play it straight the entire time. It did. As with all his previous novels this was a satire and I've enjoyed reading him for a specific brand of satirical work. Unfortunately I wasn't able to appreciate the satire this time, at either its implicit or explicit levels. The explicit satire is having a war against aliens being turned into a social media campaign. The implicit satire is that nothing that you could ever do matters and anything that you ever try to do will only make everything worse and cause ever more suffering unto death. Everything is predetermined and your struggle only hurts yourself. Because of this I found it to be boring and unenjoyable. All four of the characters were awful, but considering their circumstances it would be odd if they weren't.

Rating: 2/5