"A captivating, immersive world; all characters and situations sound frighteningly real. The outcomes were realistic, too - sometimes too much so, in my opinion, as I kept hoping that there would be a happier resolution for the few truly sympathetic characters.

Still, I enjoyed following all the stories since the author manages to put us in the shoes of even psychopaths like Jeffrey and extreme social media addicts like Roxi, and make them seem ... if not likeable, at least relatable in their search for human connection/self-realization, respectively.

I wish the atmosphere wasn't so depressing; I wish the author's vision of the future held more hope for humanity and its use - and abuse - of technology and social media. Jem Jones's story, with its jaw-dropping final twist, was the nail in the coffin.

On the whole, I both liked the book for its authentic representation of the pitiable state of humanity (and the scary future that awaits us all) ... and hated it for making us so painfully aware of it.

The audiobook was brilliantly narrated; the whole cast of characters were chosen perfectly and contributed to a memorable performance."

"This was not enjoyable. Really expected it to be, because GR seems to like this fairytale retelling, but not impressed.

For one thing - Sophia is an extremely unoriginal character (oh wow, rebellious girl doesn't want to go to the ball because *feminism* while everyone else is sheeple! That's a new one). You can't just make the standard issue rebellious princess character a lesbian and say that's her whole personality.

It's also a little unnerving how Sophia swears up and down she's been in love with her girlfriend Erin for the past three years and then literally like two weeks later she's fallen in love with a new girl - while her ex Erin is getting savagely beat up by her fiancee. There's a bit of "oh gosh, I need to help her" but after one brief effort, that quickly turns into "man that sucks for you . . . but you made your bed, I'm gonna let you lie in it - while I zoom into the sunset with the new boo." I know teenagers aren't exactly known for their depth and loyalty, but come on.

The prose is also a bit stilted and the characters are all incredibly bland stock characters.

There's also a decent number of plot holes (like - if the fairy godmother was literally powerful enough to stop all the crops in the kingdom from growing and dry up entire rivers, why was she afraid of the people trying to burn her for a witch such that she needed Prince Charming's protection?). This is later resolved by (view spoiler)[the fact that the witch is actually Prince Charming's mother and this is all a bullshit story (hide spoiler)] but the fact that Sophia just accepts that makes me think she's an idiot and like her even less."