I liked this book. I was recommended it from the Dear Sugars podcast. I thought the idea behind it was fascinating. In some respects, I had always wondered if there was something like the gene discovered in the book existed.
So this spurred me into reading the book. I just found a lot of it kind of... Stereotypical, I guess. Also, Spoilers from here on.
Like when Jade went to see Kevin I felt like I had already guessed what would happen-- and then, surprise, I was right. What I found worse was, Jade chose to stay with the person who lied to her despite her character being opposite to that. I just don't like love conquers all as a resolution-- it seems forced and untrue and extremely dangerous. The stories where love is hard and difficult and forgiveness is hard feel more fulfilling to me. All Jade's story and some of Mandy's (I think that was her name) story were like this. In Alex and Nick's story, I was much more satisfied with the outcome because they struggled, but like even still I thought the idea of two until then straight men becoming gay in like three chapters was silly.
The focus on more than one character is inevitably the downfall of this book. Some ideas need more than a brief glance, others don't need as much insight as they seemed to get in a chapter.
There's a serial killer that gets this buildup that's huge and yet, his death is so blasé and his story is generic. He's sort of like Dexter, except he falls in love. And this book is about love, so that's fine, but it kind of felt like in one chapter, he found his Match amusing and then suddenly he loved her. I was surprised by the turnaround. I don't find him very different from other psychopathic serial killers in novels, so... I don't really know why he rubbed me so wrong. It needed more to be deeply investigated, but I don't even know if this would have been interesting.
I thought most if the other stories were interesting, with Ellie's being the outlier. Her story was basically a fairy tale until this the guy revealed himself and I was totally enraptured by that. I really didn't like that it ended the way it did, but, it is what it is. I would have enjoyed learning more about her, though.
There were plenty of characters who were just flat out unlikable, but not in a good villain way. I mean characters who existed solely as an awful human being in an unrealistic way. I thought, for instance, Richard's mother and sister we're flat out insane, but worse, that his Match went to his "funeral" and never asked a single question to his friends about who he was. She just accepted his mother and sister's opinions as facts. What person does that? Tim was similar but at least he made up a life and Ellie looked into it and it checked out.
All in all, I don't hate this book but I don't love it, and it's good, but it's not eye opening it amazing. It's a book I'd probably never revisit but I could recommend it to someone. It's alright.
William King
Schizanthus Nerd