17 Church Row
[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]
A pretty interesting premise here: after the death of one of their twin daughters, Nikki and Ethan Rhodes decide to acquire a new revolutionary house, entirely automated and equipped with a virtual assistant named Alice. All this hoping for a new start, for a place where they won’t see memories of their dead daughter everywhere, and for their remaining child, Bella, to finally speak again.
The house itself, I admit, was both super exciting and a dreadful prospect for me. Exciting, because of all the technological gizmos and automation—a house that anticipates your needs, doesn’t that sound great? And at the same time, it -is- also scary, because if anything goes wrong, if the power goes down, well, you’re trapped in there, aren’t you? Which is—no surprise here—what kind of starts to happen, with a few glitches here and there that worry the Rhodes, just as much as they worry the architect of the house, though not for the same reasons.
The first part of the book was less interesting, to be honest, and I think that’s because it took its sweet time to establish the life of the Rhodes, the ‘slice of life’ moments needed for the reader to see how things are going inside the new house. In itself, that was indeed necessary, since how would we care about what happens next if things hadn’t been desperately “normal” before to offer some contrast? Yet at the same time, I didn’t really connect with the Rhodes, perhaps because their life in general, especially Nikki’s, was pretty much so sheltered that the rest of the world might have not existed at all. Wealthy family (they could afford a Tesla and buy 17 Church Row just like that—in London, so I guess they had an oil well stashed under their garden at some point or something?), with Ethan always out working and Nikki alone at home with her child. Bella doesn’t speak, and we don’t really get to know her, apart from her drawing and speaking through her tablet. There were only a few external elements, such as Sofia the cleaner. And while that highlighted Nikki’s isolation when it comes to what happens next, that still made for a sort of bland universe with which the characters could only interact in a bland way, too.
The second part was more interesting, yet also drawn-out and perhaps trying to enforce the point a little too much. Some parts of it were definitely in line with current possibilities and fears related to AI, and some others had moustache-twirling villain vibes that were quite odd here. The ending, too, felt rushed and unsatisfying.
Style-wise, one thing I found really jarring was the cuts between paragraphs. We’d have a paragraph about, say, Nikki thinking of her dead child, and then suddenly the last sentence of the paragraph was “She got up and went to make coffee.” (where I would definitely expect this to be the start of a new paragraph). I don’t know if it’s just me, but it happened regularly throughout the novel, and it felt strange.
Conclusion: Interesting ideas around the theme of artificial intelligence, but it was difficult to connect with (and care about) the characters.
