Bonding
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'Audacious, hot, deeply uncomfortable and genuinely thrilling' - Saba Sams, author of Send Nudes Tech Will Tear Us Apart . . . Adrift in her early thirties, Mary sets out to change her life, one ill-advised decision at a time. First, she books a spontaneous flight to Ibiza where she meets Tom, a brilliant young chemist working on an experimental drug called Eudaxa that claims to cure the anxieties of modern life. As their connection deepens, Mary thinks she might finally be falling in love. Then Mary lands a job at Openr, an innovative dating app with no limits. Its founder, Mary's ex girlfriend Lara, will do everything it takes to make it a global phenomenon. When Mary introduces Lara and Tom, love and pharma collide with devastating consequences. As whispers about Eudaxa's side effects begin to grow, Mary is forced to ask whether love is even possible in a society that is falling apart. Electrifying, urgent, and darkly funny, Bonding is a uniquely modern story of sex and freedom in the messy tangle of our digital age. 'Part love story, part love-mare, Bonding asks big, bold questions about the future of human relations and relationships' - Sarah May, author of Becky
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I loved the premise of this book. The blurb seemed right up my alley, and I did enjoy the overall themes and plot, and the representation of bisexual characters.
Unfortunately, the writing style itself really didn't work for me. It was written in a weird combo of first person (the protagonist) and third person (to give backstory on anyone else.) I'm struggling to articulate why this came across so strangely, so bear with me. The third person sections of the book read like an omnipresent narrator, but they were presented as if our protagonist was giving us information on these people in her lives. It just... didn't really feel like it made any sense, since she wouldn't know half the stuff that was being narrated to us? Even if all these people relayed these stories to her, they wouldn't do so in the exacting detail we see in the text. It just took me out of the story entirely, instead of being engrossed I was very, very aware that I was reading a book.
I also found the protagonist kind of one dimensional? She didn't really seem to have much in the way of thoughts or feelings, we were following along her life with her in her head but all we really saw was what happened, barely anything of what it actually made her feel. I felt like she didn't really have a personality.
Overall, interesting premise but executed poorly for me.
Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC
