Recursion

I don't think I would have enjoyed this book as much if I wasn't reading it with other people. It started off very intense and you jump right into it. That made me interested in reading further. But as the story went on it became very convoluted and it sort of loses its impact. I didn't really care about the story or the characters that much. Especially the whole part on the oil rig. It was just a whole sequence of finding out Slade is a fucking asshole and manipulating Helena out of her own life. 

Then when Barry and Helena meet it's even worse. They sort of skip out on this whole falling-in-love thing. They tell us they are so fucking in love but that just falls out of nowhere. The book doesn't actually describe them falling in love. Which makes me not care about them. 

The whole lifetimes at the end, I also didn't really like. I don't really know why. Maybe because we only see it from Barry's point of view or because it just sort of seemed like pointless intensity. We all know that this isn't the end of the book so we know Helena is going to go back in the machine. So then nothing feels like it's as tense as they want it to be.