Review of The upside down frown, Book 1 Felicity's awakening
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Kutloano Makhuvhela
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Review of The upside down frown, Book 1 Felicity's awakening
[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The upside down frown, Book 1 Felicity's awakening" by Dion De Jong.]
Artificial intelligence has taken the world by storm. Not only have people integrated it into their everyday lives, but it has also been expanded to almost every facet of life. Everyone has their own personal A.I. they call a companion. This companion is exactly that; they have a unique name that is different from other A.I.s, and it is solely there to assist and interact with you. This world I just painted is the world where Felicity finds herself in. She is a young woman who is into agriculture and loves growing tomatoes. Her companion is Mary. Her world is perfect as it is, playing her part in a wider community. Except it is not so. All of it is a façade.
Felicity is oblivious to the world around her. But she is not the only one. Everyone is. The time arrives when she has to move to her own house. Mary reminds her of this and virtually assists her with the relocation. Not only that, but Mary tells Felicity that it is time for her to reproduce. Felicity is clueless about this, as she hasn’t learnt anything about her body, let alone sex. She is curious and asks Mary what it is going to be like. Mary answers her in technical terms that are intimidating and unsettling. The man who is to help Felicity is James. Together, they try to do their duty. But they start realising a couple of things that they are not sure of. Not only that, they do not just have sex to reproduce. They start to have it for pleasure, and this comes with its sort of implication. What will happen? Is Mary indeed a harmless companion? If she finds out about James and Felicity’s secret, how will she react?
Read The Upside Down Frown, Book 1 Felicity’s Awakening by Dion De Jong to find out the answers. This was such a good book that was convincing about its futuristic world. I liked that the world-building was strong, consistent, believable, and realistic. I found that the world the author has painted is not far from the one we currently inhabit as people. A.I. has advanced so rapidly in the 2020s that we also have our own versions of personal A.I. in the form of cell phone software. So this created an unsettling feeling in me. If we are not too careful, humanity could slip down this hole, and it might be hard to pull ourselves from it.
The characters were crafted so well I felt them to be real because of their true human emotions. This enabled me as a reader to feel close to them and relate to their struggle. The characters were written in such a way that I found myself asking what I would have done if I were in the same situation. How they explored the world around them was inspiring above everything. They refused to be boxed in. This showed the human spirit, raging for freedom, even though the concept was unknown in this world.
The writing was something that let me down in this book. First of all, there were too many errors, in punctuation and grammatical. This made the reading not so enjoyable, especially as I was engrossed in the story. Sometimes I found awkward phrases that did not suit me well. I also disliked the explicit sex scenes. Not that there was something wrong with them. None at all. The characters were discovering their bodies and familiarising themselves with the concept of sex, so it made sense for them to be obsessed with it in the early stage. However, the frequent occurrence of it in the later stage was just too much. It ended up taking centre stage when Felicity and James were supposed to be focusing on other serious matters.
The ending was OK because it let us know That there would be another book after this one, so it closed with a couple of question marks. The explanation of what the intentions were behind inventing the A.I. to begin with and how it all went down the way it did was well executed. However, I still felt like if the sex scenes were limited, a lot could have been explained on this point.
Taking into account all I have said above, I would rate this book three out of five stars. It was balanced. It didn’t blow my mind, and it didn’t let me down, either. I recommend it to people who love speculative fiction; even those who prefer dystopian novels would be at home with it. The book retained some elements of originality in this genre so no one would feel like it is a copy and paste of those that came before it. The suitable audience is young adults.
******
The upside down frown, Book 1 Felicity's awakening
View: on Bookshelves
Artificial intelligence has taken the world by storm. Not only have people integrated it into their everyday lives, but it has also been expanded to almost every facet of life. Everyone has their own personal A.I. they call a companion. This companion is exactly that; they have a unique name that is different from other A.I.s, and it is solely there to assist and interact with you. This world I just painted is the world where Felicity finds herself in. She is a young woman who is into agriculture and loves growing tomatoes. Her companion is Mary. Her world is perfect as it is, playing her part in a wider community. Except it is not so. All of it is a façade.
Felicity is oblivious to the world around her. But she is not the only one. Everyone is. The time arrives when she has to move to her own house. Mary reminds her of this and virtually assists her with the relocation. Not only that, but Mary tells Felicity that it is time for her to reproduce. Felicity is clueless about this, as she hasn’t learnt anything about her body, let alone sex. She is curious and asks Mary what it is going to be like. Mary answers her in technical terms that are intimidating and unsettling. The man who is to help Felicity is James. Together, they try to do their duty. But they start realising a couple of things that they are not sure of. Not only that, they do not just have sex to reproduce. They start to have it for pleasure, and this comes with its sort of implication. What will happen? Is Mary indeed a harmless companion? If she finds out about James and Felicity’s secret, how will she react?
Read The Upside Down Frown, Book 1 Felicity’s Awakening by Dion De Jong to find out the answers. This was such a good book that was convincing about its futuristic world. I liked that the world-building was strong, consistent, believable, and realistic. I found that the world the author has painted is not far from the one we currently inhabit as people. A.I. has advanced so rapidly in the 2020s that we also have our own versions of personal A.I. in the form of cell phone software. So this created an unsettling feeling in me. If we are not too careful, humanity could slip down this hole, and it might be hard to pull ourselves from it.
The characters were crafted so well I felt them to be real because of their true human emotions. This enabled me as a reader to feel close to them and relate to their struggle. The characters were written in such a way that I found myself asking what I would have done if I were in the same situation. How they explored the world around them was inspiring above everything. They refused to be boxed in. This showed the human spirit, raging for freedom, even though the concept was unknown in this world.
The writing was something that let me down in this book. First of all, there were too many errors, in punctuation and grammatical. This made the reading not so enjoyable, especially as I was engrossed in the story. Sometimes I found awkward phrases that did not suit me well. I also disliked the explicit sex scenes. Not that there was something wrong with them. None at all. The characters were discovering their bodies and familiarising themselves with the concept of sex, so it made sense for them to be obsessed with it in the early stage. However, the frequent occurrence of it in the later stage was just too much. It ended up taking centre stage when Felicity and James were supposed to be focusing on other serious matters.
The ending was OK because it let us know That there would be another book after this one, so it closed with a couple of question marks. The explanation of what the intentions were behind inventing the A.I. to begin with and how it all went down the way it did was well executed. However, I still felt like if the sex scenes were limited, a lot could have been explained on this point.
Taking into account all I have said above, I would rate this book three out of five stars. It was balanced. It didn’t blow my mind, and it didn’t let me down, either. I recommend it to people who love speculative fiction; even those who prefer dystopian novels would be at home with it. The book retained some elements of originality in this genre so no one would feel like it is a copy and paste of those that came before it. The suitable audience is young adults.
******
The upside down frown, Book 1 Felicity's awakening
View: on Bookshelves
‘When you do a good deed, people are grateful, and that creates a nice feeling inside you; and then because it feels good, that makes you want to do more good deeds. That repetition is the cycle of goodness.’
~Hogoromo.
~Hogoromo.
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