Home Truths and We Are Legion
Aug. 21st, 2025 10:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearHome Truths by Susan Lewis is the third book of hers I've read this year - and it was mostly fine.
It's a very realistic and affecting portrayal of how someone can very easily get into financial difficulties and then gradually slide into quite desperate circumstances. But, since that's all it was about for nearly half the book, it's quite unremittingly depressing and a bit repetitive.
I liked Angie as a protagonist, especially since she never lost sight of how other people might be in a worse situation than her - and most of her reactions to things were very credible and relatable.
It picked up significantly in terms of tone in the second half - but the ways in which Angie gets out of her difficult position felt very deus ex machina, way too easy, and implemented almost exclusively by people other than her. It also provided no sense of hope or direction for anyone who might actually find themselves in this situation, since the saving events were very unrealistic.
Neither main aspect of the story really had a proper climax so the ending was a bit of a damp squib, even though it made me happy for things to work out for characters I had grown to like.
We Are Legion by Dennis E Taylor is the first book in the Bobiverse series. I had actually already read books two and three (for weird reasons) and decided to restart the series because I discovered there are now two more books I can listen to. So, I was familiar with the concept and some of the characters, but I hadn't actually read the first one before.
It's about a man named Bob, whose personality and memories end up being preserved for over a century and then transplanted into a space probe to be sent out to look for other habitable planets.
The similarities to the start of Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (this came first) and the fact that both are read by the same (really good) narrator was a bit disconcerting to begin with, but I quickly got into the swing of this really fun story. The second half really picks up, once there are multiple Bobs in play (there are about 15 that we get to know by the end of the first book and they are all distinct enough to work as individual characters) and I'm looking forward to continuing through the books I've already read to reach the bits of the story that are currently unknown to me.
It's a very realistic and affecting portrayal of how someone can very easily get into financial difficulties and then gradually slide into quite desperate circumstances. But, since that's all it was about for nearly half the book, it's quite unremittingly depressing and a bit repetitive.
I liked Angie as a protagonist, especially since she never lost sight of how other people might be in a worse situation than her - and most of her reactions to things were very credible and relatable.
It picked up significantly in terms of tone in the second half - but the ways in which Angie gets out of her difficult position felt very deus ex machina, way too easy, and implemented almost exclusively by people other than her. It also provided no sense of hope or direction for anyone who might actually find themselves in this situation, since the saving events were very unrealistic.
Neither main aspect of the story really had a proper climax so the ending was a bit of a damp squib, even though it made me happy for things to work out for characters I had grown to like.
We Are Legion by Dennis E Taylor is the first book in the Bobiverse series. I had actually already read books two and three (for weird reasons) and decided to restart the series because I discovered there are now two more books I can listen to. So, I was familiar with the concept and some of the characters, but I hadn't actually read the first one before.
It's about a man named Bob, whose personality and memories end up being preserved for over a century and then transplanted into a space probe to be sent out to look for other habitable planets.
The similarities to the start of Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (this came first) and the fact that both are read by the same (really good) narrator was a bit disconcerting to begin with, but I quickly got into the swing of this really fun story. The second half really picks up, once there are multiple Bobs in play (there are about 15 that we get to know by the end of the first book and they are all distinct enough to work as individual characters) and I'm looking forward to continuing through the books I've already read to reach the bits of the story that are currently unknown to me.
