Book Review: The Word Exchange

Book: The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available now

Description:

A dystopian novel for the digital age, The Word Exchange offers an inventive, suspenseful, and decidedly original vision of the dangers of technology and of the enduring power of the printed word.

In the not-so-distant future, the forecasted “death of print” has become a reality. Bookstores, libraries, newspapers, and magazines are things of the past, and we spend our time glued to handheld devices called Memes that not only keep us in constant communication but also have become so intuitive that they hail us cabs before we leave our offices, order takeout at the first growl of a hungry stomach, and even create and sell language itself in a marketplace called the Word Exchange.

Anana Johnson works with her father, Doug, at the North American Dictionary of the English Language (NADEL), where Doug is hard at work on the last edition that will ever be printed. Doug is a staunchly anti-Meme, anti-tech intellectual who fondly remembers the days when people used email (everything now is text or videoconference) to communicate—or even actually spoke to one another, for that matter. One evening, Doug disappears from the NADEL offices, leaving a single written clue: ALICE. It’s a code word he devised to signal if he ever fell into harm’s way. And thus begins Anana’s journey down the proverbial rabbit hole . . .

Joined by Bart, her bookish NADEL colleague, Anana’s search for Doug will take her into dark basements and subterranean passageways; the stacks and reading rooms of the Mercantile Library; and secret meetings of the underground resistance, the Diachronic Society. As Anana penetrates the mystery of her father’s disappearance and a pandemic of decaying language called “word flu” spreads, The Word Exchange becomes a cautionary tale that is at once a technological thriller and a meditation on the high cultural costs of digital technology.



Rating: 1 star (Did Not Finish)

Review:

Oh, boy I don't know where to start. First, I will say that the premise is original and conceivable. Especially with the way the world is changing and with the way more and more people are using technology. It's not hard to believe that one day (probably soon) that we will get to the place where technology will be the only way we communicate.

Secondly, the story was boring and none of the beautifully written sentences could improve it.

The story centers around the disappearance of Anna Johnson's father Doug who isn't exactly a fan of technology especially since he works in publishing. One evening, when Anna was supposed to have met her father at one of their favorite diners, he didn't show. Thinking he was still at work, she went to his office but he was not there and in fact no where to be found. And to make matters worse, she found a coded message from him which means that something bad had happened.

This all seems like it will be an interesting story but the problem is the writing. You can tell the author loves words (the story is chock full of rich vocabulary of words) but it can be a bit off putting to some readers. And as wonderful as I found the wording was, it didn't make the story interesting and at times it seemed a bit overdone. Not to mention that the story sometimes (okay most times) went off track and detailed things that really didn't have anything to do with the story.

Unfortunately, this is a long winded story that didn't grab my attention. Which is a shame because I'm one of those people who still loves to read books the old non-tech way (even though I do have e-reader). So, you would think this book would have been perfect for me but I just couldn't connect with the story.

I'm sure this is probably an interesting book but I couldn't continue reading any more of it. Maybe in the future I might check it out from the library but for now it's too much of a chore to read.