Welcome to Litsy!

Finally got around to this futuristic story where you can have a chip implanted in your brain to help you sleep. Who wouldn‘t want to sleep better? On the down side, however, the chip company can see your dreams and then determine if you are a threat to society. Narrator Sara is thus detained at LAX and sent to a retention center, a prison of sorts, where she will be under observation for three weeks to determine if she actually is a threat. ⬇️

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Imagine your dreams were government surveilled. Pretty horrifying! I loved this premise, but this dragged on for ages. Something about the execution just didn‘t work for me.

#haikuhive
#haikuaday

This book (#futureshock) came out 55 years ago and is based on an article that came out in the summer of 1965, 60 years ago. Toffler's known for coining the phrase “INFORMATION OVERLOAD.“ Hence this haiku.

Information floods––
overloads us 'til we're shocked
into submission.

Lessons that we should be attending to immediately!

I'll rate it a pick for the scare value (the consequences of trading privacy and freedom for convenience under surveillance capitalism) and for daring to have a not especially sympathetic MC. But, oh, did it drag... right up until it got wind of the finish line, towards which it fairly galloped!

Maybe I've got the peri-menopausal rage-tinted spectacles on again, but isn't it also about how this economic culture depends on unpaid female labour?

May reads: 7 tense reads this month. Usually this month is my highest of the year, but due to my focus on my physical and mental health and a very busy time at work, it‘s a little low. Don‘t think I will make my yearly reading goals.
My favorite read has to be The Dream Hotel.

Great read about possible future technologies of the future!

4 Stars • Yes, I do read non-fiction. Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari dives into humanity‘s next chapter. With hunger, sickness, and war mostly under control, we‘re now chasing eternal life, constant joy, and superhuman powers through tech like AI and gene editing. ⬇️

Lalami's writing is sometimes a little obvious in its intentions, but this one plays with nuance a little better than The Other Americans, which I appreciate. It's definitely paranoia-inducing, so if you're reading fiction to avoid doomscrolling or if you don't want to look at your smart devices with suspicion, this might not be your best option. But aside from those caveats, I quite enjoyed this one.