Rating: 2, bad
I almost put this book down at 15%, but I powered through for the sake of my scifi book club.
Want is about a teenage boy named Zhou living in futuristic Taiwan where the air is so polluted most people die by the age of 50. The only people who live long lives are those who can afford special suits made by Jin Corp, which filter the air for the wearers. The suits cost about $3 million US dollars, so they’re out of the price range of even the professional class, and only ultra-wealthy capitalists can afford them.
Zhou’s friends are a band of renegades who plan to infiltrate rich society by kidnapping a rich person and buying a suit with the ransom money. Zhou kidnaps a rich girl named Daiyu, and they fall in love. Zhou receives the money and releases Daiyu back to her family and thinks that’s the last he’ll see of her, but Zhou’s friend Victor backs out of the infiltration operation and Zhou decides he’ll be the one to infiltrate rich society. Turns out, Daiyu is the daughter of Jin Corp’s CEO (minor spoiler), and his object will be to get close to her and then betray her.
I gotta say, there were a lot of things I didn’t like about this book…
It’s got that unmistakable, simple “YA” writing style which is really not my cup of tea. I noticed a lot of typos for a professionally-published book, including one instance of “Jin Crop” which made me laugh, and a lot of usage and missing word errors which just made it seem hastily thrown together.
It “fridged” two female characters in the first two chapters (fridging means an author kills off a female character in order to motivate a male character and move the plot forward). I’m honestly just really tired of this cheap trick…
The main character and basic scenario are almost the same as Red Rising. Jason Zhou is an angry, working class young man, motivated and traumatized by the death of a woman close to him, who tries to become a member of the upper crust of society in order to destroy their dominance from within.
The characters felt really cartoony and one-dimensional. The main characters (Zhou and Daiyu) are a little deeper, but they reminded me a lot of Aladdin and Princess Jasmine. Zhou, like Aladdin, grows up poor but is a stand-up, honest guy, while Daiyu, like Jasmine, is a practical, open-minded kind of girl, uncorrupted by her wealthy upbringing and sophisticated beyond her years. The supporting cast can basically be summed up as: Suave Guy, Scientist Kid, Scientist Mom, Ninja Girl, Hacker Girl (Ninja Girl and Hacker Girl are in a lesbian relationship, which I would be more excited about if they were deeper characters), Evil CEO, Frivolous Girl, and the Jealous Jerk.
The book does make some good points about how the poor are more affected by environmental issues, and how the rich party and enjoy themselves while the poor sicken and die. I agree with these points, but I wish they were shown more and told less. The author’s moralizing is as subtle as a sledgehammer, and it’s clear at points that she’s putting her words into the character’s mouths, especially Dr. Nataraj, Jin, and a lot of Zhou’s asides to the reader.
For instance, she has Jin say “Our suits have reached a global market, becoming one of the most prized possessions for those who can afford it.” I can’t see why the character of Jin would want to emphasize how expensive they are, because from the consumer’s point of view, that would be a negative thing, and it also draws attention to how he’s screwing everyone who can’t afford it. It makes sense from the author’s perspective, but not the character’s. I once heard someone say “The first rule of writing is you have to love all your characters”. A character that’s just pure evil is hard to believe.
There were a lot of cloudy motives on the parts of the characters. Zhou is kind of an idiot for plot reasons. He gives himself away as coming from the lower class as soon as he opens his mouth, by critiquing the upper class to their faces. It’s amazing he gets as far as he does without more scrutiny. Daiyu acts in a way that’s often way too convenient (though it’s explained at the end). I’m not sure what the renegade group was trying to accomplish with their plot, exactly, though it works out in their favor.
I really appreciated the setting and the diverse characters. I also found it easy and entertaining to read. However, I think this is a mediocre book, and we shouldn’t comprise literary standards for political reasons.
No shame if you liked this one, but just know that it’s bad. You can still like something for the entertainment value while knowing that it’s basically junk food for your brain. There’s nothing particularly challenging in the prose or the ideas of Want, but if you just want to pass the time and enjoy yourself, there’s nothing wrong with that.
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