Crosstalk

Connie Willis

Completed 5/23/2019, Reviewed 5/23/2019

3 stars

I really like Connie Willis.  But I’m not so much of a fanboy to find this book’s pacing to be way too frenetic to maintain the excitement and mystery of the content.  The books of hers I’ve read tend to have a similar theme of people not communicating very well with each other, as well as a lack of boundaries.  This one was no exception.  At first, it was comical, but after a while, it became a little tiresome.  And that’s too bad because overall, I liked the book, but thought it could have better with some slower paced, more intimate moments, and few more people who would stop and listen to each other. 

In the near future, a new medical procedure promises to increase a couple’s empathy with each other.  Briddey, short for Bridget, has been asked to undergo this procedure with her boyfriend of six weeks, in preparation for his proposal to marry her.  She has the procedure, but instead of having any connection with her boyfriend, she ends up having a telepathic link to C.B., a strange genius who works in the subbasement of her offices.   The rest of the book is a madcap romp of trying to keep this power under wraps and to help Briddey understand and control her powers.  Complicating matters are her boundary-less family who constantly call her at work and at home with their problems as well as their criticism of Briddey, her new boyfriend, and this medical procedure.

The main characters of Briddey and C.B. are likeable.  C.B. is a disheveled, untrusted “Hunchback of Notre Dame” of the company, but quickly shows his true colors as a caring, helpful soul whose main intentions are to get Briddey to control her powers.  Briddey is pretty well developed as well, as a sort of hapless victim to her boundary-overstepping family.  The family is so obnoxious, they get to be hard to take after a while, particularly Mary Clare, whose helicopter parenting of her daughter Maeve seems downright pathological.  Maeve is pretty interesting, but at nine, she eventually gets obnoxious herself.  Most of all, Briddey’s boyfriend Trent doesn’t seem to listen to her very well either.  The only person who seems to have any interest in Briddey’s welfare is C.B., and for that I liked him.

The book runs at a furious pace.  That’s good for the first hundred pages or so, but it doesn’t let up.  I would have liked it to have settled down a bit.  When it seems to, it still runs at high speed.  The pacing makes for a fast read.  As a matter of fact, I read this 500 page book in three days while I was home sick, even though I was taking a lot of naps and occasionally couldn’t focus on the story.  When I was lucid, I zoomed through it.  However, this fast pacing makes the book feel like it lacks the heart of her other books, like The Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog.  And it lacks the worldbuilding of those novels.  Granted, those are time travel novels, so there’s a lot of world to build, whereas this book takes place in the very near future.  The extent of the worldbuilding is references to pop culture, like Jay Z and Beyonce, and Brangelina.  Some of these references are already out of date in the three years since this book’s release.  Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were supposed to have the medical procedure done to enhance their relationship, but are already broken up in real life. 

Despite my issues with the book, I did enjoy it.  It has Willis’ signature style.  The basic premise is interesting and timely, in this world of too much communication.  I wanted to give the book four stars because it is an easily accessible read, but settled on three out of five because upon reflection, I was annoyed at the minor characters and the pacing a little too often.