Jessica reviewed Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
None
2 stars
I loved this book for about 3/4 of it, it's wild as hell and the metaphors don't stop coming, painting a vivid and horrifying picture of a libertarian utopia. Then they start dropping slurs. You aren't supposed to like the people doing it, and it's only done a few times, but it was entirely unnecessary. But what really got me was a sex scene between a 15 year old (repeatedly mentioned) and a man in his 30s or 40s. There's also homophobia that is pretty egregious. Also, two hours of exposition between the beginning of the climax and the end of the book. I'm not a slow reader. Chapters of exposition. The pacing went from fast to none.
I'd give this book 5 stars if it left out the slurs, homophobia, statutory rape and sexualization of minors, and massive blocks of exposition waxing poetic about what is basically a dressed …
I loved this book for about 3/4 of it, it's wild as hell and the metaphors don't stop coming, painting a vivid and horrifying picture of a libertarian utopia. Then they start dropping slurs. You aren't supposed to like the people doing it, and it's only done a few times, but it was entirely unnecessary. But what really got me was a sex scene between a 15 year old (repeatedly mentioned) and a man in his 30s or 40s. There's also homophobia that is pretty egregious. Also, two hours of exposition between the beginning of the climax and the end of the book. I'm not a slow reader. Chapters of exposition. The pacing went from fast to none.
I'd give this book 5 stars if it left out the slurs, homophobia, statutory rape and sexualization of minors, and massive blocks of exposition waxing poetic about what is basically a dressed up synthesis of Dawkins' meme theory and Chomsky's linguistic theories. As is, the last 3 or 4 hours of the book were a slog.
