Come with Me by Helen SchulmanMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
In the end this was a standard family drama. There are a lot out there, so why pick this one? I was intrigued by the blurbs on the book identifying this as strong on location and employment, focusing on the families of Silicon Valley. What was different about those living in the tech bubble? I suspected a good story. In addition, there seemed to be a bit of a sci-fi angle here. Having enjoyed some books recently that sounded in a similar vein
I tackled this one. I enjoyed the story to a point, and I enjoyed the characters, though none could be thought of as all positive. What disappointed me was the technology aspect of the story. The author positioned a technology that forecast alternative life paths given details of the history of a person. There isn’t an attempt to explain this technology, and it receives very little play in the story. In fact, the technology aspect could have been replaced completely with, say a fortune teller to the same effect. It’s magical realism, with software as the delivery mechanism. The problem is the magical software angle was too far out given the expectations of the sci-fi label on the book. The book begs for something a bit more believable, and a bit more part of the story. But given this is mostly a drama, I’d consider this on the whole ok.
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