2 out of 4 stars
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The human race has evolved to a significant level and are now capable of incredible feats. In The Broadcast by Liam Fialkov, TXB, a prominent television network, has proclaimed to have technology that allows them to access footage of a crime that occurred many years ago and that had become unsolvable. In disbelief, people watched as the footage was displayed on the television and a police officer received the necessary information in order to close the case. From there, the show became widely popular. They solved many crime cases and even transitioned into looking at events from the world's history, including footage from times before humans had invented cameras. As expected, this show created a lot of controversy. People speculated that the films were faked, while others adamantly argued that this was a result of the new technology and that they were completely real. These concerns fell into the media's hands as private investigators and journalists did everything they could to find the source of the films.
I went into this book with no expectations. I had heard nothing about it, but the premise of the book created a lot of interest for me. It was the type of book I usually enjoy and I was looking forward to reading something I had never read before. I think that the idea that this novel started with is great and incredibly unique. I enjoyed to twists and turns that the story took and found myself wanting to learn more about the characters and the story. I loved how to seemingly unrelated storylines intertwined with each other by the end. It allowed the reader an insight on how the films shown on TV are integrated in so many people's lives, even if this involvement is not apparent at the time. I also appreciated the different perspectives that were given to the characters and situations. The constant mystery of where the footage was coming from made me want to continue reading.
This story involved a large cast of characters and is written in a series of short clips from these people's lives and how it intermingles with the television show. It is unknown how these characters fit into the story until the reader gets a significant way into the book, which lends to the mystery of the story. I wish there was more characterization. I found little difference in the characters besides their names and what they were doing. I would not be able to know which character I was reading about without knowing the name first.
This story was written with asymmetrical pacing across the timeline. Sometimes, years can pass in a single chapter and sometimes it will take an entire chapter to describe only a couple of hours. At first I enjoyed this however as I got into the book, the quick timelines often confused me and made me feel that the readers were moving too fast through those plot points. The events of the book seemed to just happened. These events also felt like they happened too perfectly. It did not seem realistic that all of the events would all occur in order for a specific result to happen.
The writing of the novel caused me a bit of trouble throughout the reading process. The style was quite simple and I felt that it pushed the story forward in the beginning however as I continued on with the story I found myself bored. The author seemed to be telling me a story rather than showing me one. There was also a lot of repetition used. It became tedious to continually read the same facts. For example, every time the TV network showed a film clip, the reader is told of the quality, angle, and sound that characterized the footage. If the author wanted to reiterate these points it would have been nice to have it in different wording, but it was always the exact same phrases. The dialogue was also quite stiff and formal and didn't seem realistic. Throughout the novel, there were quite a few grammatical, wording, and punctuation errors. They was a lot of awkward wording and phrasing that caused my reading flow to slow down. There were also many missing quotation marks which made it confusing to know when someone was speaking.I wish this story would go through a couple more years of editing and processing in order to work out the kinks and flesh out the characters and setting. The book could probably be shorter, more concise, and easier to read.
One of the things I struggled most with in this novel was the perpetuation of ignorant stereotypes. While it was not to an awful amount, I was often uncomfortable with the way gender, religion, and race were discussed. Religion became a huge presence in this book and many religions were represented. However, when discussing the Islamic faith, the author inserted muslim characters who threatened violence against the television network while the christian characters were exercising peaceful and quiet protests. It continued stereotypes that are harmful to these groups.
I was really hoping to enjoy this novel as the plot sounded super interesting. I continued to read the story because I wanted to find out the origin of the strange films, however, I was a bit disappointed with the ending. It was unexpected but it left a lot of questions unanswered. It felt like the author had a great idea for a novel and didn't know how to end it. This story brought up interesting points about the media and surveillance that are important in today's society. I am giving The Broadcast a 2 out of 4 stars. I cannot give it a 3 out of 4 stars because of the lack of characterization and the viewpoints expressed that go against my own. I also felt like I was being told a story, not shown one. I will not give the book a 1 out of 4 stars because, despite the problems, I enjoyed the premise and uniqueness of the story line. Although I did not enjoy all parts of this novel, I believe lovers of science fiction and mystery will most likely enjoy this book.I would not recommend this book to people who are bored by discussions on religion and history as both of these topics are prominent and discussed, at length, throughout the story.
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The Broadcast
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