(crossposting from my storygraph, I received an ARC of this book in 2023)
Having read & loved Seraph Ex Machina, I was quite excited to read this alternative world for the characters and it is a lovely story.
Al Hess creates a beautiful somewhat futuristic world (but in other aspects much too similar especially with the religious transphobia) and asks the question how this society might react if we had the ability to upload your soul to a server if you die and grow a new body to inhabit once you’re ready to come back. Our two focal characters of this book are Sasha, a man who was resurrected recently, and Metatron, the AI tasked with watching over the souls in Limbo.
I enjoyed the characters and I especially liked hanging out with Metatron again. We get to see a somewhat different side of them, so I would absolutely advise anybody who enjoyed Seraph Ex Machina to read this book as well. They go through a lot less trauma this time (which was good, because I cried a Lot for them during SEM), but they still have to deal with the fact that aren’t sure how to express their feelings. Sasha was a really interesting character, struggling to deal with the way his past addiction still influences his life even now that he’s clean (especially since his addiction lead to his divorce and he only sees his daughter during the weekends now) while also needing to find a way to convince Metatron to stop pinning and ask their crush out before he gets a stomach ulcer. The portrayal of adhd, autism, past drug addiction, religious fear of technical advancement and divorce set in a futuristic world was really interesting. For example, Sasha has a “stim” injected in his arm which he can use to get his adhd-meds whenever he needs it (no more remembering where you sat your pills down! God, that would be really useful!), but the drugs he was addicted to are just as easily acquirable, as they simply consist out of two perfectly legal stims mixed together. I found this really interesting, especially since staying clean under such circumstances must be really tough.
I also really enjoyed Sasha’s character as well as all his friends and that fact that a huge part of his storyline was accepting that he can and should open up to his friends as they care about him and not just his romantic feeling. He’s carrying a lot of guilt around fearing he ruined everything due to his past addiction and it was just really nice to see that people loved and cared for him the entire time. Mr. C. is also a quite interesting character and I liked him as well, he and Rodrigo are both really cute love interests.
(slight spoilers for the end of the book in the next paragraph)
I would have liked some more character building for our villain Campbell as he feels quite one dimensionally EvilTM at times (why does he do what he does? Cause he’s evil, duh!) and so did not really interest me and I think it would have been more interesting if his motivations had been explored more. And while he does get his “punishment” in the end, I do think the many people he hurt would have deserved to deal with their trauma a bit more. However, the interesting world building and the other loveable characters more than make up for it and the story is a really good one.
All in all, I really enjoyed this story, it is an interesting read with multiple twists and turns and interesting plot reveals that doesn’t shy away from examining a few tough topics. Diversity plays a huge role, not just for neurodiverse people, but also regarding genders, sexualities and races and it was just great to see it done so effortlessly. Mostly I think it is a story about overcoming adversity and healing from trauma and allowing yourself to love again and I think we can always use more diverse stories like that.