CTRL+S book review

I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

CTRL S by Andy Briggs
Published by Orion Publishing Group on November 28, 2019
Pages: 416
Goodreads

Life in the near future's NOT ALL BAD. We've reversed global warming, and fixed the collapsing bee population. We even created SPACE, a virtual-sensory universe where average guys like Theo Wilson can do almost anything they desire.
But ALMOST ANYTHING isn't enough for some. Every day, normal people are being taken, their emotions harvested - and lives traded - to create death-defying thrills for the rich and twisted.
NOW THEO'S MOTHER HAS DISAPPEARED. And as he follows her breadcrumb trail of clues, he'll come up against the most dangerous SPACE has to offer: vPolice, AI Bots and anarchists - as well as a criminal empire that will KILL TO STOP HIM finding her . .

This was one of the many e-arcs that was on my list to get through in December and I have to say this one surprised me. When I started reading CTRL+S the comparisons to Ready Player One started playing through my mind and I think that tainted my experience a little because this one didn’t feel as developed or as well written. But once I got past that and started to enjoy the book as a whole I thought differently. I loved the idea of a conspiracy and the way technology can be used for the worst. It was an interesting concept and one that is pretty relevant to everything moving as quickly as it is. Overall I really enjoyed this book, but I did have a few issues with the characters and the writing style.

I think the characters in this book were a little two dimensional, I wish there had been more about the individuals and more of their backstories. I felt as though there were too many of them and not a lot to distinguish them from each other. I wanted CTRL+S to draw more on the faults and flaws of each character and at some points, this was really well done, but at others, it felt as though the characters were jumping from emotion to emotion and it was hard to focus on who was who. Also what each of their motivations was for the various things that happen throughout the book, I just think the chance to get to know all of them was a little lost and I wish we had had more insight into them each as individual people.

I think the best bits of Ctrl+S for me would have to be the conspiracy that this entire book runs off, I really enjoyed seeing how the technology had not only evolved but also how it had been manipulated. I think this book could have done with being a little longer, especially as I think the twist at the end and the reasoning behind it all happened really quickly and I would have loved to have had more of an experience with that part of the story and learn more about the politics of the world they found themselves in. I wonder if there had been more emphasis on this part of the story whether that would have made up for the character’s faults a little more.

For me, the worst bit was the fact that there were so many characters introduced and in such quick succession that you never really understood who was who and what their part in the story was and why they were such an integral part of the story. I do think there was so much potential with the different people and how they were dealing with the consequences of being in the VR headset. I would have loved for CTRL+S to have investigated that a little more.

I would recommend CTRL+S but would say if you have read and are a fan of Ready Player One bear in mind that it can seem a little jarring at first because they feel like very similar books. I also think that this is a very plot-driven story and the characters can sometimes let the story down. But I really enjoyed reading it, and I wouldn’t hesitate to read other books by Andy Briggs.

Do you think that this would be a book for you? Are you interested by books that deal with technology in a new and interesting way?