I’ve just finished this book and I really cannot see what the hype is about. Three of the reviewers on the cover describe it as a ‘masterpiece’ and we’re told that the author won the Nobel Prize for literature (not for this book). Yet it’s depressing, boring, and unfulfilling.

Loose ends abound, from what being ‘lifted’ involves to how the Sun helps humans (helping AFs, who seem to be solar powered, is at least understandable). Most of the characters are unpleasant for large parts of the story, with the exception of Klara, and the two mothers spend most of their time being rude to or about their former partners (and this is reciprocated). There’s a hint that AFs aren’t liked by some sections of society, but this isn’t followed up and it’s not clear what the reasons are (AFs are friends, rather than performing manual tasks which might be seen as taking away jobs from humans).

Finally, the description of at least two characters as ‘black-skinned’ - apparently their defining feature and the most important thing worth commenting on - would be bad enough from a first time author in the 1920s. For a book written in 2021 by a Nobel laureate, it’s unfathomable as to why this got into the initial draft and then past the editor and publisher.

I finished this because it was for a book club, otherwise it would have ended up on my abandoned shelf.