84K Paperback – May 22, 2018

I would know this book was written by [author:Claire North|7210024] if I was to read only one page of it. Her style is so unique and distinctive. Sentences are left unfinished, sometimes words and phrases just pile up on themselves and yet it always makes perfect sense. Did I mention that she is one of my favourite authors? In my eyes she can do no wrong but I can understand why some people find her hard to read.[book:84K|35511975] is set in a dystopian near future in England. The country is in a sorry state since the Company joined forces with the Government and took over everything. Life now depends on having money, lots of it, or dare we say it is not worth living. Our main character, Theo, while not being a particularly brave man, stands up against the status quo and attempts to 'break the world'.This is a very dark book, much more so than any of the author's previous works. There is death and degradation by the bucket load but there are also occasional hints of human warmth and kindness. The story is not linear and jumps around times, places and people until my head swam. I am glad I was reading it - audio would be very hard to follow.The ending is hard to take, but real although there were highlights. I closed the book with a smile and thought to myself I am so very glad I am a reader.

A dystopian future set in the UK. Government and “the Company” have become essentially one and the same, and all government functions are now run with the stoic efficiency required to meet the profit margin. Everything is contracted, and everything has a dollar value – including human life / dignity. In a world where the power and immunity of wealth is hyper-exaggerated, our protagonist finds himself – by accident – at the genesis of and later – by design (and luck) – at the moment of comeuppance to our antagonists. Like 1984, the system remains broken; unlike 1984 there is at least hope for our protagonist to live the life he desires.The story was compelling. I thought the world building was well done, and the characters both enjoyable and believable. The author frequently uses unfinished thoughts to highlight the uncertainty or nebulousness, etc. of a moment. It is done well – but just like when my wife starts a sentence and then just stops talking in the middle… it’s a bit annoying. The author also uses physical line breaks (like in poetry) to convey some sense of the moment to the reader. This did NOT have the impact on me that I know they were hoping for – it just made that paragraph slower and more annoying to read. Liked everything else

I'm a Claire North fan but this was too depressing by far.Taking the government services procurement model in the private sector to its extreme and throwing in a whole cohort of humanity who have lost their social contract just makes for one of the most depressing stories I have read for a long time.Sorry Ms North but really there were no light at the end of this arduous tunnel. Avoid unless you are into this sort of thing.

I discovered Claire North quite by chance as a recommendation on my Kindle about a year ago, reading "The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August." Having just finished "84K", I now have read her entire body of work and cannot wait for her next release! I am not going to be able to do this justice; every novel deserves comments on Ms. North's amazingly imaginative characters and development of circumstances, dialog, resolution of mind-bending dilemmas - she is utterly amazing!! How does one "imagine" a person with the "gift/curse" of invisibility that no one can remember her mere moments after meeting her - "The Sudden Appearance of Hope"???? Typically, I would look to understand or "explain" true brilliance of an author by academic credentials, perhaps a life style absorbed in literature, or surrounded by literary personalities; Ms. North, as everyone knows by now, is a lighting designer for the London theater; perhaps viewing theater productions are a intimate pathway to a remarkable invention of people and what would be surreal, yet totally within the realm of realism??? Please read a review, or two - you would laugh out loud at Ms. North's perspective on how she achieves the creativity she does! Am I enamored with this author??? Without a doubt - absolutely love that she is a VERY young lady, with decades of career ahead of her!

This is my second Claire North book, and I found it to be thought provoking and somewhat poetic. The actual story brings to mind a lot of questions about morality and what the common man/woman is willing to accept. The writing style of this particular book adds to the overall tone of numbness that type know the main character is experiencing, the kind of numbness that sets in as you witness too many awful things. Overall I liked this book and continue to see Claire North as good investment when it comes to reading. This isn’t a book that casual thriller/sci-fly/fantasy readers will like, but if you want a story that analyzes our current circumstances and forces you to evaluate what your willing to ignore for the sake of comfort, it is a good choice.

Portraying a dystopian future that could easily lie ahead, Claire North creates a story about the dissolved bonds between us that carries a reader forward with ever growing momentum. Hard to put down and deeply impactful.

Fantastic tale of life in the not too distant future where people literally get away with murder, if they can afford to pay the indemnity for the victim., and how a young, apathetic nobody, living a borrowed life, realizes his ex girlfriend and mother of his daughter was murdered for just £84,000. He sets off to find his unknown daughter and discovers he is in a rabbit hole of government/corporate corruption - the exact reason why his ex was murdered.It was hard for me to put this book down

I can understand that some readers had problems with the style - I'm not normally much into 'arty' writing myself. But here it worked perfectly for me, the unfinished sentences and fugue-like repetitions reflecting the confused and uncertain people trying to do something that matters. It's a heartbreaking, dystopian world that I found far too convincing for comfort, but it's described without drama or sentimentality and there's an understated, dry kind of humour that I really liked. It's kind of hard for me to review this book since I don't know how to describe it, but I loved both the story and the language and would absolutely recommend it.

I find myself waiting anxiously for a new Claire North book to come out. I find her absolutely brilliant. Every book she has written has struck me to the core and has stayed with me. This one is a little too close for comfort. Dystopian but .. yes, it's today, yesterday and tomorrow. This is the way we are going, so thank you Claire, for hitting us in the head with it. The problem is that those of us who realize it are reading her books.. Keep writing, Claire.

Only read 4 or 5 chapters and just was not engaged. Found the writing jarring and the characters not engaging. Maybe it improved but I was not interested.