'This propulsive, visceral, tech-rich tale is both all head and all heart' Caroline Kepnes, author Netflix smash hit You The blockbuster thriller from New York Times bestseller David Yoon. Sometimes you have to break the world in order to fix it... Max is fortunate enough to be employed by Wren, the world's most powerful social media company. He works in a sprawling campus made of glass on a project so secret he can tell no one about it. But one day he discovers something ...
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'This propulsive, visceral, tech-rich tale is both all head and all heart' Caroline Kepnes, author Netflix smash hit You The blockbuster thriller from New York Times bestseller David Yoon. Sometimes you have to break the world in order to fix it... Max is fortunate enough to be employed by Wren, the world's most powerful social media company. He works in a sprawling campus made of glass on a project so secret he can tell no one about it. But one day he discovers something sinister going on beneath the surface of the company. A terrible secret that makes him rethink not only his work but also the true consequences of modern technology. When Max is fired from Wren for asking the wrong questions, he joins up with his two best friends to form Version Zero, a top-secret group with a simple goal: break the internet and build something better and kinder in its place... 'A high-speed, edge of your seat adventure with stakes higher than you can measure' Sylvain Neuvel, author of SLEEPING GIANTS
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Fine. Glued binding. B-format paperback. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Version Zero did not initially sell itself to me and I must admit I found the first 10 percent to be so bad that if I hadn't been reading the book for NetGalley I would have put it down and never picked it back up again. That said, I'm happy that I stuck with it as past the first 10 percent is a decent novel with a good deal to say on the dangers of how we use and are being used by the internet in modern day society.
I think my main problem with the beginning of the book was that it involves a lot of characters as we meet Max and his co-workers and bosses at Wren - a version of Facebook. David Yoon seems to be very bad at describing people and so we get descriptions solely consisting of their race and job title, for example 'Whiteman this' or 'Brown that'. We are told multiple times, for example that Maurice is an African American security guard but nothing else about him. This felt like a very lazy way of introducing characters and made me feel a bit uneasy. There is also a point where a Latino character calls a white character the N word which I really think should be edited out prior to publication as it was completely unnecessary. The lazy descriptions become a lot less problematic later in the book where there's only 5 characters and they have been properly described and filled out as characters.
When I first started making notes as I read the book, I noted that it felt that that Yoon was an older author who was attempting (and failing) to sound cool. As someone in their 30s this felt really cringey even for me so I hate to think what a Gen Z would make of it! There's references to 'Cool-boss Justin' and sentences such as 'he super much believed in that old tech cliche' which was just painful to read. Again, this began to balance out and was a lot better in the later stages of the book so perhaps the author needs to go back and make the two halves gel stylistically better together.
There were also a few things that did not make sense and I feel that a good edit would have sorted these out. 'There was a low flissilating sound'is said at one point - flissilating is not a word! There's also a few times where a character confusingly throws a fireball at the sea with his palms which I didn't understand.
I realise I haven't perhaps sold the book very well but hiding within the bad writing is a good story. Max, Akiko and Shane are really well described, and I felt like we really got to know them and their progression as characters as we went through the story. I liked the jumps to discussion boards and news shows and this helped to keep the story fresh and well-paced. A lot of the book relies heavily on very thinly veiled parallels to technology we have at the moment, however although some exposition is needed for fictional events, the book also explains concepts such as 'hashtags' and 'emojis'�¢ which felt very jarring and quite patronising.
The book has a well-paced plot that really ramped up towards the end with a gory and action-packed climax. I could see where events where going though and it did get a little predictable with the 'shock' reveal not having as hard an impact as it could have had. There's some really good points made by the author about how companies are using our data and how far they need to go before we snap and delete our accounts.
Overall, Version Zero needs a much better edit to strengthen its beginning, but if you can keep going past the lazy writing, there's a good story with an important point to be made. Thank you to NetGalley & HQ stories for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for a (very) honest review.
