Beautiful Shining People: The extraordinary, EPIC speculative masterpiece…

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It is hard to review ‘Beautiful Shining People’ as it can not be pigeonholed neatly into a genre as it is part YA but it deals with distinctly adult themes, it's a ‘sci-fi’ novel but yet it isn't as it's only set 30 years in the future, its kind of a thriller but its also a deep dive into relationships, friendships and humanity. The author has done such a perfect job of integrating the science into the story that even the unexpected, as jaw-dropping as it is, makes perfect, logical, sense.

This is a true thinkers/intellectuals book at its heart, with a sci-fi element thrown in, and it was glorious. It's a truly beautiful story of friendship, trust and love and it's most definitely highly recommended. There he meets the owner, a retired Sumo wrestler and a lovely young Japanese woman, (oh, and also an adorable dog with a funny round head getting a haircut). The setting and characters are beautifully drawn, and the story is gently propelled by the intriguing history and mysteries of the protagonists, John and Neotnia. The door’s bell clangs as I enter, and my eyes immediately go to the dog with the spherical head perched on the counter.This feeling of being settled, subsequently unsettled, and then settled once more, happens recurring, and though Beautiful Shining People is startling and unexpected, it is never once jarring. Set in the future, this is second of the minor exceptions to my genre preference rules that I've made this year, but it has been so worth it. That there are other people out there who have the same thoughts and fears about the direction the world is taking and what could be looming in the future but, whilst these concerns are real and profound, that there is still a thread of hope that runs through it all and that, if we stick together, we can make the future better if we learn from the past. The story therefore provokes all kinds of emotions from the outset: concern, curiosity, empathy and a growing unease about where this will all lead. This is another thing, maybe the main thing, I loved: the first part of the novel is just John and Neotnia getting to know one another.

It explores who we are, what we are for, how (or if) we choose our respective paths in life, and what it even means to be alive, and it also powerfully shows us how all of these things fall away in the face of love, however and wherever we find it.It's not inevitable someone with a specific gene will get sick, as it might be affected by other genes, lifestyle factors, or pure luck.

The story is narrated by John, whose life changes irrevocably after his first encounter with young waitress Neotnia. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. year-old John, a tech prodigy, enters a small cafe late at night and meets Neotina, a beautiful and enigmatic waitress. His debut novel, EPIPHANY JONES, a story about sex trafficking among the Hollywood elite, was longlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger Award and named one of the 25 “Most Irresistible Hollywood Novels” by Entertainment Weekly. Our guide through this world is John, an American teenage computer prodigy who is visiting the country for the first time as he negotiates the sale of his computer code to Japanese tech giant, putting the reader firmly in the shoes of an outsider learning about the society as he stumbles through it.Alternatively, if you are craving a more dystopian literary masterpiece The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is an important and alarming novel that everyone should read at least once. Michael Grothaus stitches together so many disparate and genre-binding themes over the course of the book that the result is hard to pin down, yet cohesive, sublime, and deeply affecting.

Thank you to Edelweiss, Orenda Books, and Michael Grothaus for the opportunity to read this book and have it quickly become one of my favorites to date. Michael Grothaus leaves his clues in a way that makes you feel like you’ve been clever for rooting them out. After working for institutions including The Art Institute of Chicago, Twentieth Century Fox, and Apple he earned his postgraduate degree with distinction in creative writing from the University of London. One character who I really did like, as minimal as his interactions were to begin with, was cafe owner, Goeido.

The story is underpinned by mystery and suspense, but it is so wonderfully textured and nuanced that it is also so much more. Tokyo’s tourist bots offer a glimpse into of the future of travel and improved visitor experiences in countries where you don’t understand the language. To do this, Grothaus blends demographics, climate change, scientific advances and politics, focussing as much on the factors that drive the future tech and on the scientific whizziness itself. While in parts he did come over as a bit immature, it’s is easy to like his flawed character and development.