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A Working Theory Of Love (2012)

by Scott Hutchins(Favorite Author)

3.34 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1594205051 (ISBN13: 9781594205057)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

The Penguin Press

review 1: I thought the book started promising. The main character, Neill Basset Jr, is floundering and looking for a connection. His deceased father's journals have been used as the basis of memories for an artificial intelligence project. His corrective discourse with the computer is is job and anticipated source of redemption.The book wanders through Neill Jr's memories and relationships with various women. He seems emotionally flat and there is the expectation that something will happen to awaken him. There is a glimpse of him with his ex-wife before they got married that is fairly lively but otherwise, there was not much going on with this guy. By the end, he had not grown on me. I found it a rather disappointing journey through adult angst.
review 2: I woke up... more this morning and thought I would walk to breakfast and start reading this book on the walk there and back - perhaps during too. What I didn't plan on was getting sucked in, nor could I have guessed what I was in for... Far from my typical read, most of the suspense in this book has to do with subtleties of evolving relationships - romantic and father/son - especially as driven by learning about each other and oneself and the associated growth/change that occurs. This is probably not my typical read because I typically find such books irksome or boring.However, I find the book surprisingly poignant. In part, I think this is because the main character's reflections happen to highlight a number of things that have been troubling me in recent years - especially the banality and absurdity of modern life, at least high tech life in the bay area. Additionally, the characters and their relationships map neatly to many of my own relationships. I agree with other reviewers that the main character is not particularly inspirational, but that does not change the immense urge I felt to turn the pages, nor does it change that I am stunned at the breadth of emotions that this has called up for me. Strong emotions are not what I look for in books; heck, strong emotions are something I typically reserve for when someone close is dying or being buried. To some extent, this book has served to focus a range of my own reflections/feelings and might happen to be ideally/uniquely suited for me. However, I'll reserve judgement on that until I hear back from others I expect will be reading this shortly.Even if my take on this book will represent very few other people's likely experience, I think it's worth describing it and possibly goodreads' tailored recommendations will help those people find a surprisingly, refreshingly different type of sci-fi... less

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