Title: Woke

Author: veyroniqa

Genre: Sci-Fi

Quick Summary: Do not lose yourself to the Eversleep.

Thoughts:

The idea here was interesting, and not one I've really seen before. It had my attention. The characters, however... really did not.

Alex is by far the worst culprit here. If the noise of nails on a chalkboard was a personality, she'd be it. In general, the first two chapters had me so annoyed I almost stopped, and Alex was a majority of the reason why. But then... Past the first couple of chapters... this book has a major problem with "same voice syndrome". We have four POV characters, all who narrate in first person, and they all sound exactly the same. If it weren't for the chapter titles and addressing other characters differently depending, I'd be convinced this story was all from the same person's perspective. This is... not good and it means these characters need to be fleshed out some more. Right now, they all sound like they have the exact same personality - a bit callous, a bit sarcastic, a bit ~teenage~.... Find some things that make them stand out from each other that aren't family relations.

To be honest, when Daniel's dad started explaining the system of Eversleep and whatnot, I got pretty lost. Maybe that was just a me thing. And only then did we really start hammering the worldbuilding? It doesn't make sense to me that we waited til chapter... seventeen-ish to start giving information on the world that we should've started getting in chapter one. Before this chapter, I had a map of the world and now I'm being told it's not correct. It's misleading, it's very jarring, and it messes with my enjoyment. 

Speaking of coming in late, the secrets of the Eversleep involves some things that really should've been brought up sooner. 

On a final note, Alex. I like that her being Chinese gets talked about, and I like her and her dad converse in Mandarin. However, I think having both the Mandarin characters and the sounds in text is... confusing? I'd strongly suggest either picking Mandarin, or the syllables [what is that called? where the sound is wrote out? I know for Japanese it's Romaji]. Alternatively, the dialogue could be wrote in English and it be established they're talking in Mandarin. But really, one of the first two options would be better.

I think the weird twist with the Everlings lost me a bit too much. The concept of the Eversleep was cool before then, and I'm sure someone out there likes the twist here presented but... While I read through all that was available, I stopped liking it after roughly chapter 20.