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Overthrow
A deeply humane novel that explores the fate of candor, good will, and the utopian spirit in a world where technology and surveillance are weaponizing human relationships
One autumn night, as a grad student named Matthew is walking home from the subway, a handsome skateboarder catches his eye. Leif, mesmerizing and enigmatic, invites Matthew to meet his friends, who are experimenting with tarot cards. It's easier to know what's in other people's minds than most people realize, the friends claim. Do they believe in telepathy? Can they actually do it? Though Matthew should be writing his dissertation on the poetry of kingship, he soon finds himself falling in love with Leif--a poet of the internet age--and entangled with Leif's group as they visit the Occupy movement's encampment across the river, where they hope their ideas about radical empathy will help heal a divided world and destabilize the 1%.
When the group falls afoul of a security contractor freelancing for the government, the news coverage, internet outrage, and legal repercussions damage the romances and alliances that hold the friends together, and complicate the faith the members of the group have--or, in some cases, don't have--in the powers they've been nurturing. Elspeth and Raleigh, two of Leif's oldest friends, will see if their relationship can weather the strains of criminal charges; Chris and Julia, who drifted into the group more recently, will have their loyalties tested; and Matthew, entranced by the man at the center of it all, will have to decide what he owes Leif and how much he's willing to give him. All six will be forced to reckon with the ambiguous nature of transparency and with the insidious natures of power and privilege.
Overthrow is a story about the aftermath of the search for a new moral idealism, in a world where new controls on us--through technology, surveillance, the law--seem to be changing the nature and shape of the boundaries that we imagine around our selves. Caleb Crain, with astonishing sensitivity, acuity, and grace, has captured the deep unease and ambiguity that threaten our contemporary lives, and has written a beautiful novel about the redemptive possibilities of love and friendship.
One autumn night, as a grad student named Matthew is walking home from the subway, a handsome skateboarder catches his eye. Leif, mesmerizing and enigmatic, invites Matthew to meet his friends, who are experimenting with tarot cards. It's easier to know what's in other people's minds than most people realize, the friends claim. Do they believe in telepathy? Can they actually do it? Though Matthew should be writing his dissertation on the poetry of kingship, he soon finds himself falling in love with Leif--a poet of the internet age--and entangled with Leif's group as they visit the Occupy movement's encampment across the river, where they hope their ideas about radical empathy will help heal a divided world and destabilize the 1%.
When the group falls afoul of a security contractor freelancing for the government, the news coverage, internet outrage, and legal repercussions damage the romances and alliances that hold the friends together, and complicate the faith the members of the group have--or, in some cases, don't have--in the powers they've been nurturing. Elspeth and Raleigh, two of Leif's oldest friends, will see if their relationship can weather the strains of criminal charges; Chris and Julia, who drifted into the group more recently, will have their loyalties tested; and Matthew, entranced by the man at the center of it all, will have to decide what he owes Leif and how much he's willing to give him. All six will be forced to reckon with the ambiguous nature of transparency and with the insidious natures of power and privilege.
Overthrow is a story about the aftermath of the search for a new moral idealism, in a world where new controls on us--through technology, surveillance, the law--seem to be changing the nature and shape of the boundaries that we imagine around our selves. Caleb Crain, with astonishing sensitivity, acuity, and grace, has captured the deep unease and ambiguity that threaten our contemporary lives, and has written a beautiful novel about the redemptive possibilities of love and friendship.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published August 27, 2019
50 people are currently reading
1919 people want to read
About the author
Caleb Crain
21 books73 followersCaleb Crain is the author of the novels
Overthrow
(coming from Viking in August 2019) and Necessary Errors (Penguin, 2013), as well as the critical study American Sympathy (Yale, 2001). He has written for The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, Harper's, and The Atlantic. He was born in Texas, grew up in Massachusetts, and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 92 reviews
January 24, 2020
A group of millennial idealists who sort of believe in mind-reading get tangled up with Homeland Security when they breach a government contractor’s secure website. This book was like an update of that Sandra Bullock movie “The Net” as interpreted and written by Henry James. I found it deadly dull. The subject matter, the issues of privacy and government access of such private information are interesting to me but would have been better presented in my case in a non-fiction format. I just could not take any of this book seriously. It bored me and I found it to be overwritten for my tastes.
Some of the things that made me go hmmm?
“The smell of his anxiety had softened over the course of the night to something like nutmeg.” What does this even mean? What does anxiety smell like?
“It occurred to Matthew that in his finicky wish to pin down the right metaphor, he was like a courtly lover refining his sonnet about the sweetness of his lady’s breath. ” Finicky metaphor anyone?
“She had to use a knife to pry apart the slices of bread, scattering, as she did so, some of the crystals of rime with which the bread was diamonded. On the counter the crystals wilted, dissolved. The pith of each slice of bread had been bleached to an uncanny, filamentous white by the long storage. She set the toaster to Frozen.” None of these words were necessary to the story. Other readers will love it, but this kind of writing takes me totally out of a book unless it is a cook book maybe.
Some of the things that made me go hmmm?
“The smell of his anxiety had softened over the course of the night to something like nutmeg.” What does this even mean? What does anxiety smell like?
“It occurred to Matthew that in his finicky wish to pin down the right metaphor, he was like a courtly lover refining his sonnet about the sweetness of his lady’s breath. ” Finicky metaphor anyone?
“She had to use a knife to pry apart the slices of bread, scattering, as she did so, some of the crystals of rime with which the bread was diamonded. On the counter the crystals wilted, dissolved. The pith of each slice of bread had been bleached to an uncanny, filamentous white by the long storage. She set the toaster to Frozen.” None of these words were necessary to the story. Other readers will love it, but this kind of writing takes me totally out of a book unless it is a cook book maybe.
July 4, 2019
I was given an ARC of Overthrow through my job as a bookseller.
I failed to get much of anything from this. The plot—which was, at first, honestly enticing—left me enervated by the end. It bumbled around from one character to the next, docking and undocking with its players in a way that felt haphazard. I couldn’t give you a plot summary if I tried, which is why I’m not going to try.
And I also found the writing to be, at times, bafflingly weak. “Matthew felt terribly free,” writes Crain, “as one does when one understands that one has lost touch with one’s old life.” Ah. Well put.
Thinking harder about this, I do want to concede that I might not have had the right background to understand the plot. The story juggles legal processes at the state and federal levels, computer hacking etiquette, the machinations of hired prosecutors, and something to do with a potential dystopian misuse of data algorithms? I dunno. I’ve no doubt that there are many out there who might have an easier task connecting with this; but I can’t say I was one of those people.
But there are pockets of writing in here that are genuinely good, and his portrayals of life for those gay and young are alive and colorful; these things alone are strong enough to get me excited to read Crain’s first book, Necessary Errors. They just aren’t strong enough to salvage Overthrow. Ultimately a swing and a miss.
I failed to get much of anything from this. The plot—which was, at first, honestly enticing—left me enervated by the end. It bumbled around from one character to the next, docking and undocking with its players in a way that felt haphazard. I couldn’t give you a plot summary if I tried, which is why I’m not going to try.
And I also found the writing to be, at times, bafflingly weak. “Matthew felt terribly free,” writes Crain, “as one does when one understands that one has lost touch with one’s old life.” Ah. Well put.
Thinking harder about this, I do want to concede that I might not have had the right background to understand the plot. The story juggles legal processes at the state and federal levels, computer hacking etiquette, the machinations of hired prosecutors, and something to do with a potential dystopian misuse of data algorithms? I dunno. I’ve no doubt that there are many out there who might have an easier task connecting with this; but I can’t say I was one of those people.
But there are pockets of writing in here that are genuinely good, and his portrayals of life for those gay and young are alive and colorful; these things alone are strong enough to get me excited to read Crain’s first book, Necessary Errors. They just aren’t strong enough to salvage Overthrow. Ultimately a swing and a miss.
did-not-finish
December 28, 2019"LOOK INTO MY EYES . . . YOU ARE GETTING SLEEPY, VERY SLEEPY . . . YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO JOIN THE WORKING GROUP FOR THE REFINEMENT OF THE PERCEPTION OF FEELINGS."
Yeah, nah...
Yeah, nah...
July 19, 2023
It's hard to be diplomatic and equitable about a novel this bad, a book authored by an individual with obvious ties to prestigious literary circles but who lacks a fundamental command of characterization and dialogue. What perturbs me most about Overthrow is not the fact that Caleb Crain fails to deliver on the promise of this novel--the dust jacket description of the plot is enticing--but that someone like him, who clearly should know better, fails spectacularly, and no one is willing to say so.
I've read reviews of his last book, and other readers seem to accord in their view that Crain doesn't know what interests readers. He doesn't know, artistically, how to use his abilities. He doesn't know how real people talk, therefore his characters' dialogue alternates between insipidness and grandiloquence. He doesn't know how to harness a cultural moment (Occupy Wall Street) to its best advantage (read The Nix for a better example of that; it, unlike this book, is a stupendous novel). And he doesn't know how to depopulate his books to achieve a stronger, propulsive plot. To me, it seems the only things Crain really knows are lots of influential writers and publishers who will keep cranking out his books and heaping false praise on them.
Pass.
I've read reviews of his last book, and other readers seem to accord in their view that Crain doesn't know what interests readers. He doesn't know, artistically, how to use his abilities. He doesn't know how real people talk, therefore his characters' dialogue alternates between insipidness and grandiloquence. He doesn't know how to harness a cultural moment (Occupy Wall Street) to its best advantage (read The Nix for a better example of that; it, unlike this book, is a stupendous novel). And he doesn't know how to depopulate his books to achieve a stronger, propulsive plot. To me, it seems the only things Crain really knows are lots of influential writers and publishers who will keep cranking out his books and heaping false praise on them.
Pass.
March 20, 2020
I crammed this book in two evenings in order to read it before its first round (likely only) in the Tournament of Books (I was right, it was defeated by Trust Exercise, interestingly I have both these books at 3 stars so despite Trust Exercise winning the National Book Award, in my eyes they were fairly evenly matched.)
I don't think I've read a book where the author came across as so tentative as this one... So many qualifiers and passive voice that even I noticed. It is vaguely a book about post-idealism surveillance state during the Occupy movement but it also seems like maybe the author was trying to write about something deeper in the sections on hidden codes, telepathy and plain old connection vs death but it was obscured by too many narrator switches, awkward long chapters, and a weak ending.
Jessica, who sent me a copy of this book to read, came on as a guest on the podcast where we discuss this book alongside all the other Tournament of Books contenders - you can hear it on Episode 183.
I don't think I've read a book where the author came across as so tentative as this one... So many qualifiers and passive voice that even I noticed. It is vaguely a book about post-idealism surveillance state during the Occupy movement but it also seems like maybe the author was trying to write about something deeper in the sections on hidden codes, telepathy and plain old connection vs death but it was obscured by too many narrator switches, awkward long chapters, and a weak ending.
Jessica, who sent me a copy of this book to read, came on as a guest on the podcast where we discuss this book alongside all the other Tournament of Books contenders - you can hear it on Episode 183.
dnf
October 2, 2019I was so excited for this book when I first heard about it. It seemed like a dystopian novel with some fantastical elements (ESP) and a bunch of dreamers for characters.
What it actually is, is contemporary literature. This is not my thing. If I had realized that’s what it was I would have NOPED it right away.
I made it to page 140 before I decided I didn’t want to continue. In that time, we read three chapters, so that was strike number one. Chapter one is 72 pages long. That’s not a chapter. It’s a novelette.
In that time I actually did grow to like Leif and Matthew, who I originally thought were the two main characters in the book. If the book had continued to keep Matthew as the POV character, I actually might have continued. Unfortunately, it jumped POVs to a character named Chris, who at that point, was one of the least interesting characters. Chapter three switched POVs again to a character named Elspeth. Chapter four, the point at which I decided I had no desire to continue, saw yet another shift in POV, to Julia. Whose presence in the novel at all is questionable, nevermind the utter lack of necessity to give her a POV. The POV shifts were strike number two.
And the final nail in the coffin was the world building, or lack thereof. These characters seem to be protesting something, belonging to a wider movement called Occupy.
I have no idea what the hell they were protesting.
Their smaller group within the larger group, whose name I can’t recall (but whose initials are something ridiculous like RFTGFP) believes that people should strive to perceive other people’s feelings. Leif is really good at it. He can sense your email password. Chris cannot do it, but believes in it and believes that it’s the most important thing ever. Or something.
I just didn’t get it. I mean- yeah I get the larger message, we’d all be better people if we stopped to put ourselves in other people’s shoes once in awhile, but I don’t know why or how the government fits into it. There’s some talk of Homeland Security, and tapping phones and monitoring computers… but no indication that any of it was done prior to the group hacking someone’s email. The whole premise is bizarre, and seems overly complicated while also being too simple, and ultimately just not what I wanted.
Just a note on the writing- the author appears to be some kind of literary journalist, so he uses a lot of obscure words and fancy language that feels superficial at best because he didn’t give us a lot of insight into what the characters were actually feeling. I consistently felt like I was missing some of the context.
Anyway- this is probably going to be a wonderful book for someone, just not me.
I won a free copy of this book in a giveaway on GoodReads.
What it actually is, is contemporary literature. This is not my thing. If I had realized that’s what it was I would have NOPED it right away.
I made it to page 140 before I decided I didn’t want to continue. In that time, we read three chapters, so that was strike number one. Chapter one is 72 pages long. That’s not a chapter. It’s a novelette.
In that time I actually did grow to like Leif and Matthew, who I originally thought were the two main characters in the book. If the book had continued to keep Matthew as the POV character, I actually might have continued. Unfortunately, it jumped POVs to a character named Chris, who at that point, was one of the least interesting characters. Chapter three switched POVs again to a character named Elspeth. Chapter four, the point at which I decided I had no desire to continue, saw yet another shift in POV, to Julia. Whose presence in the novel at all is questionable, nevermind the utter lack of necessity to give her a POV. The POV shifts were strike number two.
And the final nail in the coffin was the world building, or lack thereof. These characters seem to be protesting something, belonging to a wider movement called Occupy.
I have no idea what the hell they were protesting.
Their smaller group within the larger group, whose name I can’t recall (but whose initials are something ridiculous like RFTGFP) believes that people should strive to perceive other people’s feelings. Leif is really good at it. He can sense your email password. Chris cannot do it, but believes in it and believes that it’s the most important thing ever. Or something.
I just didn’t get it. I mean- yeah I get the larger message, we’d all be better people if we stopped to put ourselves in other people’s shoes once in awhile, but I don’t know why or how the government fits into it. There’s some talk of Homeland Security, and tapping phones and monitoring computers… but no indication that any of it was done prior to the group hacking someone’s email. The whole premise is bizarre, and seems overly complicated while also being too simple, and ultimately just not what I wanted.
Just a note on the writing- the author appears to be some kind of literary journalist, so he uses a lot of obscure words and fancy language that feels superficial at best because he didn’t give us a lot of insight into what the characters were actually feeling. I consistently felt like I was missing some of the context.
Anyway- this is probably going to be a wonderful book for someone, just not me.
I won a free copy of this book in a giveaway on GoodReads.
December 22, 2019
I really tried to love this. An English graduate student meets a skateboarder, and they end up at Occupy protests? I'm so there.
Unfortunately, this is not quite Eugene Lim's tight, clever, and wonderful Dear Cyborgs. Most of the characters tend to muse endlessly on rather uninteresting subjects, and I'm at a week or two in my life (you don't want to know) when my tolerance for such is even dangerously lower than usual. I don't think I can take much of:
Similar observations had probably been made by a century of writers too, hopefully about more interesting buildings that are more relevant to the narrative. And we're also informed:
Unfortunately, this is not quite Eugene Lim's tight, clever, and wonderful Dear Cyborgs. Most of the characters tend to muse endlessly on rather uninteresting subjects, and I'm at a week or two in my life (you don't want to know) when my tolerance for such is even dangerously lower than usual. I don't think I can take much of:
The building had a grand interior. Its marble floors had been polished by the traffic of a century of citizens.
Similar observations had probably been made by a century of writers too, hopefully about more interesting buildings that are more relevant to the narrative. And we're also informed:
There was still about $1,700 of unused credit on Elspeth's credit card. It might be enough to pay one person's bail.Maybe some readers enjoy this kind of bookkeeping/ i-dotting. Not me.
September 9, 2019
On the one hand, it's a taut and careful novel. On the other hand, that taut care is wrapped in two hundred pages of additional mannered gauze. On the next hand, at least some of that gauze is intentional. On the final hand, that's too many hands.
March 11, 2020
Well, folks, the first Occupy novel is here and it's mostly fine, I guess. The novel begins when Matthew, a thirty-year-old graduate student working on his dissertation, meets Leif, a younger skater dude. Instead of hooking up, Leif takes him to meet a small group of people convinced that they can read people's minds, or at least Leif and Elspeth might be able to. They spend a lot of time over at Zucotti Park trying to recruit other Occupiers to their working group, but so far it's just a small group of six.
An encounter with police leads Leif to think he's read the mind of one of the authorities. Testing that leads the group into illegal corners and divides the group.
Each chapter, of widely varying lengths, focuses on one member of the working group. With one exception, they are not people I was interested in knowing, although the characters did not lack depth. Crain is a solid, if verbose writer, although his love of using obscure words when simpler ones would have served the novel better was annoying and pulled me out of the story again and again. Crain's portrayal of Elspeth, the quiet girlfriend, the provider of space and support, who only comes into her own once everyone else is gone and she discovers herself, was the most compelling character and I would have liked more of her and less of the others. This was a lot longer than it should have been, and I say that as someone who enjoys a long, discursive novel, but rambling is not a trait that suits what is, at heart, a thriller.
After all that, though, I wouldn't be entirely against reading another novel by this author.
An encounter with police leads Leif to think he's read the mind of one of the authorities. Testing that leads the group into illegal corners and divides the group.
Each chapter, of widely varying lengths, focuses on one member of the working group. With one exception, they are not people I was interested in knowing, although the characters did not lack depth. Crain is a solid, if verbose writer, although his love of using obscure words when simpler ones would have served the novel better was annoying and pulled me out of the story again and again. Crain's portrayal of Elspeth, the quiet girlfriend, the provider of space and support, who only comes into her own once everyone else is gone and she discovers herself, was the most compelling character and I would have liked more of her and less of the others. This was a lot longer than it should have been, and I say that as someone who enjoys a long, discursive novel, but rambling is not a trait that suits what is, at heart, a thriller.
After all that, though, I wouldn't be entirely against reading another novel by this author.
February 2, 2020
I'm told that this book is better if you remember The Princess Cassamassima well. I don't (actually I haven't read it yet), and the book wasn't better, or even good. I'm not entirely sure if it made any sense - but I do know that it is not remotely a "thriller", or about Occupy, or any of the other things I hoped it might be based on the blurbs.
It is instead meandering, overwritten (there are a shocking number of descriptions of floor tiles, for example), and often soporific. The legal bits are almost laughable - both defense attorneys and prosecutors are more wont to make philosophical speeches than to find out the who/what/where, arrested people have long conversations from the Tombs passing around the phone while dwelling on personal matters (I know from experience that it's often challenging for arrested persons to get even a brief call out before arraignment), people do everything possible to sabotage their own defense... I suspect the data stuff is as random, but I don't have the knowledge to say.
There is the germ in here of an interesting book about two parallel love stories, one gay and one lesbian, emerging from a group of friends in New York, but sadly those most interesting passages get lost in a wall of words and extraneous characters who are all cavelierly dropped when Crain finally decides to wrap this up.
A cautionary tale that what gets published and hyped often has more to do with connections than with merit, and that you should trust your Goodreads friends (several of mine panned this book) more than that generated hype.
It is instead meandering, overwritten (there are a shocking number of descriptions of floor tiles, for example), and often soporific. The legal bits are almost laughable - both defense attorneys and prosecutors are more wont to make philosophical speeches than to find out the who/what/where, arrested people have long conversations from the Tombs passing around the phone while dwelling on personal matters (I know from experience that it's often challenging for arrested persons to get even a brief call out before arraignment), people do everything possible to sabotage their own defense... I suspect the data stuff is as random, but I don't have the knowledge to say.
There is the germ in here of an interesting book about two parallel love stories, one gay and one lesbian, emerging from a group of friends in New York, but sadly those most interesting passages get lost in a wall of words and extraneous characters who are all cavelierly dropped when Crain finally decides to wrap this up.
A cautionary tale that what gets published and hyped often has more to do with connections than with merit, and that you should trust your Goodreads friends (several of mine panned this book) more than that generated hype.
April 18, 2019
Matthew, a grad student, is walking home when a young man, Leif, passes him on a skateboard. Matthew follows Leif to an apartment, turning from what he thought his life would be to one of Occupy protests, computer hacking, and a group of people with mysterious (telepathic?) abilities. The novel that follows, as it drifts through the lives of Leif's group, is as emotionally powerful as it is politically relevant, concerning itself with the interior spaces of its characters more than the politics that surround them. They are not lifeless sketches, created in service to a plot, but real humans, full of loneliness and desire, who are as bewildered in their extraordinary circumstances as I would be. Watching their stories unfold is riveting and alarming, as they navigate the dread and sense of inevitability that accompanied the end of privacy as we once knew it.
December 15, 2019
Exploring privacy as it intersects with the digital age and capitalism using Occupy Wall Street as the catalyst could be a compelling read, but OVERTHROW cannot handle the big questions Crain is trying to address within the novel. The first 100 pages are too slow and dry to hook you in, and the story never recovers. I kept reading only for the characters and was only mildly satisfied in the end. Overall, the concept is great, but the execution did not do it for me.
January 30, 2020
I was intrigued but confused. And those feelings lasted the whole book, with the scale moving from closer to intrigued to almost utterly confused. The book follows a group of friends who believe in the power to perceive the feelings of others. They use this ability to threaten power structures in a post-Occupy world. It was weird in a way that did not work for me.
#tob #tob2020 #tob20
#tob #tob2020 #tob20
February 6, 2020
There is a lot going on in this novel. It has elements of political drama, social justice piece, interpersonal and group dynamics analysis, and how the online world is changing the world we live in. While the prose can get a bit fussy at times and the pacing is not that of a 'thriller', this novel was really engaging and surprising throughout. And that last chapter is so impressive. I'll be thinking about this book for awhile.
December 30, 2019
This book has so many elements that make it seem like I would like it. Yet, none of the characters are actually interesting, and it was painfully boring. I wish the author had just told his ideas to someone else who could turn them into a compelling book. Meh.
January 30, 2020
This was okay. But I feel like much circumlocution was happening - both in the entire book itself (it seemed like there was SO much that could have been cut from the book). The book didn't need to be this long. But also, the characters seemed to be vague about what they were about, The Working Group for the Refinement of the Perception of Feelings. Which is funny because a group of people who are about government transparency weren't very transparent. If the reader doesn't know what is going on, how can the reader connect to the book? I didn't really know who these characters are... but small details like one of them saying they loved the show 'Freaks & Geeks' is like a lifeboat to me. I loved reading about Chris volunteering after Katrina, but it doesn't even seem like his friends know anything about him. So there seems to be too much unnecessary here, but at the same time, not enough to connect. It's too muddled for me to make sense of (maybe I'm not smart enough to "get" this one), though I do like the point I thought the book was trying to make. But a clearer picture would have made it so much easier! One of the plot points itself it seemed Mr. Crain didn't want to commit to, and making it vague doesn't help. The last chapter is a bit like showing how a magic trick works, when the audience is already asleep. Even my writing about this book is probably muddled and doesn't make sense.
February 12, 2020
This is an absolutely terrible book. I feel really bad saying it, but I can't lie. It began slow and the writing concerned me, but I figured it had to get better. I wanted it to get better. But for me, things only got worse. I started measuring my progress in fractions (1/3 read, 5/8 read, 7/10 read), finding excuses not to read it (do I need to do dishes?), and cursing out loud when I saw it (not this f#*%ing book!). But after a renewed commitment to remove it from my life, I pulled through (the Tournament of Books must go on!). And after I write this, I hope to never think about it again.
The book takes place in the midst of the Occupy Wall Street movement (a moment in history that I find confusing and tedious - even as a proclaimed liberal hippie), where it follows a group of five characters who are trying to change the world with telepathy (Are you annoyed yet?). Well I was hopeful and intrigued by the idea of telepathy as a literary tool. Unfortunately, Crain spent so little time demonstrating what this would look like in his fictional world that instead of being a central part of the novel it seemed like a random subplot. I suspect he might have been trying to leave the reader questioning the existence of telepathy, but he erred a little too far on the side of caution and made the characters look like complete buffoons. So in place of the paranormal, I was trapped in the minds of everyday people doing mostly mundane things for what turned out to be an excruciatingly long novel!
But the worst part for me was the writing itself. Crain wrote from the perspective of four different narrators, with a fifth thrown in at the end for a not-so-twisty twist (trust me, that isn't a spoiler). Unfortunately, there wasn't enough of a distinction between voices. The narrators all sounded very similar, and felt entirely two dimensional. The sentences were either too short and choppy, or they were overly packed with unnecessarily esoteric words that the narrator would likely not know. For example, why would a guy getting a PhD in renaissance literature know specialized biological terminology? And more importantly, who wants to hear the intimate details about someone's dissertation on renaissance literature anyway? Not me.
(8th book read for the 2020 ToB)
The book takes place in the midst of the Occupy Wall Street movement (a moment in history that I find confusing and tedious - even as a proclaimed liberal hippie), where it follows a group of five characters who are trying to change the world with telepathy (Are you annoyed yet?). Well I was hopeful and intrigued by the idea of telepathy as a literary tool. Unfortunately, Crain spent so little time demonstrating what this would look like in his fictional world that instead of being a central part of the novel it seemed like a random subplot. I suspect he might have been trying to leave the reader questioning the existence of telepathy, but he erred a little too far on the side of caution and made the characters look like complete buffoons. So in place of the paranormal, I was trapped in the minds of everyday people doing mostly mundane things for what turned out to be an excruciatingly long novel!
But the worst part for me was the writing itself. Crain wrote from the perspective of four different narrators, with a fifth thrown in at the end for a not-so-twisty twist (trust me, that isn't a spoiler). Unfortunately, there wasn't enough of a distinction between voices. The narrators all sounded very similar, and felt entirely two dimensional. The sentences were either too short and choppy, or they were overly packed with unnecessarily esoteric words that the narrator would likely not know. For example, why would a guy getting a PhD in renaissance literature know specialized biological terminology? And more importantly, who wants to hear the intimate details about someone's dissertation on renaissance literature anyway? Not me.
(8th book read for the 2020 ToB)
February 4, 2020
The only way I got through this was because I had the audiobook version. I felt that the story was way too long for the content, and that if the “flowery” and melodramatic language was cut out, you could get to the point in half of the time.
Normally I could handle long winded content if I liked the characters. Unfortunately I don’t think there is a single likable character to be had. I especially didn’t like Matthew because he acted creepy and possessive of Leif, and referring to him as “the boy”.
It’s unfortunate that this book was terrible because the message of government surveillance and the new age of what privacy means is an important one that needs to have serious conversations.
Normally I could handle long winded content if I liked the characters. Unfortunately I don’t think there is a single likable character to be had. I especially didn’t like Matthew because he acted creepy and possessive of Leif, and referring to him as “the boy”.
It’s unfortunate that this book was terrible because the message of government surveillance and the new age of what privacy means is an important one that needs to have serious conversations.
October 10, 2019
True rating: If I could give it lower I would
I liked nothing about this book....nothing, that isn't something I can say about very many books I've read. Well into the book and I still didn't care about any of the characters. Boring and the prose seemed forced for the sake of trying to sound poetic. Trash
I liked nothing about this book....nothing, that isn't something I can say about very many books I've read. Well into the book and I still didn't care about any of the characters. Boring and the prose seemed forced for the sake of trying to sound poetic. Trash
January 25, 2020
I was so excited by the opening of this book. The character of Matthew seemed like an interesting, intelligent queer perspective I hadn’t seen before (and disclaimer: is extremely similar to me), and the idea of a semi-magical Occupy story was intriguing. Unfortunately, what follows is a muddy, bumbling tale about people who say things like “we’ll save the world by being beautiful” and “oh I know this sounds terrible but this (getting arrested for fake hacking) is the most exciting thing that I’ve ever done.” Yeah. This book reeks of the unchecked privilege that characterizes the worst of the Occupy mindset. The goals of this group are so abstract and esoteric, and the book seems to agree rather than probe or critique these issues and that leads to infuriating sentences where “someone does something” or “we could do it but deciding we could do it was really what mattered. I won’t say what it is. You get it.” Jesus dude, ever heard of nouns? A big disappointment.
(D+)
(D+)
February 10, 2020
This is an ambitious novel that falls short. The character development particularly of Leif Saunderson is very good….I felt I knew and liked him….the other characters not so much.
The author shines a light on something that many people fear….that technology and the internet will conspire to destroy our privacy and that our government will use our information against us. It’s a simple idea actually, frightening in its own aspect, that Crain makes unnecessarily complicated and obtuse.
I’m still not sure about that ending, whether what happened vindicated the Working Group for the Refinement of the Perception of Feelings or entrapped them.
The bones were there….it could have been a better book.
The author shines a light on something that many people fear….that technology and the internet will conspire to destroy our privacy and that our government will use our information against us. It’s a simple idea actually, frightening in its own aspect, that Crain makes unnecessarily complicated and obtuse.
I’m still not sure about that ending, whether what happened vindicated the Working Group for the Refinement of the Perception of Feelings or entrapped them.
The bones were there….it could have been a better book.
February 29, 2020
A more bloated, self important, dull and tedious book I have never read.
The characters are all terrible.
What little plot there is is utterly idiotic: an insult to the reader's intelligence.
The topic of privacy and surveillance is interesting, but Crain manages to make it die of boredom and incompetence. Please go read Cory Doctorow instead.
I almost gave up on my Tournament of Books challenge because "Overthrow" is so bad. 404 pages of wasted time.
The characters are all terrible.
What little plot there is is utterly idiotic: an insult to the reader's intelligence.
The topic of privacy and surveillance is interesting, but Crain manages to make it die of boredom and incompetence. Please go read Cory Doctorow instead.
I almost gave up on my Tournament of Books challenge because "Overthrow" is so bad. 404 pages of wasted time.
September 12, 2019
It didn’t do everything I wanted it to, but it’s exceedingly rare that I read 400 pages in a day — a sign of this book’s engaging qualities. Not everything works, but the portrait of a recent, distant past, and the interpersonal dynamics, are effective.
March 3, 2020
And it's over. I have now officially finished all of the Tournament of Books 2020 shortlist. Why I saved this one for last is beyond me. It was not for me. It wasn't Call Me Zebra, but damn, it was very much like reading the phone book.
Once I got over the idea that there was going to be a plot (there wasn't really) and it wasn't going to be a study of characters (many of them lack personalities outside of a description of their preferred sexuality), and I accepted the fact that this was to be a story of ideas.....I just read it. I read through countless arrests, meetings with lawyers, a trashfire of a relationship, a suicide attempt that was just ....so unfair to a dog, and Elspeth's sort-of love life and I did not care at all. Because the ideas being explored here were not explored in a way that made any sense to ME, as the reader. I actually learned more about what this book was trying to say from reading a review about it than reading it.
I wont remember this book in a week. That's the truth.
Once I got over the idea that there was going to be a plot (there wasn't really) and it wasn't going to be a study of characters (many of them lack personalities outside of a description of their preferred sexuality), and I accepted the fact that this was to be a story of ideas.....I just read it. I read through countless arrests, meetings with lawyers, a trashfire of a relationship, a suicide attempt that was just ....so unfair to a dog, and Elspeth's sort-of love life and I did not care at all. Because the ideas being explored here were not explored in a way that made any sense to ME, as the reader. I actually learned more about what this book was trying to say from reading a review about it than reading it.
I wont remember this book in a week. That's the truth.
January 8, 2025
Ugh. I did not enjoy this one. It made me feel dumb, and I’m pretty sure I’m not. Set in New York around 2011 and the Occupy movement, the complicated plot involves cybersecurity and mind reading, I think. The characters are writers and academics and their obscure literary references are off-putting, and I say that as a teacher of obscure literature. The overwrought vocabulary distanced me - prog, dandiacal, entrainment - and I say that as someone who teaches vocabulary. If this book doesn’t appeal to someone like me, I’m not sure who it’s meant for.
March 4, 2020
Read this book for the tournament of books later this month. I liked the concept and several of the characters but there just wasn’t enough interesting substance or plot. All the characters’ voices were the same, all their stories blended together, and there were so many opportunities for emotion or drama that were left unexplored.
I feel like Crain had a lot of fun coming up with the idea for the story and became completely uninterested once he started writing it.
I feel like Crain had a lot of fun coming up with the idea for the story and became completely uninterested once he started writing it.
September 17, 2019
A fascinating book about a young group who wants to challenge existing systems and norms and has to suffer the consequences when they step over the line. It’s a book completely of the moment, but still people with well thought out characters.
May 5, 2020
Author tried too hard to seem smart and just ended up sounding like he was trying too hard to seem smart. Some of the logic and plot points felt confusing and murky. Overall, meh
January 13, 2020
A pretentious novel about pretentious people... which I somehow couldn't stop reading. Which is not to say that I liked it, necessarily. The things in Overthrow that tried my patience include: a) the overuse of "one," e.g. "...Matthew felt terribly free, as one does when one understands that one has lost touch with one's old life." Surely there was a less cumbersome way to say that? And that sentence isn't an outlier; there are plenty more where that came from; b) the author's insistence on calling the main plot point-- Leif's belief that he can read minds and use that power for political good-- "the folie" (this happens at least four or five times, and never with even the smallest hint of humor or irony); c) Leif himself, who actually says things like, "We're going to save the world by being beautiful together," again, taking himself totally seriously.
On the good side: this feels like a very of-the-moment story, with its focus on protest, privacy, and political activism. I was about the same age as these characters when Occupy Wall Street was going down, so the world of Overthrow felt very familiar to me. And the plot is engaging, even if it gets bogged down in fluff. Reading this wasn't the worst way to spend a weekend, but I'm also not at all sorry to be moving on.
On the good side: this feels like a very of-the-moment story, with its focus on protest, privacy, and political activism. I was about the same age as these characters when Occupy Wall Street was going down, so the world of Overthrow felt very familiar to me. And the plot is engaging, even if it gets bogged down in fluff. Reading this wasn't the worst way to spend a weekend, but I'm also not at all sorry to be moving on.
February 22, 2020
This book was such a disappointment. I’m all for queer, magic, socialist Early Modern literature academics trying to bring down the capitalist surveillance state (hello!) but every character was boring and stereotypical and forgettable and the writing was so thick I almost couldn’t wade through it. If there weren’t an audiobook version available for checkout immediately, I might have reconsidered my plan to read all the Tournament of Books books this year.
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