Identity Crisis

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The book contains a series of seemingly unrelated plot lines which all come together beautifully at the end of the narrative/narratives. Sure, in the retelling of his story, Kvothe is 15 years old and bound to be obsessed with women but I was pretty bored by the many references to “her breasts pressing against my arm. It all plays into the hands of the people who’re terrified the world is being taken over by non-straight non-binary nons-, and that the heterosexuals are going to be slaves to masters flying a rainbow flag.

However, its depiction of life is a little too on the nose and realistic, rather than exaggerated, ironic or ridiculous as satire demands.Enjoyable commentary on contemporary society and its over the top political correctness, and the ‘me’ generation with their social media obsession. I can understand people getting angry about gender bias, homophobia, racism and a myriad other things. I know exactly how all the women in the book look – be it his mother, love interest, money lender or peer – which would be fine if Rothfuss helped me to picture what the men looked like with as much clarity. No target is safe in this very-near-future world of Elton's and he fires shots seemingly indiscriminately. You only have to look back 1000+ days to the pre-Brexit Referendum and the absolute garbage posted daily to people's feeds by both sides to realise that social media manipulation is the be all and end all for any movement.

By the end, it turns out the Russians are bumping off all these people in collaboration with a Cambridge Analytica-type organisation, so they can turn their deaths into more culture war fodder, push through Brexit, and destabilise the UK. I’ve never given such a low rating to a Ben Elton book but I would’ve given up on it if it wasn’t written by him.Whether his subject matter is IVF (Inconceivable), time travel (Time and Time Again) or climate catastrophe (Stark), he has a unique way of approaching his subject matter. So they decide to ramp up the tension by turning the non-straight non-binary nons- against the heterosexual white couple. The book's less terrible than it would be if Elton was a full-on reactionary, but it's probably more boring. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

Lost in a blizzard of hashtags, his already complex investigation is further impeded by the fact that he simply doesn’t ‘get’ a single thing about anything anymore. The wider world in which the microcosm is occurring is just as crazy - not only have we had the Brexit referendum, but now a similar vote is forthcoming to decide on Britain's future as the United Kingdom, or if it will break up. This is, of course, treacherous ground that Elton is treading but I think he strikes just the right notes and the book genuinely asks some fairly sobering questions about the direction our online, social media-driven society is taking. Fundamentally, Chronicler has tracked down Kvothe (who appears to be in hiding by running an inn) to extract his biography.Meanwhile each day another public figure confesses to having 'misspoken' and begs for forgiveness on Twitter, assuring the public 'That is not who I am'. For me, this book is a complete guide on the LGBTQ+ community and has surely been an eye opener to see things from different perspectives.