One of the benefits of a cross-country airline flight is a lot of sitting without other distractions competing for your time. Without a back and forth trip this weekend, I'm not sure how long it would have taken me to finish this book.

I should start by saying that upon reflection, I'm not sure this is really the book for me; however, I think a lot of people will love it.

"Smoke" tells the alternate-history version of Victorian England where people emit a smoke whenever they do something bad like tell a lie, lose their temper, think a bad thought, steal, etc. And yet some people (namely those in the church, government, the rich, and those in authority), don't seem to smoke. The poor, uneducated, powerless, smoke all the time.

The premise of the book is fascinating. The first chapter (actually the first third) of the book is so well-written I was completely engaged. Then the book starts to get a bit convoluted and I lost interest. Its 448 pages seemed to drag on eternally. I attribute this partially to the story losing focus and partially to me just not being the right audience for this alternate reality/science fiction/dystopian sort of book.

In spite of my issues with the book I am always amazed at how closely fiction mirrors reality (even wildly creative fiction, like this). Characters in this book want to remove all foreigners from England, "build walls", and the divide between rich and poor is startling. Vyleta had to have written this book long before the U.S. Presidential campaign but the themes sounded eerily similar.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3 for creativity and originality.

Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Big recommendation on this one. So nice to read a book with an original concept dealt with...originally. ( )

One plot twist that has always bothered me, is when an author kills off a character and them brings them back to life. So while this novel was suspenseful, and had interesting, well drawn out characters, using that cheap trick a number of times, left me a bit disappointed with this read. ( )

Science fiction

I liked this novel, but I suspect that had I read this one before I read R.F. Kuang's Babel, I might have felt differently about both. The worlds they weave are very similar, in a similar time period with a similar message---the powerful holding onto power by monopolizing resources and leveraging an existing caste system---but conveyed from a slightly different angle. I liked Babel better, but I can't tell if that's because I read it first or if it's just better. ( )