The only other Connie Willis books I have read, BLACKOUT and ALL CLEAR, I wasn't really impressed with. What mostly bothered me about those was the "gloom and doom" attitudes of the protagonists. While this is some silly fun, it had some of those same problems to me. The protagonist jumps to all the worst "What if?" conclusions and she completely ignores those trying to help her and evidence right in front of her. Maybe I am just not a Connie Willis fan.
Nobody writes real-but-zany chaos, miscommunications, and missed signals like Willis. Her characters come across as real people, maybe sometimes so unseeing of the obvious you want to shake them, but you could imagine you know them. Willis takes the implications of our constant connectedness these days and really runs with it. The beginning pages, where Briddey is inundated with a storm of email, texts, phone calls, visits, and gossip were so much I felt my eyelid beginning to twitch with the stress. Thankfully she dials that back down as Briddey tries to deal with suddenly having telepathy. Loved the increasing sense of doom as she tries to keep her problem a secret, only to have more and more people in on it - and only some of them are trying to help. You'll figure out the deal with Trent immediately, and Maeve, and even Oona, but that's all how Willis planned it. I felt the ending was drawn out too long...I could have done with 20 less pages or so. Still, funny and romantic SF in a near-future setting.
