This was well-written written, it just wasn't for me. I didn't like or care about any of the characters and I thought that the story was boring and hard to follow. I didn't realize it was technically a sequal.. Maybe if I read the first book, I would have liked this more. Or, at least, I would've known better than to read it.

About connection with other people, and how memories can be so different person to person. Not just the perception of what happened: I love how she described memories as math, as images, as feelings. An intuitive, clever, provocative book.

Billed as Goon Squad #2 and featuring some of the characters [Bennie Salazar and Sasha] from her Pulitzer Prize-winning A Visit From the Goon Squad--which I didn't love--I much preferred Look At Me], I was still eager to read this book.

It took me a while to get into the rhythm of the book. And when I did, it never lasted for long because it would switch off. I found it quite disjointed.

The book starts with Bix Bouton and his son Gregory; and ends with same. In fact, there are several instances where the book circles and closes a loop.

Bix is a tech entrepreneur whose "Own Your Unconscious" helps users access their memories and exchange/share others. This is a thread throughout.

The book features both sections with short telegraphic sentences and others with looong run-on sentences. Voices: first, second, and third person. Emails. So, an abundance of riches? Or not.

Least favorite parts: Lulu the spy 2032 [I tend not to like futuristic novels, so...] and See Below.

But some of the language is beautiful. A few descriptions that I loved:

"razor of cold in the breeze"

"...occasional word he did utter had the cleaving finality of an ax splitting a log."

"Jack's face underwent an evolution of expression..."

"...fragile embrace mentholated by the cigarettes she still smoked..."

There is the music industry, tech/digital age. And math and science. And anthropology. Again, a mish mash.

Too many characters and shifts; people pop up all over [to wit, Miranda Kline--who I found interesting, but...] No connection with any of the characters.

3.5 but can't round up because sadly didn't feel the love.

This book was just TOO MUCH of everything. I had not read Good Squad and didn't know what to expect. I loved the first few chapters which were wonderfully "wordy", but then the format changed numerous times, and the characters morphed in and out of time. It was hard for me to keep up with which characters were related, and how they were related. The chapter with the back and forth text messages was the one that just pushed me over the edge - not enough and too much at the same time.

Jennifer Egan has a gift for a unique, intellectual writing style, and I recognize that. I think the problem with my not really getting into this story was with me, as a more casual reader.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review The Candy House.

This was a SOLID 4.5 for me, for sure.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

So, I found Jennifer Egan with Goon Squad, and fell in love with her diverse storytelling methods, and how she used them to dance around the story... telling it obliquely rather than thru narrative.

What she started in that, she continued in Candy House. With a variety of storytelling methods (including a phenomenally crafted email/text chain) she really shows her strength in storytelling thru character development.

Ultimately a story about communication, Egan breaks down family dynamics, difficult personalities, how people become who they are and how even the fate of nations can be determined years before at a country club. I really enjoyed this novel, and hope you do, too!

tysm to netgalley, and scribner for this advance copy.

i tore through this book. ever since it was announced, i have been eagerly awaiting its release, and i was not disappointed.

i don't read a lot of series or sequels, so this felt incredibly special. long awaited, if you will. if you liked the first, i feel fairly certain you will enjoy this. i’m a huge sucker for interwoven characters and books that play with a little genre. this book manages to pull in all the characters from the first and to build on the world in an incredibly satisfying way that explores social media and mass consciousness and the internet in ways that feel prescient and of this moment.

i couldn’t put it down. REAL fun. what a tiny joy to enjoy a book so much.

⭐️-thank you #netgalley for an ARC of this book. I should have looked up the author prior to reading this book because I have read a previous book by this author and it wasn’t my cup of tea either. This book is about Bix who has created a company that keeps people’s unconscious. I expected it to be similar to “An Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” another review likened it to “Black Mirror”. I really looked forward to it and couldn’t get into it at all. I wanted to not finish it, but I hung tight.

Rounded up from 2 1/2. I haven't read the author's "A Visit from the Goon Squad," and I'm wondering if that would have helped me understand this one better. The beginning of the book was easy to follow - Bix Bouton invents a new technology that will change the world - and as chapters continued, I began to see how the (very many) characters were connected. I liked that it was just a little challenging to keep everyone straight. But at about the halfway point there was a section told in emails, and at that point I lost the thread of the story - or maybe it was a new story? From that point on, I had a hard time keeping track of what was going on and how it connected to the rest of the book. Perhaps if I was more technology-oriented or more interested in futuristic novels, I would have understood more of the story. Thank-you to NetGalley, Scribner, and Ms. Egan for the ARC of this title.

This novel takes us on a complicated thread connecting characters and plot lines through time, starting with the development of a new software application “Own Your Unconscious.” Using this app, or by “taking a bite of the Candy House,” people can access memories of others in exchange for contributing memories of their own to a common database - a sort of extension of the DNA databases we have today.

Stories of the characters are related in a variety of styles - from omniscient to first person plural to tweets and letters, and we are never sure at first who is the subject of each chapter.

While I admired the author’s brilliance, I found the book extremely hard to follow, and characters were switched and dropped just as I was beginning to get a sense of who they were and build up some empathy with them. One theme interconnecting the stories seemed to be that while all humans are unique, we all have much in common as well. The lures and dangers of advanced technology plays a role as well. But frankly, it was mostly a little beyond me.

I want to like this book. I love the vocabulary, I love the way she strings her thoughts together. I do not love the haphazard style of this book. It is all over the place with tweets, first person, 2nd person narrative. The subject reminds me of that Black Mirror.episode....and that creeped me out and had my mind swirling for days. I just do not think Jeniffer Egan is a writer I will be searching out.

Relationship-based science fiction, told in multiple points of view/with various forms of text, by Jennifer Egan? Sign me up! I was thrilled for the opportunity to read an ARC of The Candy House, as I really enjoyed Goon Squad, Manhattan Beach, and Look at Me. While there are plenty of great things about this book, and I enjoyed the second half far more than the first half, I kept getting the sense that I was just not smart enough to follow or comprehend what the hell was going on. The chapters are so wildly disparate that it reads more like a short story collection, with a loose thematic throughline and occasionally overlapping characters and motifs, than a cohesive piece.

If you're a diehard fan of postmodernism, always on the hunt for that which falls outside the norm and plays with form and function, you'll probably enjoy Egan's newest novel. But if you're a reader who, like me, prioritizes character, or a reader who likes a strong plot, this won't be your book. There are too many characters and we spend far too little time with any of them to form any sort of connection, though the chapters that do dive into characters (mostly Lulu, both in her adulthood as a Citizen Spy and in her childhood, with Chris) are my favorites.

Overall, I feel like Egan is showing us that she can do anything-- and she can, there's no doubt. I wish she would've just picked one or even a few things and stuck with them for the duration of the novel, so that there was a little more to hold onto, emotionally-speaking.

What Jennifer Egan does here is nothing short of magic. She interlinks the lives of so many characters, and lets us live right alongside them. CANDY HOUSE is a meditation on how we are connected to one another, our past, and our futures. It touches on the loneliness we feel, and yet, none of us are alone. Not truly. Beautifully written. I highly recommend!

Wow, what a DAZZLING read! I first read A Visit from the Goon Squad several years ago when it first came out, and I was a big fan. I've also read a few other books of Egan's that I have also enjoyed. While it's not strictly necessary to read A Visit from the Goon Squad (hereafter referred to as book 1) before reading this one, I highly recommend that you do. You definitely get a lot more out of the book and forge much deeper connections with the characters.

The concept of this book reminded me a bit of the Black Mirror episode "Entire History of You," season 1 episode 3. Much of the book centers around Bix Bouton, first introduced in book 1, and his invention, "Own Your Unconscious," which allows the user to download their conscious and enables them to access all of their memories and even upload them to the collective consciousness.

The story gets quite complex as it zips back and forth across time and between characters with mysterious mathematical equations and futuristic technology thrown in as well. The intelligence that Egan displays is absolutely astounding, but what I love about all this is that the book is still accessible even though you may not be entirely sure what is going on all the time.

My only complaint, and the reason for the 4 star rating instead of 5, is that it is sometimes difficult to establish who is the "narrator" of the chapter- it's not even always obvious that the narrator changes from chapter to chapter. This was also a bit of a struggle for me in the first book as well.

Despite the bevy of characters and confusing narration/chronological shifts, I absolutely loved this book. I am so grateful to NetGalley and Scribner for the opportunity to review this book.

I really enjoyed her earlier work but I think Good Squad and now this isn't for me. I didn't love Goon Squad but liked the idea and looked forward to maybe more of that I did like and less of what I didn't,. This didn't do that for me.

I so loved the feeling of dipping in and out of the memories of interesting and interconnected characters. Egan entertains as she poses questions to us all about how far we are will to let technology go, what it means to be authentic, how memory and inspiration work together and so much more. I will think about these ideas and the characters who delivered them for a long time. And I will probably reread Goon Squad. Highly recommended for readers who like connected stories, multiple viewpoints, modern and future settings in their fiction picks.

This novel blew me away for all the best reasons. While it's been years since I read Good Squad, and couldn't remember much, this was still captivating as Egan navigates technology, social media, privacy, the music industry, and many other topics through short stories in different formats from a wide variety of characters. There's not much you need to know going in, and you definitely don't need to read Egan's previous work to enjoy. The Candy House is not an easy read by far, but it is worthwhile and wholly memorable.

Solid follow-up to A Visit from the Goon Squad, and I really liked the structure of stories that are connected-but-not. Probably a good idea to revisit Goon Squad before reading this one-I wish I had.

Thank you for this ARC! I was so excited to read Jennifer Egan's new book. I adored A Visit from the Goon Squad and had heard this book has similar vibes. It certainly does! It makes NYC neighborhoods come alive and the characters are interesting with some cross-over from her previous books. If you want to be transported to another city or NYC in another time, this book can do that for you! Unfortunately, the story was a little difficult for me at times. I was not invested in the plot and had a hard time concentrating sometimes. The story is complex but don't let that deter you from reading it! Come with a clear mind and get ready to be swept away! Additionally, there is a lot to discuss from the ideas put forth in this book- technology and our relationship to it- it will make you think! Overall, I can recommend this book but suggest you are ready for the challenge and escape.

Perhaps the best way to describe this book is "experimental"; it defies characterization. It is neither a typical novel (linear prose) nor a collection of short stories. Instead it is a series of linked stories, jumping from character to character, not told in chronological order and written in different tenses, persons and forms (e.g. all texts). Egan loves trying out very unique writing styles to try something new, tell a gripping tale and insert lots of fun and surprises for the reader. In this book, a companion of sorts to "Goon Squad", she delves into three of her deep interests - -the passage of time, technological change and the music industry - - and their confluence. Egan explores the music scene as a window into how technology changes us and our institutions, for good and bad. She probes research into human behavior which made social media so ubuquitous and addictive, and projects how technology of the mind might evolve into businesses which allow you to download your entire consciousnes and memories into a desktop cube, upload your memories into a common database to allow others the ability to crowdsource ideas from the masses, or imbed weevils into your brain to invade your thoughts. This book covers so many different storylines and characters that it is difficult to summarize it all; in fact, difficult to understand at times. I wished for a family tree of all the characters so that I could keep track of their myriad interactions over the course of their lives.

What an honor to review a book by the fabulous Jennifer Egan! This spellbinding linked narrative describes a not too distant future where individuals can upload their memories into the profitable private company "Own Your Unconscious"

The narrative bounces around and we meet a variety of people over several decades including the creator of the company and his muse. There are even mentions of characters you know from the Goon Squad novel!

This book is enchanting and moves at a dizzying pace. As each piece of the puzzle connects we see a very scary picture of our future. If you like Jennifer Egan, multiple narrators, stories that span decades, thought-provoking writing then this is surely a novel for you. #TheCandyHouse #Scribner #NetGalley