While at times the collection of interlinked stories here seems determined to be inaccessible, Egan feels confident and assured allowing herself to experiment with the form of fiction in ways she previously only hinted at.

Like Egan’s Pulitzer Prize winning A Visit From the Goon Squad, I’d say this book is best described as not a novel but a collection of interrelated short stories, jumping around in time, place, character (never the same POV character more than once though characters reappear throughout the book) and even format. One common theme running throughout is social media and privacy, as in the alternate reality present/future this book is set in, there are two services we don’t have in our world - one which allows you to essentially download all your memories (and then share with the public if you so desire), as well as an alternate one which allows you to escape your identity while leaving someone posing as you. But there is also a lot more going on about family, relationships, and the interconnectedness of people.

The book is theoretically a follow up to Goon Squad, as many of the characters from that book make brief appearances, or their relatives too. However, as much as I loved that book (it was a 5 star read and a top ten book of the year), that was back in 2011 so I can’t say I really remember it. Perhaps it would have been a richer experience for me reading this book if I had read that one more recently, but I still loved it.

All that being said, this is going to be a very polarizing, love it or hate it book. Indeed, while several of my trusted reader friends loved it, others strongly disliked it and complained it was boring and/or incomprehensible. But I found it mesmerizing and so well written!

If you don’t like short stories, if you only like books with linear narratives, if you don’t like to think while reading - this one is probably not for you. Also definitely one better read than listened to so you can flip back and forth and/or search your e-book for character names, and one best read in as few long stretches as possible, rather than little bits at a time, so you can see all the connections unfold. If that sounds like your cup of tea, give this one a try!

Not quite as brilliant as Goon Squad in my opinion, but I still loved reading it.

The Candy House is a spirited, chaotic at times, and bizarre read. It was wonderful to revisit characters we met in A Visit from the Goon Squad and just like that book, this one is quirky, shocking, and utterly delightful. Somehow the author manages to confuse and entertain the reader at the same time. The Candy House is another brilliant turn for the talented and wholly original Jennifer Egan.

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for this ARC.

This was such an intriguing futuristic, "Black Mirror" - esque, techy book and I really liked it!

I love the way this author writes, she has such a unique writing style. I liked how we learn the inner dialogues of a lot of the main characters throughout this story - their idiosyncrasies, their fears, their truths... It was a complex and mind-binding ride throughout. I felt like each "chapter" was kind of like an individual episode of Black Mirror - so if you are a fan of that series I also recommend this book!

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for providing a digital ARC for review!

Egan's previous novel A Visit from the Goon Squad stuck with me long after I read it. I knew this book would ask me to think, to pull threads together, and to sink into a style of storytelling that is anything but typical.

"Own Your Unconscious" is tech giant Mandala's new program to revisit and share memories. For those who participate, you can grant access to recorded thoughts and memories.

This is a read that requires your full attention and creative thinking. There are many characters; we move back and forth in time. There's a lot to keep track of and themes are moving in and out of focus constantly. What's cool about that is that it embodies the very arguments about it means to be human that Egan is exploring. These are interconnected stories with a variety of voices and characters (I didn't remember all of them from Goon Squad) and one can find themselves a little lost, at times in the narrative style.

Still, I loved it.

The themes on privacy, surveillance, what we sacrifice of humanity to be seen and known are ever present.

I recommend reading this with pen and notebook in hand.

This literary novel is packed with so many entwining and complex stories that you need to approach it like a super-rich brownie: small bites to get through the dense deliciousness. It’s a plunge into a whirling confection of contemporary archetypes: the first and most successful record executive who’s now faded in a digital world; his two daughters and the second-generation legacy they carve out for themselves; their mom who abandons the girls for years in pursuit of her PhD in sociology, and goes to live with a jungle tribe where she gleans formulas of predictable human behavior that become the basis of an academic book she published; the billionaire, famous social media exec who takes those formulas in order to create a dystopian offering.

This product, “Own Your Unconscious,” enables you to digitize all your memories onto a cube. If you choose to share your memories with the rest of the world, then you can see everyone else’s who has shared. One of the daughters starts searching to solve a mystery of what happened to her father in the early 1970’s in the redwood forest north of San Francisco. But dystopian downsides and philosophical debate surrounds to this memory sharing device and new collective unconsciousness. Crimes get solved while every day privacy gets breached. A non-profit and “the Matrix unplugged” counterculture of “eluders” arises to resist the Cube and all it represents. What does it mean to be autonomous within shared human memory files? And like the dark underbelly of fairy tales such as Hansel and Gretel, beware of a Candy House.

The book picks up where Egan’s Good Squad left off, but you don’t need to have read it to dive in here, but it helps.

Egan’s sharp insights and astute social observations have your mind reeling as you take it all in: almost the reverse of the Cube- where all these whirling stories get jam packed into your own consciousness and change your perceptions of cultural trends afoot today. Like a novelist character in the novel who studies authenticity, you’re drawn into reflecting about the deep inauthenticity of our social media lives, the worrying merger of technology with our biological bodies, and what we sacrifice as we give up our privacy.

This book is sure to win upcoming literary awards, so don’t miss it!

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an advanced reader’s copy of this book.

Thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.

Did you like/love A Visit from the Goon Squad? You're going to like/love this. It's got the same kind of multi-faceted, connected short stories in different styles that tell a larger story thing going on, including with some visits to familiar names from _Goon Squad_, in a world where there's a technology where everyone's memories can be available via the cloud for everyone to access/see from your particular angle. What implications would that have? How would that affect the future?

There's a chapter told in tweet-like bites that does such a great mini bit of Black Mirror-style near future storytelling, and some final chapters that nicely tie a bow on what the book's trying to say. I think if you're not familiar with Egan's work, you're going to have a better time if you read A Visit from the Goon Squad first, but this doesn't completely throw you in the deep end. It's just a bunch of "oh, THAT person" easter eggs.

I was very excited to read Jennifer Egan’s new book The Candy House since I had heard great things about her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad. Unfortunately, this book did not live up to my expectations.

The Candy House is described as a “novel about the quest for authenticity and meaning in a world where memories and identities are no longer private.” The novel begins with the story of Bix Bouton who has an idea to create a device that allows people to record their memories and share them with others. Just as you think The Candy House will follow Bix on his quest to make his idea a reality, the novel takes you on a bizarre journey through the lives of many other characters. These characters’ lives and stories intersect with each other in various ways and during different decades.

Some of the stories were interesting and I like how Egan connected the characters to each other. I just didn’t think a lot of the characters’ stories really connected with this overall search for authenticity. Also some of the language related to the memory technology was hard to understand and purposely vague.

I will admit that Egan’s story continues to stick with me. I find myself thinking about it often and trying to piece the stories together.

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for a #gifted advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Net Galley and Scribner for this ARC!

The Candy House is a novel that proves difficult to describe. It was a complex, multi-layered novel about a network of shared consciousness and they ways in which authenticity is endangered due to the digital age/social media/oversharing. The lack of linear narrative was similar to A Visit from the Goon Squad, which I personally found difficult to follow. Time moved from past, present, and future, and while I normally like a nonlinear narrative, this one was challenging for me. I realized quickly that The Candy House was not a novel I was able to pick up here and there, but rather had to designate time to sit down and really concentrate on the storyline. It is definitely a slow read, but the complexities that Egan interweaves makes it an overall worthwhile one.

An intersection of characters featured in A Visit from the Good Squad ran through this book, so I’m glad that I had read that it prior to tackling this one (and would recommend doing so if you plan on reading this novel). Overall, I liked A Visit from the Good Squad more than The Candy House, simply because of personal preference (the ways in which technology negatively impacts human existence freaks me out, but I also believe that was the whole point). Nontheless, I cannot discredit Jennifer Egan on her imaginative and intelligent prose — this was unlike anything I have ever read before and commend Egan on her skilled talent in constructing a mind-bending, thought provoking idea into other worldly fruition.

This was a very interesting read in many ways. For me, it was definitely one of those books where I didn't understand what I was reading or how it was all connected for most of the book, until towards the end. That said, I have not read Goon Squad or any of Egan's prior works so I was not familiar with the characters or her writing style. The writing style in this one reminded me of an Emily St. Mandel novel, but ramped up even more. Even while I was unsure what was happening, the writing was still captivating and the themes in the writing were apparent and very relevant. Therefore, it definitely wasn't a slog to get to the end, and when things are tied towards the end of the novel it makes the read even more rewarding. I feel like I can't give it 5 stars because it was so hard to follow for most the novel and there are parts I still don't 100% understand, but this is definitely a great book that is worthy of its advanced praise and anticipation. On the eve of its publication at the time of this writing, I'm sure it will be widely talked about after it is released. It is certainly really makes you think about the "the candy house" that our current society and today's top companies have set up for us and our society.

Bix Bouton is already a “tech demi-god,” but he’s approaching 40 and desperate for a new idea. He attends a conversation group of mostly Columbia professors who are discussing the idea of downloading your own memories onto the internet based on an academic text called “Patterns of Affinity.” Within a decade, Bouton has built Own Your Unconscious, which has expanded into the Collective Consciousness — anonymized memories accessible to everyone who has externalized their memories into the cloud.

The Candy House explores a dozen different characters who are affected by this technology—spanning from a man who screams in public to get authentic responses, children at a country club, the “Patterns of Affinity” author’s children growing up between an apartment in the valley and a Malibu mansion, and a citizen spy decked out with internalized surveillance tools—only to get discharged from service and left to deal with the trauma alone.

I absolutely adored this and couldn’t wait to pick it up every day. Each chapter was a brand new experience and hit home to really specific memories that I didn’t realize were super widespread (like swimming at a community pool or driving through the valley). It’s a bit more experimental and high level than I usually go for, but it definitely didn’t require 100% brain operating capacity like something like Love & Other Thought Experiments.

This is technically a sequel to A Visit From the Goon Squad (which I meant to read before this one), but less a sequel in plot/action, but more a continuation of some of the characters. After reading this I don’t think it’s necessary to read them in order. I don’t feel like I missed anything and didn’t have trouble keeping up with how all the characters were intertwined. If you like Emily St. John Mandel’s sweeping sagas filled with characters who are all connected in bizarre ways, you’ll love this. Highly recommend if you like exploring the far-reaching limits of tech, tons of characters and just a fun adventure.

Pubs tomorrow, April 5! Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC.

Wow! Jennifer Egan is a genius. Very similar to Cloud Cuckoo Land where I spent a good portion of the book wondering what in the world was going on, things magically begin to uncover themselves and you are rewarded with an incredibly smart book. I recommend approaching this book as if reading separate short stories. Each chapter has a very unique voice and some will resonate with you more than others. You'll find yourself questioning the role of technology in our lives - the good and the bad. What happens when all of our memories are accessible in a public domain? What is ours alone? This book requires your full attention, no quick skimming of this one. But I think it's worth the work and has led to several really interesting discussions. I did read Goon Squad years ago and there is a lot of overlap of characters here but I don't think it's required reading before picking this one up. In all honesty, I barely remembered some of the characters.

𝐍𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐲 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞! 𝐈𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐚 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐩𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞.

For Bix Bouton, father of four, husband to wife Lizzie, an explosion of ideas changes the world. A demi-god in the tech industry, Bix’s company Mandala was born of his vision and hard work. Too, an important book, Patterns of Affinity, written by anthropologist, Miranda Kline, helped his ideas take flight. That she hates what the tech world, and Bix, have done with her theory is not lost on him. The story begins with a very famous Bix in disguise trying to find out more about Kline and discussing her ‘algorithms of trust’. It all boils down to intent, how any body of work can be used for good, bad, and everything in between. Bix, and much of the social media industry, benefitted from her intellectual property, work never intended for such purposes. Kline never intended for her intimate knowledge that lead to formulas of predictive powers, learned among a Brazilian tribe, to be applied to the world. Listening to group discussions at Columbia, an idea catches fire and the future is all about the control of memories, the ability to share them with others.

The business of Mandala started as a dream of interconnectedness, is it ‘crossing a line’ to move forward in science? What happens when you can own your own consciousness? What about the mysteries of human existence? Can counting everything- measuring emotions, the environment, desires, all one sees and experiences decode life’s meaning? Are we all really just the same? Why so much counting, for control? Does randomness even exist? What is identity? What do you give up in signing up for collective consciousness? Eluders don’t want everything to be subject to tracking, to be exploited. They are more aligned with Miranda, of book fame. Must everything be programmed? My favorite connected story is The Mystery of Our Mother, where sisters Lana and Melora, discover their seventy-four year old mother is missing and that a proxy is running her life in her absence, even adept at intimate chats. There is something terribly sad and creepy about it, and not that far-fetched when you think about how so many of us interact online and not in person. Also, the story is about their father and his other daughters, their damaged sisters. When their mother returns, she works on something that gives birth to life changing inventions. It’s fascinating how our experience can alight in someone else’s brain, bringing to life different innovations. Thoughts taking on a life of their own.

This book is difficult to review as it is so bizarre. It was engaging and moving but also at times cold and disconnected. I think it’s meant to be, as some characters aren’t ‘typical’, with a more scientific, mathematical bend of mind. It doesn’t mean they don’t feel, just in a different way. It also begs the question, what makes us human? Unique? I thought a lot about memories and privacy. Is a person their thoughts alone? Even if we could watch every memory, it’s not the same experience every time, nor are we the same exact person. This is a provocative novel. Do we really have the right to access what is in another’s head? To be the custodian of another’s consciousness? A lot of hurts can be made right, through understanding, surely? But what are we without human mystery?

Well, I have been wanting a different sort of read and I got it. The narration shifts and we get many perspectives, which works in this tale. I admit, this sort of thing always leaves me unsettled. I lean toward the natural world, but what does that even mean in this day and age? The majority of us use technology and I am no different. I wouldn’t sign up for this though, something about it is deeply disturbing. What are we left with if anyone can decode our entire life, sort of step into our soul? Then I think about memory loss, accidents, death, and how it is very tempting to salvage all that is lost when people cannot be replaced. The problem is, how much can you trust every memory that belongs to you in another’s hands? Decent read.

Publication Date: April 5, 2022

Scribner

I love Jennifer Egan and have since I read Look at Me when it came out. I loved this book, a companion novel to A Visit from the Good Squad, and featuring some of the same characters but mostly characters connected to those folks. The overall framing here is that Bix Bouton (a side character in A Visit from the Goon Squad) is a tech genius/entrepreneur who figures out how to help people download all of their memories. But really, much like Goon Squad, this is really a character-driven narrative that features people who are all connected, even if a bit tangentially, to characters who have come before. I thought of it in my mind as sort of an expanding constellations of people that all end up connecting. I loved it, and it's been a few weeks since I've read it but I've thought about moments and characters from it frequently since.

This book was weird and complex, and I loved it. It is about memory, connection, technology, and storytelling -- the stories we tell ourselves about our experiences, those we tell others, and those we make up entirely. I haven't read A Visit From the Goon Squad but some of the characters carry over. The book changes perspectives and styles every chapter which I thought would make it hard to get into or make it feel disjointed but it didn't.

One of my favorite lines was: "Even so, there are gaps: holes left by eluding separatists, bent upon hoarding their memories and keeping their secrets. Only Gregory Bouton's machine--this one, fiction--lets us roam with absolute freedom through the human collective. But knowing everything is too much like knowing nothing; without a story, it's all just information."

I read Goon Squad a LONG time ago, and was a little nervous I wouldn't be able to jump into this without a refresher, but I think Candy House could actually stand alone. The sci fi element of this was fascinating, and something being explored by a lot of authors right now. Egan did it brilliantly. This is a bit complex, and required a lot of focus, but for me, the focus was absolutely worth it!

Step right up and you can take one giant leap into the future right now by mastering the past. Not only your past, but the past and memories of everyone else invested in our community.

In "The Candy House" Jennifer Egan introduces technology to rock the world. "Own Your Unconscious" is tech giant Mandala's new program to revisit and share memories, granting access to the recorded thoughts and memories of anyone participating in this souped-up digital share. Circle back to the highlights of your life. Clear up any hazy recollections. Explore what others were really thinking during crucial life turning points. As Mandala points out, crimes are being solved, missing persons found, and the repercussions of both Alzheimer's and dementia are tempered. This is progress delivering a win-win for everyone.

This win does come with a cost. Gone are the carefree days when you only worried about online digital footprints. Whole organizations emerge to resist this threat to privacy. "Eluders" do whatever they can to remain off the grid. Paranoia is rampant in a world determined to monitor your every movement and thought.

Jennifer Egan populates this book with a sometimes dizzying montage of individuals, some reappearing from her previous novel "A Visit from the Goon Squad". It is a challenge to see who is guiding us through each chapter as the narrators switch. I confess I took notes early on to keep track of the players and their relations to others. Perhaps my memory could use an upgrade.

"The Candy House" is a brilliantly constructed voyage into a future of mixed blessings. Once again Jennifer Egan delivers a funny, engaging and thought provoking performance. I am grateful to Scribner Books, and NetGalley for providing the Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review. #CandyHouse #NetGalley

I am posting this on NetGalley and GoodReads October 26, 2021.
"The Candy House" will be published on April 5, 2022 and reviews will be posted on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BookBub, Twitter, Facebook, KOBO, and Waterstones on that date.

"Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things."
Marcus Tullius Cicero

"When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not."
Mark Twain

I saw that this author won the Pulitzer Prize for her previous book and although I had not read it, I assumed she must be an excellent writer so I picked this one up. Perhaps I should’ve read more about the premise of this book or read her previous novel to know ahead of time that this book was never going to be for me. It is esoteric, felt disjointed, and I literally have no clue what I just read.

I was lost from the beginning and it only got worse from there. I would like to consider myself somewhat intelligent that I could follow along , but about three quarters of the way through it really started to feel like a psychotic stream of consciousness. This was major work to read so If you don’t feel like doing homework and philosophizing about things that don’t matter or make sense then I would pass on this one. I would try to give you a synopsis but I just can’t because I have no idea.

I didn't read the previous book here, so maybe I'm missing something with the characters. I could not connect with them. Jumping between them, I only feel a superficial understanding of each. For the most part, they reminded me of the people who really like to hear themselves speak and could really use a little more listening time. Perhaps I can go back and read the highly acclaimed first book and it will round out these very flat people for me. Alone, I didn't feel it.

The Candy House
by: Jennifer Egan
Scribner
This is a deep and complex work of literary fiction by renowned author Jennifer Egan. It could be recommended to read her previous book, A Visit from The Goon Squad to give better insight into this one. Although the book is not one that is not in my comfort zone, it will find a welcome place on the shelves of many,

Thank you to Net Galley and for the advance reader's copy and opportunity to provide my unbiased review.