Jennifer Egan writes as fluidly and thoughtfully as always in The Candy House, though this was probably my least favorite among her books to date.

I’ll start by saying that while this is technically a sequel to A Visit from the Goon Squad, it doesn’t really feel like one. It’s more like a companion novel with a few characters in common. This in itself isn’t a problem, but something readers may want to be aware of.

I didn’t love the Speculative Fiction aspect of this. But I also don’t love Speculative Fiction in general, and if you do, you’ll likely enjoy this more than I did.

And while the large cast of characters is interesting to an extent and Egan weaves their stories together well, it’s hard to care much about any of them because we don’t stay with them long enough to truly invest. Most of them didn’t interest me much anyway, except for the empiricist, who was delightful.

Egan’s writing is lovely as always, but plot wise this wasn’t my favorite. I still think The Keep is her best work and would recommend that above all the others, but Manhattan Beach and the original Goon Squad novel are great as well.

Audiobook readers: This is a full cast recording with a lot of different readers, and I think it worked well for the style of the narrative. None of the readers were bad, and a few were definite standouts.

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan was the second book in the series but I thought it could hold its own.I will be recommending this to my followers who are obsessed with audiobooks..

So i’ll start off by saying I had no idea that this is technically a sequel, BUT I don’t think that it truly matters in that this can be read separately.

What to day about this absolute mad house of a book… It’s a rollercoaster of plots, characters, timelines, etc.

If I had to pick one word it would be: Non-Standard

This is 100% not my normal read yet despite it not having anything i normally look for in a book it worked. If you are looking for a book with clear arcs are direction this will not be for you though.

The style of the writing is also not what you’d expect from your average book, it can be regular chapters, a series of emails or tweets, or even a list of instructions.

I think of this work as black mirror meeting a Quentin Tarantino film. Go in expecting to be change but also not really understanding what just happened.

Not going to lie the end snuck up on me and kind of left me disappointed in its abruptness. Looking back it’s really the only way to end this type of work but I felt like I needed more which is maybe the point.

I bought this book because if I go into a small locally owned bookstore i’ll always buy something even if I don’t want it is just to support the store, and then when I got home I saw the audio was on Netgalley so thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Audio for providing the audiobook for review.

The narrators, a full cast, did a great job at delivering a performance of what in many cases was a none-standard narrative.

Wow, well I can see why Jennifer Egan is so loved. I read Goon Squad a long time ago and while I don’t think you need to read both, I think it helps to be in the same universe. In fact I think I wish I would have reread goon squad just so I was a little bit more familiar. This book was initially a little bit hard for me to follow but it’s one where once you get the players straight your sucked in and you feel like a better reader because he finished it. I really love books that play with the idea of memory and identity and I thought this one was so wonderful.

"Social media was dead... self-representations were inherently narcissistic or propagandic or both, and grossly inauthentic."

Just one of many profound and honest observations about our tech society in the complex yet compelling The Candy House by literary phenom Jennifer Egan.

This story begins innocently with Bix, a rich tech company owner looking for new ideas when, "Gazing up at the lighted windows...Bix thought he could practically hear a potency of ideas simmering behind it." Stumbling onto a group of brainiacs talking of downloading memories sparks the app "Own Your Unconscious" allowing one to access every memory they ever had and share it on a platform.

Now just like the original thought of social media helping people from all walks of life connect; access to memories would aide in solving crimes, especially pedophilia and rape. It would aide Alzheimer and dementia patients. But just like Hansel and Greta's candy house what waits for us after all the "good" candy is gone?

With a cast of 15 narrators from famed actress Lucy Liu and actor Michael Boatman to one of my favorite narrators Emily Tremaine, each chapter is its own vignette about this questionable app and its effects on one's life. The narrative is not linear. Past, present and future are interwoven and these performers bring their A game.

This is not an audiobook to listen to lightly; I had to pay attention. Some technical things went over my head but as the writing style changed with each personality I had to listen. One chapter was just text and email, one from the innocence of a child and another all in equations!

There are portals, alternate worlds, gamers, "counters" exploiting memories and "eluders" against it all. Like candy, our tech world is often filling but not always healthy.

I received a free copy of this audiobook from the publishers via #netgalley for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Audio for an audiobook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to love this book.. just look at that yummy cover and the title, I just love it. Well friends, this is one book that you cannot judge a book by it's cover. I borrowed book 1 , A Visit from the Goon Squad prior to reading this book in preparation. I wanted to be ready and have all the knowledge ahead of time. Well the honest truth, it did not prepare me for this. It was a hot mess. Lots of narrators, yay. TOO many characters and so many that weren't memorable and I forgot their story. So many different story formats in this book , it was like reading a book written by several different authors. Ok, so you ask, but what is this story about? Beats me ! It was a mishmosh of people's lives , sometimes overlapping but mostly just existing. And then the element of paranormal collective memory storage comes into play and I was intrigued but nothing exciting came out of that, other than to hear more stories about people's past lives.
Ugh, so sad this was a bomb. I'm not one to leave negative reviews but this was a waste of my time.

I am a huge fan of A Visit from the Goon Squad because of Jennifer Egan's incredible writing style, and not because of the characters. When I heard that she was writing another book based loosely on those characters, I was like... OK! Anything for more Egan. And guess what. I loved it! She did it again. Such complex narratives seamlessly woven together with gorgeous sentences. I loved it.

I still didn't really care about the characters and I found the sci-fi angle to be a little bit wild, but I also kind of liked how Egan didn't have to spend a lot of time trying to make sense. It's like an alternate reality. Just accept it as a kooky twist and move on. I thought it was fun without being unbearably "fear our tech future"-y either.

Anyway, loved it, always love Eagan. Loved the narration of the audiobook and the entire voice cast. I do wish I had a hard copy so I could annotate and keep track of all the characters a bit better, but I still had a lovely time! Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Critics smarter than me will say things like this book is a ‘searing critique of the intersection between technology and humanity.’ That is probably a correct assessment. But this book’s message felt lofty and just out of reach to me. Egan is an excellent writer and I enjoyed some of the narratives almost as short stories, but overall, it was a little out there for me.

The audiobook was read by a full cast which is always a pleasure to listen to. I noticed in the digital copy that some chapters have different typography (a list of instructions, a series of email/text exchanges) that may have been easier to parse by reading vs. listening. This is a high-concept book and it won’t be for everyone. In fact, I don’t think it was for me! But it’s the kind of book that wins awards and will probably be on the ‘best of’ lists.

I havenot read Ms. Egan's other book, The Goon Squad, and I think that was detrimental to my enjoymnet of The Candy House. Although the writing was very good, I found it hard to identify with the characters. This was just not the book for me.

I did read A Visit from the Good Squad, but its been many years and all I was left with was a general memory that it was a good book. I know there were connections between the two books that I couldn't make, but I enjoyed the stories despite my lack of background. Egan's writing is something to get lost in.

I truly can't tell if I loved this book or hated it, but I feel like it might be somewhere in the middle?

This novel was told in the form of short stories, and the stories felt really disjointed to me and didn't feel like a novel. I liked some stories and disliked others, but overall I did find the concept and plot very interesting. It was a little hard to keep track of who everyone was and how each new character connected with the ones we already knew, but I was able to figure it out.

Overall, this was just meh for me. I think my expectations might have been too high.

The first copy I was given of The Candy House started with Part II unbeknownst to me. Just as I was getting to the end of that part, I got an email telling me of the error. I went back and listened to Part I, but by the time I got back to Part II I was So confused and really just didn't care any longer. I may at some point try again, but for now I just can't finish The Candy House.