W.W. Norton & Company, July 26, 2016.
Three Stars
Ada was raised by her eccentric scientist father
David, who runs an early computer lab in 1980s Boston. His project is the
creation of virtual consciousness – training a computer system called ELIXER to
respond to human actions and emotions. Ada is homeschooled, and she grows up
with David’s colleagues as her companions, especially a woman they call Liston.
When David’s mind begins to go, Ada must turn to Liston to help her make her
way in the wider world.
David has a degenerative disease and he is rapidly
losing his memories. As he becomes less able to function as a guardian to Ada,
he is moved into full-time care and Ada moves in with Liston and her family. The
intricacies of public school come as a shock to Ada, who has always functioned
in an adult world. Her crush on the boy next door is also a major source of
confusion for her. Through it all, she continues to communicate with ELIXER –
and it seems that both of them, the pre-teen girl and the language processing computer
program, are learning to function in the human world at the same time.
With David regressing into his own past, Ada soon
discovers that he has many secrets – in fact, he may not be who he has always
said he was. Ada has been told that her mother was a surrogate who did not want
to be involved in her life, but there may be more to the story. As David
becomes less able to communicate, Ada may be losing her chance to find out the
truth about her and David’s origins. David has always tried to control every aspect
of Ada’s upbringing, and he sometimes sees her as an experimental project, much
like ELIXER. David had been using the computer program to understand human
mental processes – how we think and feel, and what it is that makes us human. Ironically,
it is ELIXER that enables Ada to learn the truth about David’s past.
The Unseen
World has a slow pace, and while Ada is busy
solving a mystery, the reveal is not the most important part of the novel.
Instead, it is more about Ada’s growth outside of her father’s shadow, as seen
most clearly in the chapters set in Ada’s future. Ada is precocious and grown
up in many ways, but in others, she is young, naïve and even emotionally
stunted. The mystery of David’s past drives the plot forward, but Ada’s
complexities hold it all together and create depth of character.
The writing is good, but not always original or
exciting – the novel overall is perhaps too long and slow. The chapters set in
David’s past were not as interesting as the present and future, and I found
myself skimming over them, looking for more from Ada. She is a strong, youthful
female character, which seems to be more common in literary fiction lately, and
it’s a positive trend. The ending of the novel brings everything together in a
clean, purposeful way – ELIXER’s human training is complete, and Ada has found
her place in the world.
I received this novel from W.W. Norton & Company
and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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