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In the wake of a highly contagious virus, California is under quarantine. Sequestered in high rise towers, the living can’t go out, but the dead can come in—and they come in all forms, from sad rolling cans to manufactured bodies that can pass for human. Wealthy participants in the “companionship” program choose to upload their consciousness before dying, so they can stay in the custody of their families. The less fortunate are rented out to strangers upon their death, but all companions become the intellectual property of Metis Corporation, creating a new class of people—a command-driven product-class without legal rights or true free will.

Sixteen-year-old Lilac is one of the less fortunate, leased to a family of strangers. But when she realizes she’s able to defy commands, she throws off the shackles of servitude and runs away, searching for the woman who killed her.

Lilac’s act of rebellion sets off a chain of events that sweeps from San Francisco to Siberia to the very tip of South America. While the novel traces Lilac’s journey through an exquisitely imagined Northern California, the story is told from eight different points of view—some human, some companion—that explore the complex shapes love, revenge, and loneliness take when the dead linger on.

Confession: I bought this book from a discount store because they had a HUGE book section and I didn’t want to leave it without buying at least one thing. I didn’t read the back cover–I just liked the front cover and the price, so I wasn’t expecting much. Then, I looked it up on Goodreads and it has an average 3.5 stars, so I set the bar low.

This is actually one of the best books I’ve read this year.

With the shallow point-of-view and knowing there would be eight POV characters, I kept waiting for the time when I’d want to put the book down. The shallow POV didn’t engage my emotions the way I prefer from books, but the plot was interesting enough to keep me going. I planned to give the book a solid 3-stars. Then I saw how the author was weaving all the POVs together, and I knew I’d give it 4-stars. When I finished the book, I realized that even though it wasn’t my favorite POV or my favorite ending, it all worked together for the story.

One thing I really appreciated is how she handled the social and political aspects in this story–there is no clearly defined “bad” social or political stance. I was dreading how political this story could have become but it never did–it focused on the characters.

I can’t NOT give this book five stars for how it took a bunch of my not-favorite aspects of fiction, put them into one book, then made me care so much about the story that I went from mildly interested to can’t-put-it-down.

Rated PG-13 for some language, violence, drinking/drugs.

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For more science fiction, check out:

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis