My least favourite Willis still gets a high rating

Crosstalk is a story about Briddey who decides to have (is pressured into having actually) an EED, which is a device implanted in your brain to make you more emotionally connected with your other half. Obviously sticking anything into your brain just to be trendy is a bad idea and things don't go to plan. (If you're feeling all superior, thinking you would never do such a thing, get over it; no one heeds any warnings about mobile or airpod use). Briddey's other half, Trent, is a complete dick (I think it’s pretty obvious from the first chapter so I won’t say that's a spoiler) who is more worried about his job than Briddey's welfare. So, to the rescue comes CB, a techno whiz who works at the same mobile phone company as Briddey and Trent.

I would say Crosstalk, out of everything Connie Willis has written, is probably her most mainstream offering. Definitely in Australia it’s the only one of her titles I’ve seen readily available in paperback format. (I bought the Oxford Time Travel series in book form after listening to them on audible and I had to get them from overseas.) And, unlike her other books which only have a hint of romance, it's probably one which could almost be catergorised as a straight up romance. Or if I was getting technical, a scifi romantic comedy.

Although mainstream, it is still a very trademark Connie Willis book. Yes, Crosstalk is my sixth Connie Willis book and, as such, I am now very familiar with her style. Actually, I would say there is no other writer that I can think of (certainly none I’ve read of late) that has such a distinctive and familiar style.

She always includes communication issues for the characters. Here she has characters who can’t get through to others due to lack of mobile coverage, or phones not being turned on, or phones being taken off their owners for one reason or another. This is all rather ironic in Crosstalk as much of the plot is centred on Briddey's phone company (a rival to Apple) wanting to expand into a world where communication with others would be even more instantaneous and all encompassing. For those of you who have conspiracy theories regarding mobile phone usage, this is the book for you! (Or not, depending on the state of your nerves.)

The other Connie Willis ‘must have’ is characters being unable to do something because of their physical constraints. In Passage, for example, it was a confusing hospital layout which had the lead characters stuck in stairwells etc. In Crosstalk, Willis takes on a corporate office. Priddey has to divert her mission on many occasions because of the physical layout of her office building including (my favourite) avoiding people by diving into the claustrophobic photocopy room without knowing if it is already occupied by someone else she should be avoiding.

Another popular Willis theme which pops up again is marental love and its various issues. This time, it was a mother with helicopter syndrome. Priddey's sister has terrible anxiety when it comes to her only child and she hovers and monitors everything nine year old Maeve does. Maeve, not surprisingly, rebels and Willis manages to make this into a dramedy of sorts. Maeve reminded me a lot of Maisie from The Passage, although I do much prefer the latter, not to mention Colin from Doomsday Book and Binnie and Alf from Blackout/All Clear. Those young characters really tugged at all my heartstrings and, although one of the major plot points of Crosstalk was the need to protect Maeve, I didn’t find all this so convincing. Maeve, for starters seemed a little too clever for her age and I guessed almost all of the twists surrounding her plot which was disappointing.

Actually, I guessed quite a lot of the plot points in Crosstalk. Willis usually throws such curveballs and I kept waiting for one that I’d missed which was going to smack me in the head. There were a couple of surprises, but no shocks, if that makes sense.

I think Willis’s book fall into the love them or hate them category and I definitely love them. In fact, I have a weird almost unhealthy passion for her books. However, unfortunately, out of all the ones I’ve read so far, Crosstalk is my least favourite.

I’ve thought about this and I think my main issue is that I was expecting more. As I said, it seems to be her most commercially successful and I was expecting pure sweet and funny and romantic. I got that but I also got predictable now and then and I’ve never really had that feeling with her other books.

Also unlike her other books, there isn’t much tragedy and, if I’m honest, I really think it needed some to give it that extra punch she usually throws my way. There was an attempt of tragedy/drama but unfortunately I never really felt scared or sad for our characters. Oh, there were a couple ‘how-are-they-going-to-get-out-of-this’ moments but never that huge knot of tension in my guts I felt as I read the Oxford series and The Passage.

I also never fell completely and utterly in love with Priddey or CB. I liked them but I wasn't in love with them like I am with Mr Dunworthy and Mary Ahrens and Merope, for instance.

Another thing Willis also adds in every book that didn’t work as well for me in Crosstalk was her pop culture references. She’s used Agatha Christie books and the Titanic disaster, for example. In To Say Nothing of the Dog she uses my beloved Harriet and Peter from Dorothy Sayers. In this one it’s show tunes. Ugh. I hate musicals with a passion, so this just didn’t work for me at all. She also uses a couple of poems but they’re very American and I had never heard of them, so again, I think I felt a little cheated in this arena even. (I will say I liked the library references though and, as I assume everything Willis tells us about it is true, found it nuts as well as fascinating.)

If I had to compare this to a normal book, I’d easily give it 5 out of 5. But comparing it to other Willis books, I have to rank it lower even though that breaks my heart. 4 1/2 out of 5 (I know, you're saying half a measly star - but if I could, I'd give all her other books 100 out of 5, so that half a mark is actually a really big deal.)

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1 person found this helpful

Incredible

Funny, unique, sweet, exhilarating. Loved it. Excited to read some more books from this author!

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