REVIEW: The Unseen World by Liz Moore

Helloooo! ❤ I’m really sorry for the absence and God knows how much I’ve missed the community and blogging in general! I was away for some time to get ready for a debate competition and to prepare some exams I had to take. 😦 It was my first debate ever. I was really interested by them for quite some years now. Of course, I did horribly because even though I was ready, like everyone, my anxiety came to prove me wrong once on stage. Buut, I managed to challenge myself and stand in front of people without fainting and I attended a social event that lasted for days so that definitely is a victory for me and I’m so looking forward to getting better at it. It’s really a great experience!

Now about The Unseen World! I’ve talked about this book in my February wrap up, saying that it was one of my favourites for this year and so now is the time to finally review it. I had my notes ready and was just waiting for the perfect time to start the writing of this review and also for my thoughts to be “processed” better because it isn’t exactly the easiest book to review. And, you know, I’ve finished this book quite a while ago and I’m still obsessed so we can only assume that this book isn’t like any other book, that it actually has great impact. So without further ado, let’s start.

THE UNSEEN WORLD 

Published July 26th 2016 by W. W. Norton & Company

SYNOPSIS: Ada Sibelius is raised by David, her brilliant father, who directs a computer science lab in 1980s-era Boston. Home-schooled, Ada accompanies David to work every day; by twelve, she is a painfully shy prodigy. When his mind begins to falter, leaving Ada virtually an orphan, she is taken in by one of David’s colleagues. Soon after she embarks on a mission to uncover her father’s secrets.

THOUGHTS: I loved this book. Now I know that I’m usually pretty “sentimental” but aside from some very rare books, I don’t find myself crying at random books. This one managed to make me cry several times throughout the book and I seriously don’t know from where to start. Well, I guess from how I’ve heard about it! I think I’ve mentionned it in previous posts but if you didn’t know, two of my favourite booktubers are Regan @peruseproject and Max @welldonebooks so it was only natural for me to add this book to my wishlist automatically when they both recommended it and praised it. I had high expectations when I delved into this book and I wasn’t disappointed. I can hardly imagine anyone disliking it.

Basically, this book is about family and how humans are able to hurt people and the process of how the pain of it heals and how it can take so many years for it to finally happen. It’s also about friendship and hidden truth. It’s about growing up in a world where you don’t exactly fit. It’s also about science and technology. It has a bit of everything and on top of it: a very beautiful writing. I think that’s what does it for me in a book, along with the characters. There are many books with really great plots but that were orchastrated in such a bad way and written in a poor style and that just ruins it.

Our main character’s Ada. She lives with her father who raised her all by himself and who taught her for a good part of her childhood. She was homeschooled up until her father’s disease evolved, Alzheimer’s, and he wasn’t able to teach her anymore. She had a very special bond with her father and with his colleagues at the lab where David worked. Her father. He is brilliant and even though Ada was just 12 years old when the story has started, he was already teaching her a lot more than what a normal 12 year old’s supposed to know. At the age of 12 years old, Ada was already participating in the “lab life” so that only can be an indicator of how smart she was for a 12yo. She was mainly surrounded by adults and had very little contact with children her age. She relied on her father who was everything to her so you can only understand that with her father’s disease she will soon be obliged to rely on herself, or on someone else that isn’t David. In other words, her life will change. But then some things will happen that will make this “transition”, if I dare call it so, even more difficult for Ada. What things? That is for you to find out. In addition to David, Liston, which is her father’s best friend from the lab, was also one of Ada’s favourite people besides her father. They both worked on a project called ELIXIR which is a  language processing program who was created with the aim of having a program that would talk and think like a human. Ada was told to talk to it quite often so that the program absorbs her words so that it can be able to formulate “human sentences” by itself. We’ll also accompany Ada through her time in the lab, her first days at school and will get to know about her first crush etc…

I know I haven’t exactly been homeschooled or taught by science masterminds but in some parts of the book I found myself relating to Ada, a lot. Especially when she first had contact with “the real world” and got in school. She found herself unfit, like she didn’t belong. She knew nothing about boys and fashion and couldn’t relate to anyone around her. Also, I love the character development in this book. Liz Moore has done an amazing job and I really can’t wait to read more books by her.

The book is set in Boston and since we get to meet Adult Ada too, we get chapters set in  both 1980 and 2009 which is really interesting because we see how people around her have changed and how she, herself, and her way of thinking and seeing things have changed and evolved. It is told in 3rd person. Throughout the book, I thought that it would’ve been better if told in 1st person but then when I got to the last pages of the book, I understood why the author did it. And Liz Moore, you’re brilliant girl! Now I just don’t think that it could’ve been better any other way. It’s perfection the way it is. The writing is not really quotable material but it fits the story so well! The mystery around David is really compelling and the story slowly unravels and is so touching. It’s how she writes about the bond that’s between Ada and David and human relationships in general that made me really emotional along with the bullying that some characters got to experience.  The writing has managed to make Ada and David stand out. I really adored the characters, like, really! And the ending! The ending is so perfect, it made me sob! It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book with a perfect and neat ending to be honest so this, by all means, deserves 5 stars and is the best book I’ve read this year.

I would recommend it to everybody, even those who read the plot and found it boring so PICK IT UP! You’re in for a nice ride because this book won’t let you down. (If It did, I’d be really interested to know why!)

Aaaand that’s it! I hope this has encouraged you a little bit to read it 😀 Would love to know your thoughts on the book if you did already and I’m really glad to be back! ❤

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