Chosen Spirits - BOOKS.HCCP.ORG

Hardcover, 280 pages

Published March 19, 2020 by Simon & Schuster India.

ISBN:: 9789386797810
ISFDB ID:: 2829545

(1 review)

She’d decided, that night, that she wouldn’t leave. That she would stay in India, in Delhi, and belong as hard as she could.

Joey is a Reality Controller, in charge of the livestream of a charismatic and problematic celebrity in smog-choked, water-short, ever-transforming Delhi - a city on the brink of revolution, under the shadow of multiple realities and catastrophes - at the end of the 2020s.

When Joey impulsively rescues a childhood friend, Rudra, from his new-elite family and the comfortable, horrific life they have chosen for him, she sets into motion a chain of events — a company takeover, a sex scandal, a series of betrayals — that disintegrates not just their public and private selves, but the invisible walls that divide the city around them.

To find the lives they need, Joey and Rudra must reckon with people and forces beyond their understanding, in a world where …

She’d decided, that night, that she wouldn’t leave. That she would stay in India, in Delhi, and belong as hard as she could.

Joey is a Reality Controller, in charge of the livestream of a charismatic and problematic celebrity in smog-choked, water-short, ever-transforming Delhi - a city on the brink of revolution, under the shadow of multiple realities and catastrophes - at the end of the 2020s.

When Joey impulsively rescues a childhood friend, Rudra, from his new-elite family and the comfortable, horrific life they have chosen for him, she sets into motion a chain of events — a company takeover, a sex scandal, a series of betrayals — that disintegrates not just their public and private selves, but the invisible walls that divide the city around them.

To find the lives they need, Joey and Rudra must reckon with people and forces beyond their understanding, in a world where trust is impossible, popularity is conformity, and every wall has eyes.

4 editions

Pentapod reviewed The City Inside by Samit Basu

Livestreamers influencing the future in India

4 stars

I enjoyed this book, which revolves around livestreamers and a dystopian Delhi not too far in the future. However, I think someone who is unfamiliar with livestreaming and TikTok culture might be a little lost reading it. The story revolves mainly around Joey, a Reality Controller (essentially a livestreamer manager/director) who has ended up managing her ex-boyfriend, and Rudra, estranged younger son of a wealthy and influential family who starts working for Joey. Everyone in the book is confronting past genocides and current political corruption and problems (growing fascism, surveillance state, vast wealth gaps). Joey and Rudra start looking for ways to influence the future of Delhi and the country. I found the ending was a bit abrupt and seemed like a bit of a sudden wrap up after the main body of the book, very much felt as if a sequel is in order here.