Beautiful Shining People: The extraordinary, EPIC speculative masterpiece…

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While in parts he did come over as a bit immature, it's is easy to like his flawed character and development. The author has done such a perfect job of integrating the science into the story that even the unexpected, as jaw-dropping as it is, makes perfect, logical, sense. It starts out calm and chilled but with a twist of anguish from the secret shame John is hiding, then the air fills with the flush of first love as he and Neotina get closer, before moving into an atmosphere that crackles with danger as shocking revelations change their entire world. Unable to sleep, John happens upon a hidden café, which alongside its inhabitants – the owner, Goeido, a disgraced ex sumo wrestler, the beautiful waitress, Neotnia and a peculiar eye-catching dog – transpires not to be as ordinary as it appears. Beautiful Shining People is a thought-provoking read, one that keeps you hooked as you delve deeper into its central mystery.

But they are each hiding a shameful secret, one they try to hide from the world and are terrified of being discovered. There are some big questions that we really need to be wrestling with as our technological progress outstrips our ability to frame ethical boundaries. Neotnia and Inu are androids so highly advanced, they're indistinguishable from actual humans and dogs.

This is a true thinkers/intellectuals book at its heart, with a sci-fi element thrown in, and it was glorious. As Grothuas describes events over a few short weeks one Autumn, we sense these issues lurking while remaining - initially - ignorant about their exact nature. Japan has always been a leader in technical advances and here, in the author’s future, there is a culture of robots who are part and parcel of society and serve the residents of Tokyo. His writing has appeared in Fast Company, VICE, The Guardian, Litro Magazine, The Irish Times, Screen, Quartz and others. The characters in the book are a motley crew of outsiders who were likeable and very entertaining

Like so many of the best things, this is a novel that it is both deeply complex and beguilingly simple. He spent his twenties in Chicago where he earned his degree in filmmaking from Columbia and got his start in journalism writing for Screen. Loved its unique styling, the memorable characters and the way in which the book, and the audio version, got under my skin. I loved all the smart lines of wisdom sprinkled throughout this book, from the drunken conversations between the three MCs, to the wonderfully real quotes we got from Joe, to the completely ahead of his age thoughts coming from our MMC. While I'm not usually that into robots and AI, I really enjoyed how it was incorporated into the story here.Despite the eternal surrealness of the dog’s geometry, the café has a distinctly different feel tonight. At its core it is a story of friendship and having the ability to see the world around us in different lights. Its been over a month since I finished this book and I still don't feel like I have the right words to describe how hauntingly real and beautiful it is.

Don’t worry if you think you don’t ‘do’ romance, YA, suspense, sci-fi because you will forget the genre-bending and become lost in character. Challenging, enlightening, and terrifying, TRUST NO ONE asks the question other people are too scared to: what happens when you can no longer believe your own eyes? The crafting of the novel is masterful, with each revelation Grothaus gives us the words and the time to settle into this change or that, whether it is a different setting or concept or character, before turning everything we know on its head, introducing layers of depth to the story that enrich our reading experience. The descriptions of this futuristic Japan are simply heavenly, and they truly brought this new-but-old world come alive for me. Gosh, I am probably going to use every superlative in the dictionary for this review as I'm finding it hard to review this one!There’s something different about her – a kind of splintering inside her, like there’s something in there that doesn’t belong. A secret that will take them from the neon streets of Tokyo to Hiroshima’s tragic past to the snowy mountains of Nagano.

I loved the characters, including Neotnia’s ex-sumo wrestler café owner, Goeido, and his oh-so-weirdly-coifed pet Inu. It's a truly beautiful story of friendship, trust and love and it's most definitely highly recommended. Thoroughly enjoyed this speculative, sci-fi but not too sci-fi story set in a futuristic Tokyo, all about the possibilities of technology but equally about what it is to be a human. I LOVED the character of Neotnia though, everything I want to say about her would probably be spoiling the book but she was an amazingly written character and deserved so much better than what she got.Beautiful Shining People has hidden depths, though, and tiny little hooks that pull you in, hold you captive and leave their mark long after you’ve turned the final page. The plot, while slow to build, does pay off and, most importantly, this is a book that has much to say about how we forge real-world connections in a digital world. It’s a novel steeped in the style of David Mitchell’s Japanese novel Number9 Dream or Nick Bradley’s The Cat and the City—mystical novels that dovetail contemporary Japanese culture with older traditions whilst adding a dash of fantasy or science fiction elements. The door’s bell clangs as I enter, and my eyes immediately go to the dog with the spherical head perched on the counter. Through the balcony’s door, only the artificial lights of the infinite city can be seen, though their glow is muted by the moist air that’s followed from Hakone.