What’s Up, Everyone?
I don’t know how many of you follow me on Goodreads. However, if you do, you will know that I have been excited for the publication of All Rights Reserved for months. Months! It was one of my most anticipated releases of the fall and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. The premise sounded awesome and unique. The possibility that legal battles and corporate companies could push for trademarks and copyrights to cover every word, gesture, movement or thought (unfortunately) doesn’t seem impossible in our current climate. I couldn’t wait to see what Katsoulis’s arguments would be and what points he would raise. I also couldn’t wait to hear people’s thoughts and opinions about the book. As you can see, I was very excited for this book.
That excitement lasted for the first 275 pages, until I basically gave up and skimmed the rest of the book. (Now, none of these critiques are of Katsoulis himself, because the premise was seemingly flawless. It was also genuinely unique. So props to him for writing and creating this story and for starting a conversation.)
I am more than willing to give this book applause where applause is due. Firstly, the world. I loved the idea of this world. It is creepy and Big Brother like, with citizens having to wear cuffs all the time after their 15th birthday that track everything they do. Ads are customized to their wearer. There are billboards that can scan you and predict if you will jump off a bridge or not. The society that this story takes place in is so egocentric and materialistic, with trademarking replacing innovation and big name companies running the world. When juxtaposed to our own world, it doesn’t seem that impossible. The fact that the society Katsoulis has created is so plausible is eerie and unnerving. It could have easily felt like another dystopian or syfi book, and with how many classically strong dystopians and syfi books are out there, I applaud the fact that the ideas and society of All Rights Reserved can stand on their own.
Secondly, there were some really fun side characters in this story. Kel, Henri and Margot were a nice addition to lighten the overall tone of the story. Particularly Henri. Also, who wouldn’t want to be a Placer? That seems like the coolest job in this whole society. I am not adept enough to hang upside down like Spiderman or jump across roof tops but I would train like a crazy person before my 15th birthday if I knew some old white guy was going to be scouting me out for this job.
(This is not an actual point from the book but I am going to include it anyway). I really like the cover of this book. I don’t see many books in yellow and I am a big fan of color imagery in books and film. It was nice to see this book covered in yellow, a normally happy color, be inverted and thematically darker. Round of applause for the marketing team.
You may be thinking to yourself, “Jaime, from the way you describe this book, it seems like it had everything going for it. An interesting premise. Innovative additions to the dystopian and syfi genres. Some fun side characters and a disturbing society. What went wrong?”
Well, in my opinion, a lot.
1. Beecher’s suicide and the start of the novel.
When the book opens, Speth is walking towards her Last Day ceremony. We are introduced to her, her guardian and her older sister. Then, out of nowhere, one of Speth’s “friends” comes up to her, says his final goodbyes, and throws himself off of a bridge. This is supposed to be shocking. However, the reader has no emotional attachment to Beecher. We don’t know how close he is to Speth, how long they have been friends, or why she would be the last person that he would want to see. The relationship between Speth and Beecher isn’t delved into very deeply during the rest of the book. There are jokes that they were close enough to be dating, but other than the shock that anyone would have after seeing someone throw themselves off of a bridge, Speth doesn’t freak out like you would imagine someone would after seeing a close friend commit suicide. Yes, she does use his death as a catalyst for her silence, but she seems very emotionally withdrawn. It is like the plot needed something impactful to happen for Speth to realize that the society she was living in was corrupt. Insert Beecher here. However, I think that she could have seen just about anyone throw themselves off of that bridge and it would have had the same impact.
We, the reader, also know that Beecher’s death is coming. It is a plot point that has been huge in the marketing of this novel. Therefore it doesn’t have the emotional weight that it could have had if the reader was just casually starting the book and then witnessed this teenager throw himself off of a bridge. What a way to start a book! “Oh, crap. It’s going to be that sort of book,” we would think to ourselves. I think that I would also have this reaction to Speth’s silence if I didn’t know it was coming. Again, it was part of the marketing, so it wasn’t shocking. Which is unfortunate, because I really wanted this book to smack me upside the face with Beecher’s death and Speth’s silence and make me get on a rollercoaster of turmoil and societal commentary from the very beginning. This didn’t happen, which leads me to…
2. This is a surprisingly boring book.
After the beginning, I was left with the question, “Well, now what? We got the general premise out of the way after the first chapter. What now?” I think that my problem with the book had something to do with the fact that the book felt like it was made up of beats. Speth does this thing. Now Speth is doing this other thing. I didn’t find a lot of the beats predictable, but when I got to them, they just felt like a point on a story outline. For instance, I didn’t guess that Speth was going to be a Placer. However, when she became one I was like, “well I guess this is happening now.” I think that this also had a lot to do with my third point…
3. Speth is an unlikeable narrator.
She starts a movement, then complains that people are following in her footsteps. She complains a lot about how little she can do and how ineffective her method of protest is, even though she was the one who chose it. For me, Speth was a plateau of emotion. She was frustrated all the time at her lack of ability to speak, even when she was given consequence free ways to speak. She was frustrated at the people around her for not understanding what she was trying to say by simply slightly raising her shoulders or staring at them intensely. She seems relatively emotionally detached from the whole situation. She also doesn’t grow much over the course of the story, until the end. In the end, Speth gives a speech that is so unrealistic for her character to even come up with it is insane. We spend the whole book in Speth’s thoughts and so we know her normal thought patterns. There is no way that she had time to think of a profoundly moving, rousing, perfectly formulated speech that sounds like it was written by a futuristic George Washington. She can’t just go from hating everyone who joined her cause, and internally dissing their efforts to take a stand and come together, to the eloquent leader of the people. Not after most, if not every plan she has tried to formulate over the last 99% of the book has be ineffective.
Also, Speth’s reaction to Bridgette Pell’s suicide was almost enough to make me put down the book right then and there. It is impossible for her to imagine how anyone with wealth or money or “something going for her” would want to “throw it all away”. Essentially, she disregards even the possibility that Bridgette may be impacted by the heavy societal pressure that influences the entire society. In Speth’s eyes, she had no right to kill herself. This point left a horrid taste in my mouth.
4. Silas Rog and “The Book” and the Ending
I don’t know if it was just me but the whole, “There is a magical, mystical book that can change society,” premise that was introduced half way through the book seemed a little ridiculous. I didn’t realize that this was going to be what the book hung its hat on in the end. I also didn’t really feel like Silas Rog was going to be the “big bad”. Other than sending a letter to Speth’s house about Carol Amanda Harving (which is a whole other side plot that I could never get over) and be a general boogie man in society, Silas Rog’s presence or impending doom never really had much weight to it. In the end, he seems like a over the top villain set on ruling people’s minds, like something you would see in a film. This image wasn’t really helped by his classic, “talk to the main character as she tries to prove something and then reveal that everything is a lie” move.
In the end, this book left me very disappointed. I haven’t even discussed everything from this book that I found fault with. There are a lot of people on Goodreads who have made these points for me, so I encourage you to check out what they have to say. I may be more critical of this book because of how much I wanted to love it. However, I feel like, in the end, all the innovative and promising parts of All Rights Reserved were overshadowed by its faults. Additionally, I went into this novel expecting it to be a stand alone that would knock me off my feet. As I have come to find out, it is actually the first in a series. I don’t really know where this series could possibly go next, but I don’t think that I will be reading the next book. Again, I really want to applaud Katsoulis for even coming up with or writing a novel that was this innovative and ambitious. I think that it will raise a lot of interesting questions. I also think that it had a lot of potential, which was obviously not lost because the majority of people really loved this book. Unfortunately, I was a part of the band of brothers that wasn’t sold.
I would love to hear what you think in the comments down below. Are you going to read/have you read All Rights Reserved? What did you think? Did you have the same problems with it that I did or did you love it? Let me know!
Overall: 2.5 out of 5 stars
-Jaime