Currently reading
Well, I certainly took my time getting around to this one. That being said though - I'm glad I waited until I really had an urge to read the sort of thing this looked to be, rather than just picking it up on a whim sometime when I didn't think I cared what I read.
This is the story of Victor, a man whose body and mind are no longer his own after a horrific accident killed him ten years in the past. With machine parts mimicking a human body and a mind clones from his with all the same impulses but none of the memories, Victor's stuck in a world where nothing *really* makes sense and he has to try and work out life for himself.
I love this book for the characters. The art is nice, the plot is convoluted without being overly so, but the characters are where it really shines. Victor especially. While it seems that he wants to be a good man in his current incarnation, there was quite a lot not good about his old self. Driven by his father toward a number of things he didn't want to and was ill suited to do, and he rebelled in spectacularly narcissistic fashion. He's not good to the people around him, he's selfish and absorbed, and while he has reason for some of his anger and detachment, some of it also feels like simple immaturity. But in his new life, he seems unsure what he wants to try to be, or how to go about getting there, and is stuck dealing with basic existential questions - am I real, and am I me?
His father is likewise complicated, and you can see how his own short-sightedness may have led to all manner of bad things - not only how Victor turned out as an adult, but also what happened to him at the end of his life, the accident.
His sister hasn't been terrible demonstrative or even very center-page, but its clear that's because she's keeping a lot, and I mean a LOT, locked up inside. And her daughter seems, in a way, to be the only semi-happy character in the whole thing, but she's living a life where she dumbs herself down in order to secure acceptance and fit in with the people around her.
This is a very talky book, so be warned about that if you're thinking of trying it. In an age full of easy-to-dash-off comic trades, this one requires a bit more time, but I found the investment well worth it.