The Coincidence Engine: A Review

The Coincidence Engine

How I received this book: I won this in a First Reads Goodreads Giveaway

Read: From April 14th-21st

My Rating: 2 stars

I would describe this novel in a few words as: Quirky and/or strange

After doing three author review requests in a row, I wanted to take a break and read something different, so that I could go into my next review request with a fresh perspective. Well, this certainly gave me a different perspective alright. Although fresh wouldn't exactly be my word for it. More like fuzzy, or confused.

To be completely honest, I'm not sure if  I even fully understood the Coincidence Engine. I understood it in terms of the story itself, but I'm not sure what the author was trying to accomplish here.

It starts off interestingly enough, a hurricane comes across the Gulf of Mexico, and strange things start to happen in it's wake. A plane appears out of nowhere, seemingly assembled by the hurricane itself. A woman is burgled as she comes home one night and as she goes to her neighbors house to use the phone she sees a man simply vanish into thin  air.

If that's not enough, we learn of  these events through the eyes of a character called Red Queen (remember Alice in Wonderland?) who works for a government agency called the DEI, or the Directorate of the Extremely Improbable.

Seems interesting, right?

No doubt it is, but it's all very confusing as well. There are a bunch of little side stories all wrapped up into this one story, and sometimes it's hard to keep track of who knows who and who's doing what. 

The story that I probably felt the most comfortable with was Alex's. Alex is on his way to America from the UK to surpise his girlfriend Carey and ask her to marry him. Alex is the major player in this tangled web of stories. Red Queen thinks that he is the one in possession of the Coincidence Engine. The Coincidence Engine is construed by both the DEI and the British equivalent the MIC as a possible weapon. Alex has no clue what's going on and at the same time is questioning his life and his future all while being pursued by 3 different groups of people.

It's all too complicated to really go much further. You'd have to read it for yourself and see what I mean. There is some normality in it in the fact that I was able to predict one of the plot points toward the end of the book. Even though I was able to predict this, it wasnt' surprising or disappointing,  because it didn't do anything, and didn't lead to anything else in the story.

As for the writing style, and flow, other than the quirkiness of the plot, the language flows well. One interesting note here is that even though the story is set in the US there is heavy use of British colloquialisms.

Again, I'm not really sure what the author was trying to accomplish here. Maybe he was trying to be somewhat philosophical, and say that life is all a big instance of unknown coincidences, that we're not in control of. Or, he was trying to prove how we're all connected in one way or another. Or maybe he was trying to highlight the influence of government conspiracies with his use of strange government agencies.

I really have no clue. There were other reviews that mentioned that this might be better after a second read, so I may read it again in the future but that won't be any time soon. If you're looking for something weird to read this would definitely be it. If not, you may want to move on to a different book in your to-read list.