Book Review | NIRVANA by J.R. Stewart

When the real world is emptied of all that you love, 
how can you keep yourself from dependence on the virtual?

This is a Science Fiction set in a distant future. The Earth as we know it no longer exists due to the extinction of bees and the cessation of pollination. The lands are barren, and artificial farms are too few. Needless to say that these farms are monopolized, and so is the water supply. Only the rich are able to luxuriously dwell in the domed-cities, called Bubbles. And the only place people can see the world as it was is through Nirvana, a virtual world people can visit with a steep price and limited time. Both the Bubbles and Nirvana are controlled by Hexagon.

In the midst of this new world is Larissa, a grieving wife who cannot come to terms with the loss of her husband Andrew. Deep inside her she knows that she mustn’t give up looking for Andrew, he is alive, and seeing Andrew during her Nirvana visits confirms her conviction. No matter how people convince her otherwise she is not persuaded, even though she knows the danger of crossing hairs with Hexagon.

The premise of this book is very interesting. The complexity and the real “would be” effect of the bees’ extinction is a new dystopian storyline indeed. But it’s a premise that the whole plot limply supported. It was a struggle plowing through the story when nothing much is developing. The sudden change in the timeline within paragraphs and the info dump didn’t help at all. I didn’t like it very much when a whole chapter was solely dedicated to two antagonists having a conversation just so the narration could disclose how these two literally screwed the world. I’m sure there’s a better way to do that, right?

I truly understand Larissa’s plight, I can grieve with her, but I cannot invest in her or on any of the other characters. I cannot invest in the Larissa-Andrew relationship either, because it was not fully developed to start with.

Book details:
Title: Nirvana
Author: J.R. Stewart
Publication: November 10, 2015; Blue Moon Publishers
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating:

*A copy was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for this unbiased review. 
**A revised copy of the book was recently sent to me by the publicist and will publish my update as soon as possible.