Almost Real by Charlotte Stein

Almost Real
by Charlotte Stein
Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

My review:
When you want to get deep into a character's mind, Charlotte Stein should be your first choice. There's clones and bad guys with big guns, questions of apocalyptical and ethical proportions, but the real reason to read this book is to be completely subsumed by Margot.

Margot is tough, used to having no emotion, has more relationship with her computer systems than people, and is pretty much completely enclosed in her head. But then somehow she ends up in a job where she needs to be married to Sergei. He's the grunt and she's the brains for keeping their installation of “the corporation” running and hidden. If Margot thinks she doesn't show emotions, Sergei is like a stone compared to her. He barely speaks for the first half of the book. I was honestly expecting some twists with him that never happened, but that didn't impact my enjoyment of the story. He was big and bad-ass and silent as a tomb, until he finds out that Margot really wants to know him. He opens up and blossoms into a normal, crazy, every day, mostly insecure person – who still happens to be big and tough and bad-ass.

The sex is hot, awkward, insecure and tentative most of the time, but still really awesome and intense. If you haven't guessed already from something like the cover, it's really explicit too.

This is not a post-apocalyptic story about clones and the establishment, with some romance and sex thrown in. This is a deep dive into Margot's character as she finds out what love is and experiences awesome sex and a closeness with someone for the first time, in a world that just happens to be post-apocalyptic with a clone war going on. As well as her being a bad-ass, like Sarah Connor, for the man she loves - which is awesome all by itself.

This was a book that took my entire brain while reading. The language is awesome, but so subtle that you really have to pay attention to catch everything. If you just skim read, you'll end up missing half of the reasons behind things and that would be really sad. We only get Margot's perspective here, but she ruminates so deeply that you'd think you're a part of both characters and I had trouble pulling myself back out of the book once I was finished.