Book Review: YOU CAN BE A CYBORG WHEN YOU'RE OLDER by Richard Roberts
YOU CAN BE A CYBORG WHEN YOU'RE OLDER by Richard Roberts is a young adult cyberpunk novel, which is already something I was a little iffy about. I am a huge cyberpunk fan despite the fact that it has been on a lull since the Eighties. However, I prefer my cyberpunk to be dark, gritty, and adult while Richard Roberts is anything but.
Indeed, my favorite of his books series is the hilarious young adult PLEASE DONT TELL MY PARENTS I'M A SUPERVILLAIN.
That is a satire of supervillains in comic books and just adorably precious. The premise of the book is in the distant future, Earth has completely gone to pot, and the planet is full of advanced
technology but massive poverty. Much of the population has joined a cult where you spend most of your money on cybernetic enhancements to look like fantasy characters that play a live-action version of World of Warcraft. The big difference being the roleplayers, called Enchanted, are willing to kill one another.
Our protagonist, Vanity Rose, is an orphan living in a group home managed by a malfunctioning but kindly gynoid named Ms. Understanding. Vanity is about fourteen years old and determined to get herself cybernetically upgraded. Not because she wants to join the Enchanted but because she wants to be a badass with lots of cool toys. Vanity believes she can provide for her orphanage if she becomes a cyborg criminal that does odd jobs for cash.
Surprisingly, despite being incredibly new at this, Vanity Rose proves to actually be quite good at this. I don't buy her as a preteen who can roof jump, hack, and survive the many perilous situations she does but that doesn't mean I don't find the stories entertaining. It helps she also finds out her fellow orphans are every bit as excited and interested in her highly dangerous new career as she is. Really, the only person against it is Ms. Understanding for, well, understandable reasons.
This book is really just a fun romp from beginning to end with its bizarre atmosphere, utterly insane characters, and gritty neon dystopia setting despite the fact it is appropriate for middle schoolers. I had a lot of fun as both a "mature" fan of cyberpunk as well as someone who just wanted an easy read by an author who I already enjoyed.
It's not humorous per se but just more strange as well as fun. There's things like a skeleton train and a secret refuge for robots that have long since been abandoned by their masters.
If you are going to pick up a copy of the book, I recommend the audible version of the story narrated by Arielle Delisle as opposed to the Kindle one. This isn't because the latter is bad, far from it. No, it's because the audiobook version is masterfully narrated, and the narrator brings the characters to vivid life. Consider this to have a strong recommendation.