For Freya, a young woman in her early twenties living in a near-future London, life isn’t going that well - her flatmate/ex-boyfriend has all but disappeared into an alarming world of virtual porn, and her job at a furniture store has been largely replaced by a hologram. And she’s still haunted by the disappearance - and presumed death - eight years earlier of her foster sister, Ruby.

When Freya acquires a smartface - a virtual assistant which can take on the personality of a real person, using their freely available data - she is shocked to find it “becoming” her lost sister. But as the smartface seems to know things about Ruby which it really shouldn’t, Freya becomes convinced her sister is still alive somewhere.

Freya’s search for Ruby - or at least some answers about what has happened to her - takes her deep into a frightening virtual world, then off grid entirely...

Where Everything About You really triumphs is in its careful depiction of a fully realised near-future world where smart tech pervades every aspect of life and everyone’s data is constantly mined - often by those with their own agendas. It really doesn’t seem that far away, does it? Its impressively detailed, down to the small things (haptic suits, digital wallpaper and pizza delivery drones).

The date isn’t given, though there are clues (Prince George is apparently at Cambridge - so it’s likely about fifteen years in our future).

I loved this book, which is inventive, exciting and alarmingly plausible. Highly recommended.

This was such an intriguing book; both a blend of science fiction futuristic technology with a mystery. We follow Freya, who’s foster sister Ruby vanished many years ago and was never found. She’s currently living with her ex-boyfriend whilst working at store pretty like Ikea. She ends-up getting to try a new virtual assistant that forms a character and [personality based off information taken from the database for that person and can also supply you with knowledge and tailor adverts based off what you like based on your stored information. Creepy yet slightly cool!
Unfortunately, Freya’s virtual assistant starts taking on the personality of her missing sister and Freya starts to think that maybe there’s more to the assistant’s personality than just taking old, stored information from the cloud and that it could possibly be taking new information from Ruby’s current life as she could still be alive just unwilling to be found.
I loved the whole concept of the science fiction part of this book; it was very well done, and I can actually see our present-day world heading in that direct especially since we already receive tailored online adverts! The world building of this world really was brilliant, and I actually want to see more stories that are set in this world! I liked the idea of the whole virtual reality gaming and the suit that allows you to feel the world you’re in and I loved that there was the ‘technology free’ part where you could go and it was like stepping back in time.
The mystery element of this novel was well interwoven with the science fiction element of the novel. I would have liked to maybe see a bit more, but I think that’s only because Crime and Thriller novels are my favourite! There were twists through the book which kept you guessing and! I also enjoyed the outcome of the mystery and I didn’t see it coming.
I really enjoyed this and like I said, I’d love to see more stories that are set in this world and also more stories in this mystery/science fiction genre! I did feel like there was a little something missing which is why it’s jus 4-Stars, but I can’t quite put my finger on what it was that was missing.

This book promised a lot. A mystery about a missing woman, in the not to distant future where your world is dominated Virtual Reality, Virtual assistants, and very little face to face interaction. Think Black Mirror.

.Freya had to take a terrifying journey into a Virtual Reality domain, and get back to it. But apart from that there was very little went into the book. The Sci-Fi aspect was well researched and probably not in the all too distant future, but the book seemed to run out of steam. I found myself not really caring what happened to any of them.

This book is three stars, as I got the end of it and thought is that it? Is that what happened?

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance ARC in return for an honest review.

This just wasn't a book for me which is unfortunate because i liked the idea. The writing style wasn't one i enjoyed and found it rather confusing.

I was really looking forward to reading this as I felt it had a great premise - a sort of Gone Girl meets Black Mirror - and with all the horror stories about AI devices listening in on people's home lives, it felt very timely.

Sadly I had to stop reading about 15% of the way through for two reasons. 1) It was too slow for me, given it was meant to be a thriller and 2) the technical elements weren't well woven enough into the novel for my liking, I found the constant reminders of "smartspecs" and things quite jarring - and made it hard to feel engaged with the protagonist.

It's a shame as I could see some beautiful writing but it wasn't for me. I'd definitely be interested to see what the author does next and perhaps try another book of hers.

Many thanks to netgalley for this eArc

Many thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for an advanced copy of this book.

It's a mix of thriller (only a bit) and sci-fi and tells the story of Freya and her digital assistant "Ruby", who just happens to be the digital footprint of her long lost foster sister. It's quite creepy actually that a personality can be digitalised after they've gone "socially quiet". Freya then decides she wants to find out what happened to Ruby and with the help of "digital Ruby" off they go.

I think the story could have been expanded on more, with more interaction with Thalis and more in depth exploration of Medieville and the ending disappointed a little, but all in all I did enjoy the book and would recommend and read more by this author.

This is a very reminiscence of Black Mirror and if you like that then you'll like this too.

Promised a lot but delivered little entertainment to me. Just too dark and too much of the sci-fi element.

Everything About You follows A young woman called Freya who lives in the not-so-distant future and develops a mysterious obsession with a virtual assistant who seems to be the digital incarnation of her missing sister. This story brings to light our reliance on technology as well as the fact that our digital footprint can be almost impossible to hide or remove. There are themes akin to Black Mirror and the story was very thought-provoking. The cover design is lovely.
I did not find the third-person present tense narrative easy to follow and as a result, it took me longer to finish than I would have liked. I also found the story quite slow and I would not classify this a thriller, perhaps more like a mystery.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher (Orbit) for an arc of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Really enjoyed both the sci-fi and thriller aspects of this novel. The "digital assistant" premise is timely and seems relevant to lot of the issues around AI and surveillance currently being debated in the media. I did sometimes find the writing style a bit hard to get on with but this didn't put me off enjoying the plot. A good solid read that kept me gripped.

Everything About You takes place in a parallel world where technology has seeped into every aspect of life. I'm not a huge scifi fan but I really liked the way this world was set up. Everything had been thought of (and sometimes even answered before I had time to question it). I also liked how the storytelling flashbacked to the past to explore more of the context.
The only thing is, the mystery, the excitement I had been looking forward to was just not there. It's a very passive book. And not one that actually gets anywhere in the end after all. Maybe a planned sequel - not following Freya - would be a good excuse for all the things that went unanswered. I also noted one major "clue" that didn't get mentioned later on and went against the information that was offered later on. I wish the story was better planned, and tighter but I can't fault the worldbuilding.

I’ve recently started reading sci-fi novels. This peaked my interest straight away as I often think about how far technology woll be entwined with our day to day lives.
This is beautifully written and makes you feel for Freya, I kept reading this purely because I needed to know what happened. And it did not disappoint.

AI is here to stay.

The story goes thus, a digital assistant (that we love in our mobiles) is soon a reality and Freya finds hers to be in the voice of a long lost foster sister Ruby. The story starts with a routine of Freya's life, which soon goes on to take darker turns as the assistant seemed to know more than she should have known, as if she knew Ruby's whereabouts. That part was certainly chilling.

Is Ruby alive?? Was her digital footprints getting uploaded and hence picked up by the Digital Assistant?

The book started off as a combination of a sci-fi thriller with emotional drama, with the missing sister, Freya's own feelings of guilt, but then the plot becomes a bit technical, almost too computer-y, it does go off at the deep end into virtual reality in the latter half. A bit too scary for me!!

On the whole the book was a chilling story, thought provoking of virtual reality and what would happen if we could upload our consciousness in the deep net? Is this our future?

A good debut by author Heather Child, I wanted a bit more something from it, perhaps more emotions?

Very creepy! Also very different from the norm, completely original plot that left me racing through the pages.
A very well deserved 5 stars.

I was excited to read this book after reading the “Black Mirror meets Gone Girl” description as I’m a big fan of the Black Mirror series and Gone Girl was such a riveting read. Heather Child certainly paints a scary, unnerving but totally plausible picture of the near future alongside a gripping storyline of a woman in search of her missing sister.

I loved all the clever ideas and little details about the future world such as companies being able to sync with your dreams, pizza delivery drones, getting a reduction on your bus fare as a reward for watching adverts, and a walled-off tourist attraction free of technology called Medieville.

The relationship between Freya and her missing sister Ruby is the crux of the story and is written beautifully, really capturing the painful sadness of a missing person and the people left behind.

At times I felt the plot seemed a bit thin and there were certain points where my mind started to wander, but the pace picked up after what I felt was a slight lull midway through, and I became immersed in Freya’s world. The author describes “glass-eyed” people trapped in a perpetual cycle of being monitored and rated, constantly distracted by technology. This is, of course, not that dissimilar to our current addiction to smartphones and tablets, and as the story progresses the dangers of a technology-driven world reveal themselves more clearly through Freya’s search for her sister.

There are some nice observations about the breakdown of human interaction in a world dominated by the use of what we call “smart” technology:

”she grins just as she passes an old woman on a scooter, who begins to smile back before noticing Freya’s smartspecs.”

At another point she passes a homeless man on the street and her smartspecs replace his presence with digital projections of butterflies, literally glossing over reality.

This book is relevant to the ongoing discussion concerning the downsides of an increasingly digital world; it highlights our worrying dependency on technology and the serious repercussions this is having on society, including our mental health, wellbeing and relationships. An enjoyable and captivating thriller.

Since I love all things technological and SF... I was very disappointed by this book. The idea is fine and yes, it attracted me too because of the Dark Mirror mentioned in the blurb.
However, it started slow and became even slower. The main character is absolutely boring and not sympthatetic and halfway the book I decided to stop reading because the whole story was going nowhere, and became more complicated at the same time.
I don't like main characters that, finding themselves in an unhappy position, just sit there and do nothing. All I wanted to do is grab her by the shoulders and give her a good shake, telling her to dó something.

Bursting with tech, of the not too distant futuristic possibility, Everything About You did not disappoint. Freya has a virtual assistant who can manage every aspect of her life but the personality it wears is that of her long missing adopted sister, Ruby. The mystery element of what happened to Ruby on that long ago day haunts Freya. Without really realising it, she quests to find answers in an unorthodox way whilst finding herself in the process.

The strength of this novel rests in the tech. It is so tangible and a realistic trajectory for the direction we are headed in. Cool as it is, there is a cautionary tale here. Virtual worlds and virtual assistants limit real human interaction, which our girl Freya comes to realize. I was certain this book was heading down a particular path but was so happy to be wrong as the real outcome was a surprise shocker. Everything About You is a super, completely different sort of book that will resonate with those in the tech industry and millennials the world over.

This book wasn't for me, unfortunately.
I really wanted to like this book and I was really interested because the concept sounded so cool!
But I found that the 'voice' the story was told was really confusing, maybe the first-person would have been better for me. After a while I couldn't focus anymore on the story when I was reading it, I don't really know why, I can't place it. Maybe I should try reading this again another time.

I am a real sucker for thrillers with a technological edge to them so when this novel appeared on NetGalley I couldn't resist! The synopsis is what drew me in initially as it sounded like my perfect cup of tea! As the world of technology advances and brands continues to flourish more and more books are using tech as inspiration for some fabulous thrillers based wholly or in part on Twitter, Facebook, the dark web, dating agencies etc. One recent title being Friend Request by Laura Marshall, a book based on the protagonist receiving a friend request on Facebook from a girl she believed to be dead.

So, did it live up to my high expectations? Yes, apart from some minor points it most certainly did. What intrigued me further about this one was that it was set in a future where virtual assistants map every inch of your life. This speculative tech intertwines with Freya's search for her missing sister and soon the lines between fiction and reality blur into one.

I can't get enough of this niche and hope that many more titles continue to draw inspiration from the tech world. Everything You Know is believeable speculative fiction that may soon be anything but speculative given the rate of our advancements. It's a rather scary thought!

An intelligent and thoroughly engaging techno-thriller that is well written and plotted. Imaginitive, creepy and emotionally resonant - feelings that are more varied than most books can manage. A great debut from Heather Child, I loved it! In the authors bio it states she is a "communications professional whose work on digital marketing has brought her into close contact with the cutting-edge automation and personalisation technologies that herald the 'big data' age". I would imagine that this experience and knowledge has helped to make the book sound and I hope that the author will continue to use her expertise to write in a similar vein in the future.

Recommended.

I would like to thank Little Brown Book Group, Heather Child and NetGalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was fascinated by the concept of this book, where a virtual assistant takes on the personality of the protagonist's missing sister, but was kept at a distance by the third person narration. This is a style I have limited interaction with so found it jarring to stumble across it here.

I also found my interest wane a little when the introduction of what initially fascinated me became a background feature of the book. This was a skilful blend of the science fiction and thriller genre but I still would have preferred what made this unique, the virtual assistant, to continue to take a larger central focus and for more of its facets to be discussed.

21-year-old Freya is not very happy with her life as it is: she is still living together with her ex-boyfriend Julian, her job just serves to earn money but is not actually promising a career and she still misses Judy who first was a friend and then moved in with Freya and her mother and became something like a real sister. When Julian is not interested in the latest technological device from his father, Freya accepts to use the high-tech personal assistant. Since she is still longing for Ruby who went missing without any trace, the assistant is modelled according to the young woman’s features: it can copy her voice, react just like Judy reacted and knows everything about Freya and Ruby. Can this virtual version of her sister also lead to the one in flesh and bone?

Since technology becomes more and more present in our everyday life and since we rely increasingly on our smart phones to do the thinking for us, the idea of this futuristic personal assistant was quite intriguing. Especially since we tend to ignore the negative side effects of handing over more and more data to these uncontrollable technical devices.

However, the novel did not hold up to the high expectations. I liked Freya’s first steps with her new assistant; her incredulously questioning where this machine got all the information from and how she slowly loses control over her life were portrayed in a really authentic way that is easy to imagine in the very near future. Then, however, the more the plot progresses and the more the whole story becomes a kind of computer game in a virtual reality environment, it was a bit too much for me. I am all but into computer games and not at all interested in any virtual realities where completely different rules apply and the unthinkable is possible. Thus, the moment we lost the track of reality I was more or less out. This might work better for those readers who are really into VR.