A little bit of an inconsistent read. While it starts strong and engaging, the move from one environment to another really stalls the narrative.

I really like the blurb to this book, I wasn't aware of it before I received a copy in the post, but I was immediately drawn to it. It's been compared to Blade Runner and Black Mirror, and I think these are accurate comparisons. There is a definite sci-fi/cyber-punk feel to the novel, and I like how this is quite uncommon to read in YA. The author has written a fast-paced and exciting, and the twists and turns don't stop from the first page to the last.
Nova is the main character and heroine, and although she did remind me quite a lot of plenty other heroines in YA, the author has made her relatable and easy to root for throughout. The characters that fill the rest of the novel are well written and fully developed by the author. Hunt has written a mix of 'good' and 'evil' characters, and those that seem to fall ambiguously between the two.
Nova, our main character, is gay. This isn't treated as a big deal or a particularly important plot point, and I thought this was refreshing and well-handled by the author. I think it's important that LGBTQ characters exist in YA just as they do in reality, and the more common they become the better YA lit becomes.
However, although the author handles the LGBTQ element of the novel so deftly, I have read online that many people feel the novel to be ableist. I did not notice this on first reading, but after reading others' thoughts, and rereading the instances they evidenced, I agree. The word 'cripple' is thrown around by characters in an insulting and derogatory way towards a character with physical disabilities. Also when a character is not connected to the network-of-sorts that features heavily in the novel, this is likened to missing a limb or being deaf/blind. This is a gross exaggeration even in this world which is heavily dependent on said network, and is also insensitive terminology to use.
Overall I enjoyed this novel, although the above ableist terminology/mindset has seriously dampened my enjoyment post-read.

Leo Hunt first arrived on the young-adult scene in 2015 with the excellent Thirteen Days of Midnight, a story about a young man who inherits a host of ghosts and whose life is subsequently torn apart as he fights to control them. I declared it the most exciting supernatural novel of the year and gave all three books in the trilogy five star reviews. I was definitely going to read his latest novel Phantom.

Phantom takes place on an Earth many millennia in the future. Forget wearable tech, in this society technology is implanted straight into our brains and what we experience through our senses is wholly customised and exploited by marketing. Books, paper, writing are a thing of the past to the extent that alphabets are ancient relics, replaced by a world gone mad on ‘glifs’ (there is an emoji for everything).

What is most fascinating about Leo Hunt’s new world is the architecture. The City in which the story is set is built on the ruins of the past but whereas the ruins of ancient civilisations lay as dust beneath our feet, the skyscrapers and concrete monoliths of today aren’t so easy to demolish in the future.

Instead, the ruined, flooded and toxic remains of the past lie miles and miles beneath the gleaming magrails and traffic tubes of the future. Sunlight costs money and while the executives at the major corporations can afford a home with a view, most of the rest of the population is relegated to the lower strata. And then there is the underclass; those without the means to move when their strata go dark, who must live in the Undercity amongst the mutated, blind dogs and the rising pile of rot and detritus.

I could have spent weeks in this dark new world that Hunt created but unfortunately, Phantom is a story of thirds. In the first third of the book, we meet the extraordinarily gifted hacker Nova who catches the attention of the greatest hacker of all time, Moth. Nova is tasked to infiltrate Bliss, one of the biggest corporations on the planet and become an assistant to the CEO. It’s an impossible task, to be sure, but the payout will be worth the trouble and Moth is offering a down payment of more than Nova can make in a lifetime.

Thus Hunt takes us from the fascinating, lurid and colour-drenched world of the City into the sterile, generic world of Bliss. There are even tech blockers here and none of the intrigue from outside filters into the towers. And there we stay for a full third of the novel. It pains me to say this, of one of my favourite authors, but it was boring.

Somewhere along the way, and in the most improbable of circumstances taking place over one meeting of not more than a couple of hours, Nova falls in love.

This was the second issue I had with Phantom, the idea that Nova and Ziran fall in love instantly and make some pretty terrible decisions based on that instant and undying attraction to each other. It felt extremely forced in the subsequent storytelling, to the extent that I didn’t trust it at all and kept waiting for Ziran to betray Nova, but most importantly it wasn’t even necessary from a plot point of view. Far more interesting would have been to examine the morality and survival instinct intrinsic in the decisions made and not just I’ve loved you all my life, well for all of five minutes, now I’m going to risk my life for you.

I feel a sense of loss. I would have gladly read an entire series of books set in the City but instead, we’ve gained a glimpse of a brilliant new world but one which simply wasn’t explored enough by its own architect. I believe that Phantom is a stand-alone novel but if there is a sequel then please, Mr Hunt, spent more time in the City that you created!

And so it is, with a very heavy heart, that I give Phantom by Leo Hunt a disappointing three out of five stars.

I had extremely shallow reasons for requesting this book from NetGalley. Reason #1: the blurb mentions a character called the Moth, and in something I'm currently working on, I have a character called the Moth, so I wanted to scope out the competition. Reason #2: the other character mentioned is called Nova, and I've just read the latest installment of Philip Reeve's <i>Railhead</i> trilogy, which also features a character called Nova. So all my reasons were about character names.

Also, I realised when I was about to start it that it was by the same person as '13 Days of Midnight', which I'd really enjoyed, so I guess that's a slightly less shallow reason.

My main impression was that, although it bears no resemblance whatsoever to my project containing a character called 'the Moth', <i>Railhead</i> is actually a great comparative title. The book gave me extremely strong <i>Railhead</i> vibes from the moment I started it, and it wasn't because of the character's name. I mean this not in a bad way or to suggest that it was unduly influenced by Reeve, but in the sense that if you liked one you'd probably like the other. It was largely the subject matter and premise that gave this impression: the futuristic world, the use of AI and the question of what it means to be human, a famous criminal approaching a small-timer for a mission, and so on and so forth. No trains to speak of, though, so if that's what you liked about <i>Railhead</i>, you might be disappointed.

For the most part, this book was extremely enjoyable. The tech was cool and original, without the terminology becoming incomprehensible. Most of the terms were easy to figure out from context, or they were quickly explained without info-dumping. The main character was gay, which was relevant but not a central plot point, and I liked how subtly that was introduced. I also liked that there was a disabled character who made visible use of mobility aids, but the treatment of this character was something I wasn't such a fan of.

Truthfully, the book felt pretty ableist at times. This character (whose name I've totally forgotten, whoops), basically saved Nova when she was a teenager, but she repeatedly calls him a cripple and other hurtful words, and the narrative never criticises that or suggests that she's wrong to do so. Other characters are disparagingly described as 'deformed', and there were generally speaking a few uncomfortable undercurrents that I didn't like. Which was a shame, because it's rare to see futuristic tech used in the context of mobility aids and similar, and I'd have enjoyed the inclusion of that if it wasn't for the way that character felt... disrespected by the narrative.

Aside from that, though, there wasn't a lot to dislike. There were a few sharp plot twists that caught me by surprise, which is always fun, and it was fast-paced enough to keep me reading late into the night, even though I was definitely meant to be in bed. (Me: "I'll just start reading this book. At midnight. This is a totally sensible life choice, because I'll only read one chapter. Oh wait...") And I think if you like Philip Reeve, you'll enjoy Leo Hunt.

But it probably would have been a strong 4*s if it weren't for the ableism, and instead I don't feel like I can justify giving it that, even though 3* feels too low given how much I enjoyed the rest.

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A version of this review is on Goodreads, and a slightly different one is on my blog (links below!).

This book reminded me a great deal of Emily Suvada's This Mortal Coil crossed with Matthew Blackstad's Lucky Ghost. You have the idea of people being immersed in a virtual overlay, constantly bombarded by information and advertising, but also there's the gene hacking/general programming vibes in there as well. I always love the idea of a hacker in books such as these, though my partner (who is a real-life programmer human) would probably tell me I'm using 'hacker' as a catch-all and technically it is incorrect. But all the same, Nova is a woman in tech, the kind of person we need more representation of. I thought that there were some great aspects to Nova's character, she's smart and she knows what she wants, but at the same time she is often very realistic about the situation she is in, rarely do you find her making sacrifices of good sense - unless it's for something she really cares about. I'll get to that.

The setting is also worth mentioning. I liked the idea of the wealthy living above in buildings that simply stretch further upwards as they block out the light, while the poor live in 'the Undercity' miles away from the sun. It's not wholly original, I've seen similar concepts before, but the way this is written makes the contrast truly evocative. Reading about the Undercity you almost feel the grime under your fingernails, as Nova moves into the world above you can feel it too. I think that the descriptive writing is perhaps the strongest aspect of this book, there are a lot of strange things that have to be described, such as the visualisation of a computer program in physical space, but the writing makes it clear what you're supposed to be seeing. 

The plot is also interesting. I thought this was going to be a fairly straightforward story, anyone who has read a lot of dystopian YA could probably come up with a full plot based on this summary. However, the story has many more twists and turns than I ever would have thought, which certainly keeps you on your toes. 

I would have given this book four, maybe even five stars if it weren't for two things. 

Firstly, the ableism. I can see how this was part of the setting, in a world where people can select and modify their genetics there is likely to be some ableism, but if a book is going to include those things in setting it had better condemn them, rather than treating them as something normal. So the use of words like 'cripple' or suggesting that the worst thing in the world would be to live without implants and then likening that to being unable to walk or see. This kind of thing was just said as if it were fine, which it isn't. It wasn't necessary for the plot and it was an example of something relatively small (I mean in terms of how much it featured during the book) can completely turn you off a story. 

The second thing is less serious but is a pet peeve. Insta-love. We talk about it all the time in the blogging community and yet it doesn't seem to cease. Of course, I know that in a book you're never going to be able to fully represent the gradual build of a relationship, and that high stress situations can lead to people behaving perhaps a little more impulsively than they otherwise might. That being said, it is a case of one meeting before the characters in this book are all over each other. It's something of a spoiler so I won't go into too much detail but if you read this be warned. The insta-love is real.

Overall this book was an entertaining read, but the problems it had were too much for me to overlook. I ended up giving it three stars because I do think some people are going to really like it. I'll be interested to see if anything else comes out of this setting and whether it will have similar issues. 

My rating: 3/5 stars

I received a digital advanced review copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.