Fiona Maazel

This one's got a good premise: a cult born out of the crushing loneliness that seems endemic to modern American life threatens to disrupt society. Unfortunately, it goes off the rails almost immediately, taking the reader on a wild ride that involves unsightly, elaborate disguises; tortured, unworkable family dynamics; CIA codebreaking; an ill-advised trip to North Korea; and the seedy underbelly of -- of all places -- Cincinnati, Ohio. Not all that much about how the cult in question -- the Helix -- salves its members loneliness is included here, which would seem to be a rather glaring omission, nor does the author venture too many theories about why Americans have come to feel so terribly alone. Even so, something kept me reading long enough to finish this one, and I think it was the books' characters. By this I mean mostly its bit players -- I found its central protagonists, Esme and Thurlow, to be pretty unbearable. But the lonely souls they come across in their adventures are worth spending some time with, interesting portraits of American lives that somehow turned out wrong. Sometimes "Woke Up Lonely" seems like a mediocre novel that has a good short story collection hiding in it somewhere, and it was worth sticking around for those bits.Not that it's enough for me to recommend it, though.… (more)

Loved Maazel’s writing style, and the overall “SF/fantasy elements in a realistic setting” trope.

But the story didn’t come together for me. I tried to recall the reasons why Phil was pulled into this elaborate scheme and just couldn’t connect the dots, nor could I do so with the roles, motivations, and cap/abilities of the mysterious blackmailers. And the same goes for (that other character)’s reason for getting involved, and pulling in so many people in the process. I could see that Maazel was hinting strongly at various connections, then blazed onto the next revelation before they could click.

Additionally, it ended so abruptly that it left me dissatisfied. I literally sat back and was like, “Wait...that’s it?”

It was a fun romp, truly. But a fun writing style can’t make up for a rough and slipshod plot progression.… (more)