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I might do a more thorough review later, with spoilers, once I'm on my computer

I read this a while ago and re-read it. It's a challenge to read, dense with invented jargon and hard to follow just because of how weird everything is. It's probably the most nihilistic book I've ever read, and the characters are not at all sympathetic. Nevertheless, having half understood it from reading it too fast 10 years ago, it has stuck with me since then, and held up even better the second time and I'm giving it a rare 5 stars.

The first time I read it, it was more emotionally impactful - more horror than sci Fi and in ways I was not at all expecting. The second time I felt like I could at least wrap my head around it completely.

Coming back in the age of LLMs certain concepts about what intelligence and sentience actually are start seeming a lot more relevant. Some of the ways the main character is unable to relate to other people reminds me of some of the dangerous Internet subcultures that have grown prominent in the past few years. It feels alarmingly more relevant than the first time despite not being at all about any of these things.

The characters are not like conventionally sympathetic but I think you have to approach the book with a willingness to empathize with a broader range of people than most books ask you to - not in the sense of being bad people but of being people who relate to the world differently than most people depicted in fiction.

The vampire thing is unnecessary and out of place, you could have the exact same story and not call them that

Two books I've read that I would say are most similar are Annihilation and Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep (not the movie though)

Adele has held one of the coveted popular rich school spots in her school circle. Until she is suddenly kicked out and replaced with someone else. She winds up bunking with one of the poor girls in a creepy dorm that has been reported to be haunted.

She has a hard time adjusting to her lower status and focuses on how to get it back over adjusting to her new roommate. This was a girl that Adele would have bullied and talked bad about with her old group. And her mom has always been telling her that she should be nice to the poor girls, but she never explains why.

This is a lovely book about someone being thrown from grace and coming to terms with how nasty of a person you have to be to keep that status. Adele grows a lot and for being a YA book, there's some decently heavy topics that are covered.

Ensemble characters. Characters that say "yeah" semi-resignedly a lot. Some characters will die on you. It's constructed like The Expanse, but the plot is definitely going to go very differently.

The Carryx suddenly swoop in to the world of Anjiin, where humanity lives but where their origin is lost to time. The Carryx quickly conquer humans, killing 1 out of every 8. Dafyd Alkhor's group is transported across the universe to a glorified prison planet where the team is given the task of making themselves useful to the Carryx. If they do not, humanity will be obliterated. Lots of intra-group conflict. Lots of conflict with other prisoner species. Lots of perceived conflict with the Carryx, who mostly ignore them until they've proven themselves useful.

Do they collaborate and maybe live to fight the Carryx another day, or go out in a blaze of glory since it's likely humanity is going to die anyway so why not go down fighting? Climax is a giant trolley problem. Don't forget that trolley problems are largely constructed as thought exercises, and here it's a thought exercise to move the plot along. In other words, don't get too attached to the philosophy. Whichever way they go it's just a story.

Emma Makepeace is chosen to lead a team trying to figure out how Russia plans to disrupt a G7 meeting in Edinburgh. The catch is that she may have to be a "honeytrap" for Nick Orlov, a Russian asset, in order to find out what they are doing, and she's not sure how she feels about that.

Not thrilled with the story. Makepeace isn't really leading the team, for instance. That seems more like a line thrown in by the author to justify Makepeave getting to sit in on a meeting between the heads of the Home Office, MI5, MI6 and the Agency. Another is that the Russian plot is extremely clumsy. Early on, an FSB agent wanders around photographing Carlowrie Castle, the site of the G7 meetings. When we find out who some of the characters carrying out the plot are, I cringed. It's a convenient authorial reason to involve a character from the Scottish police, but it makes little sense from a plot perspective.

Emma Makepeace is a good character, but I want to see better stories written around her.