The Word Exchange

Originally posted on Tales to Tide You Over

The Word Exchange is a very odd book, but ultimately that works in its favor. It is an amazingly complex, difficult book that serves as both a warning and a sour vision of where we could be headed. A summary teaser would go something like this: What if there was a global health crisis, but unlike the usual heart, lungs, etc. what if it targets words?

That sounds like a thriller, and there are certainly aspects of thriller. If it also sounds a little literary fiction, it can support some of that as well with a non-traditional narrative style, or rather a mix of stream-of-consciousness, active narrator, and journaling styles told both as it is happening and through the lens of after everything happened depending on where you are in the story. It uses ten dollar words, but with intent; has actual footnotes; and has the emotional complexities of many books classified as women's fiction.

While the above might make it sound like a crazy muddle, and it's not an easy book to read in some ways, that would be to do The Word Exchange wrong.

The straightforward classification is most likely science fiction thriller, or maybe highbrow science fiction thriller, though it does not rub that fact in your face. It has to do with most of the main characters being involved in linguistics of some form or another, with many working at one of the few surviving paper dictionaries in a world where everything has gone online.

Our main character is Anana who is also called Alice in a neat little mystery word puzzle laced throughout the book for Anana to decipher if she's to figure out what's going on and where she needs to be. She's the innocent in this. Though she works at the dictionary, her job is as her father's assistant and has little to do with the research and recording of words. However, she is directly tied to many of the main players, her father obviously, but her ex-boyfriend Max is mixed up in it as well as her friend (and would be boyfriend) Bart. She's at the heart of the emotional story as she deals with the grief of her breakup with Max, her fear for her father who goes missing in the beginning, and her struggle to figure out what's going on.

The big story involves corporate greed, espionage, and biology, which always finds a way. We see things unfold through Anana and her connections though, so the big story has a personal touch.

I had some difficulty with the beginning just because it was so dense with meaning and complexity in a time when I was busy with other tasks. However, I kept going because the story was compelling. It drew me back even when I had to take a break to read something else or I wouldn't have a review to post for last week. Here's my comment when I was only about a tenth of the way into the book:

This book is a highly literate stream-of-consciousness with a plot almost buried under the wash of information lush with name, word, and fact dropping. It should be horrible, but though a slow read, it's compelling in an odd sort of way like you can see inside these people and really comprehend how all this came to be.

The book is well-written, rather amazing when I'm the type to find the typos and errors in every book I read while this one has deliberate word issues as we see through the eyes of those with the word flu. It doesn't start out that way, but I found it ironic that I'd used the Kindle onboard dictionary to double-check some of the meanings when the over-reliance on technology eroding language skills is one of the themes in the book. I did not, however, look up any of the words produced by the flu.

The Word Exchange is a bit like a horror story where you have to keep reading in the hopes things get better. The scariest part, however, is that I have seen or experienced the early warning symptoms that most likely sparked the idea for this book but which also makes it seem terrifyingly plausible.

A quick example of the over-dependence on technology before I let you go find yourself a copy: My phone software updated this week. I used to push the caps button whenever I wanted to type "I" as in me, myself and... But my phone would automatically capitalize it whether I did the other step or not, and sometimes it got confused and removed the caps. So I've stopped capitalizing "I". This update removed that feature. Deliberate or not, it created a dependency it no longer fulfills. It took me a bit to notice that I had lost some of my personhood in texts, no longer warranting a capital "I" to mark my place in the world unless I woke up to the need to make an effort.

I'm a programmer. I write on the computer rather than by hand, and I read most often on a Kindle. The story is strong enough and plausible enough to overcome my reactions to its overt anti-technology message and see the complexity behind that position. It's worth the time to read. I think I'll try to handwrite a letter to my future daughter-in-law who actually likes the old style postal mail.

P.S. I received this book from the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I received an electronic advanced reading copy of this from the publisher via NetGalley.

Literary novels can get away with lacking an exciting plot when they are filled with profound insights or inspiring artistic language that like poetry conveys complex emotions and relationships. Genre novels can get away with the opposite, being completely plot-driven, large-scale, 'simple' entertainment, even if formulaic. I become most impressed by the authors, or specific works, that are able to pull off the best of both worlds. That kind of mashup is a risky endeavor though, for sometimes it can come out where neither side really comes out well in the product, and that unfortunately is the case overall with "The Word Exchange".

The premise of the novel is wonderful, and lovers of books, languages, and the power of words will appreciate at the very least the foundations of the novel. The early chapters are dominated more by the literary side of the equation. While the writing is good throughout the novel, it is probably best here Although it verges on gimmicky with the advanced vocabulary-laden prose, that doesn't feel like a major fault until it gives way to being replaced by fake words for the remainder of the novel. The trick gets old fast, making the advanced real words sometimes overlap in one's mind as an elemental tool with the fake ones to come. Graedon writes well, but only rarely does it seem profound or elegant. Rather than words being carefully chosen to fit the flow and of the sentence, they are instead chosen to fit the style, or theme moreso, of the novel's plot. An early chapter from the point of view of secondary character Bart is the most vocabulary-heavy, but it is also this chapter out of the whole novel that contains the deepest musings on the theme of language, delving into philosophy and other intellectually stimulating backgrounds. But for the literary richness of character relationships, nothing is quite achieved.

Instead, the novel seems to delve further and further into being genre, a combination of a mystery (what happened to Ana's father) and a near-future techno-thriller. OK, so can the novel at least just then be simply enjoyed as genre entertainment? Sadly, the novel doesn't quite get this right either, though again it does have some things in its favor. The technology of the 'Memes' work wonderfully and believably within the novel, a horror that is easily imaginable. The increasing reliance and emotional dependence on mobile connected technology is highly disturbing, much as it was to Ellul who I happen to be reading now too. But, rather than focusing just on these Memes and the technologies direct effects, Graedon creates this incomprehensible scenario where the technology is somehow exerting effects as a biological virus. How exactly this occurs is explained eventually in the novel, yet even then did not make particular logical, biological sense. Handled in other science fiction outlets, here this idea of a language or word virus, simply doesn't work as believable science fiction.

That could be okay, I am fine with suspended disbelief even in SF. Yet even still, the actual entertainment of the story line and the reader's engagement with it, sort of plods along. A good third of the novel could be taken out and with some edits to make the deletion seamless, I don't think the story would be any worse, but in fact better. The plot drags along as the protagonist Ana slowly comes to realize what is going on and where her father may be (and as she proceeds to ignore every bit of advice/warning given to her, thereby prolonging the moment of realizations). The outbreak of the 'virus' similarly limps along until sudden chaos erupts in the final portion of the novel.

Filled with lots of wonderful pieces (I loved the retro feel of the Luddite-type society and the use of the pneumatic message tubes), the sum total of "The Word Exchange" somehow fails. In a way the whole of the novel is somehow symbolic of many of the sentences found within it (due to the word virus): phrases of lucidity but lots of meaningless contrafibulations interspersed throughout the crotix that end up making the message of the yozil fail to manifest or grok. Never quite reaching impressive literary feats, but also failing to be more than the average genre novel, the whole feels unremarkable. However, this isn't a terrible book either. If you are really enticed by books, language, etc, and the description speaks to you, this could be well worth your time. But if you are picky and want something special, this may not be it. Ultimately if you do give it a read, trust your impressions after the first few chapters.

I requested this book because the description compared it to Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, which I loved. I'm a huge fan of books about books (and/or the English language), but I tried not to set my hopes too high to avoid being disappointed. I needn't have worried about that. This book was very, very good. It's not exactly like Penumbra -- I wouldn't want it to be -- but its tone of reverence toward words and the search for knowledge is similar.

Like all good dystopian novels, this one is terrifying because of how closely it reflects the direction in which we're headed. In the book, a Meme (a sort of futuristic smartphone-esque device) can anticipate a user's desires before she actually gives it a command (e.g., a Meme will hail you a cab as soon as you mentally make the decision to take one). The other day, I opened the "Maps" application on my iPhone and was shocked to see that it had imported addresses from my most recent communications. It's like my phone was saying, "Your friend sent you his address in Syracuse so you could mail him a Christmas gift. Are you trying to find directions to his house? Or maybe to your brother's address, which he texted to you last week?" It was unsettling to think that my phone was anticipating my needs, but I was more impressed than suspicious. In The Word Exchange, Alena Graedon takes things a step or two further; her technological creations actually sync with their users' genetic makeup, so it's hard to tell where the device ends and the user begins. Who is really in charge then? And how far are we from this?

I don't mean to sound alarmist or paranoid, because I'm not. I realize that this is a work of fiction. However, you do have to admit that we've already sacrificed a large amount of personal privacy in technology's name. And then there's the whole language factor. You don't realize how much you rely on language until you watch people lose it. It's frightening to imagine a world like the one Anana finds herself in; what's scarier is how close we already are. I doubt we'll ever find ourselves at that point, but I am curious to see how close we finally come.

The book consists of twenty six "chapters," each one headed with a dictionary entry (alphabetically, of course). Some of the definitions are traditional, some are directly related to the plot, and some are made up -- a testament to the ever-changing nature of words. At just under 400 pages, the book isn't short, but I couldn't put it down. I kept telling myself, "One more letter before bed," but that didn't go so well for me.

All in all: The nerdiest -- and by far most interesting -- thriller I've read. Well written, smart, and compelling. To find all three of those in one book is rare.

Note: I received a free review copy of this book.

What happens to a world where the primary means of communication is texting, absorbing media in short quick bits, and your phone can do things for you almost before you think it? This is the premise to The Word Exchange. Anana works for her father who is close to publishing the latest world dictionary, but when he disappears she has to get to the bottom of his disappearance and find out more about the word flu that seems to be affecting those around her.

First, the overall concept and story idea was really interesting. I felt it was a good reflection of the way society is moving and perhaps a precautionary tale of what things could eventually be like. The story is told from Anana's and Bart's point of view. Bart is a friend and fellow employee of Anana's dad and he finds himself more mixed up in things then he planned. The beginning is kind of slow. Especially Bart's first section seems to drag on, at one point he goes on a rant about a past writer/philosopher and I completely lost the point of his section. The language is also tricky in this book, especially in the beginning. I found myself having to look up a word every few pages. While annoying at first, this got better further into the book and I now think that this might have been done purposely by the author because as I got further in and learned more about what was going on I found myself hesitant to want to use my dictionary. As an intended plot device, I thought this was clever. The story gets more interesting as the book progresses. I am not sure I fully believed how the Word Flu came to be, but I am willing to go with it.

I liked Anana, though I felt she did far too much moping about Max in the beginning. He is obviously not a good person and she was blind to his faults. I liked Bart as well and thought his character had an interesting story arc throughout the book.

In general, I liked this book and thought it was an interesting take on the dystopian concept. I think that fans of Lexicon could also like this book.

Alena Graedon's The Word Exchange is a thought provoking and entertaining read about our relationship with smart things and each other. It is a dense work that requires effort to read, albeit a well rewarded effort. [Note: I did receive this from NetGalley as an advanced review copy in anticipation for an objective review.]

In Ms. Graedon's world, people are ceding their memories and vocabularies to their Meme (AKA smartphone on steroids). Memes also predict needs; hail cabs when you want one, order groceries when you're low and set up a doctor's appointment when you're feeling sick. As people become more dependent upon them, they become less capable and their Memes become smarter. In the midst of this dependency, a virus spreads effecting both men and machines. Our technological crutch (and its infrastructure) fails, as well as our own language. Some also become physically sick.

For full review wp.me/p2XCwQ-BA

This book was a lovely examination on the loss of language and thereby the loss of coherent thought. The book itself is a thought experiment - one that gave me pause and made me move away from the computer more than once! A celebration of words and their complexities, of the language that shapes our lives and of the seemingly inconsequential actions that can, when taken in the aggregate, lead to disaster. The Word Exchange convinced me of one thing: we must read. Read this book, read many books, read often and read well.

The best books make me think and this one certainly did! There is a dark side to technology and this book reminds me that our old way of life of words can go down this path. When will our technology take over our thinking. I think the seeds are here now. We should be aware of this. Sadly, or not, one part of this novel is about the last dictionary is being published the old way. One of the main characters is about the last editor, who is trying to cling to the old ways. There is a price he is paying dearly for and struggles with it the entire book. This is a really good mystery along with morals that change faster than people can keep up with. Oh, the "Meme" thinks for us, telling us what to do, what to think, what to choose and there is little thought beyond what the "Meme" tell us. Words have become something you buy and people are becoming filthy rich doing it. They don't care that words have become a commodity while we think less and less. Some of the best books are the ones you can actually imagine happening just as they are written and not so far off into the future that it seems like science fiction. This book is so well written I could not believe it is a debut author. The readers in the world (and aren't there fewer and fewer of us) cling to words strung together to make our world a richer place. What if that changes us just like the people in this novel. It could happen and you need to read the book to see if you might be vulnerable.

Set in the near future, The Word Exchange takes place in a world where print is almost extinct and people can biologically interface with smartphone-like devices called Memes. Anana is searching for her missing father, following a single clue he left behind. She follows a trail which uncovers a secret society and the true intentions of the corporation behind the Meme, all while the English language begins to decay thanks to a "word flu" pandemic.

The way the technology worked and how the word flu spread make me skeptical. I'm not sure if I felt like details were too scarce, if the details weren't consistent enough, or if I wanted things to be more grounded in reality. Also, the characters seemed flat and one-dimensional. During what should have been signification moments of interaction between characters, I didn't feel anything for them at all; it felt like filler. Some more background would probably have helped me connect with them.

I did enjoy the way Graedon uses (and tinkers with) language throughout the novel. I wondered if the story would eventually dissolve into gibberish at some point. The premise behind this dystopian world is what kept me turning the pages, and that is what kept me wanting to read more. When it was all over, though, that wasn't enough to make me feel like I loved this book.

Even though this one fell flat for me...Whatever the future brings when it comes to technology, The Word Exchange will certainly come to mind!

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

The Word Exchange, Alena Graedon's debut novel, presents readers an all-too-possible future in which the frequently foreseeable demise of the printed word has truly come to pass. The Word Exchange is a deterrent tale about society’s growing dependence on digital communication and information, and its possible impact on language when paired with corporate greed.

Graedon tells the tale through a handful of main characters. At its core is Anana Johnson, who works with her father, Doug. The other storyteller is “Bart,” the deputy editor at the same dictionary company and Doug’s apprentice, whose handwritten periodical records tell his view of events. The Word Exchange‘s characters are lenses to scrutinise equally the societal effect of technology and the significance of language and words.

The Word Exchange is a great read, inquiring immense questions about our present and our future; Anana's research force readers to ponder the ever-increasing part technology plays in our day-to-day lives and the significance of language in determining identities and collaborating with the world around us. Graedon's ingenious integration of obscure language will leave persons reading on paper going for the closest dictionary—whereas persons on e-readers will think twice about clicking on the words on the display to look up their meanings.

An Advanced Readers Copy was provided by the publisher in return for an honest review.

I got this title through NetGalley for an honest, unbiased feedback, and I'm glad I got it. THE WORD EXCHANGE is an intriguing dystopian story of the dangers of relying too much on technology, especially technology that can interact with your mind / brain. It is obvious that the author is quite erudite, but I also appreciated her skill in creating new, nonsensical words as characters fall ill with the "word flu." All in all, very pleasurable read. Check it out.

I was intrigued to want to read through this book based on the concept that forms the basis of the story. In the future, print is dead. Everything essentially exists in a digital form. The consequences of this mean that stories and truth can be changed instantly.

As a fan of dystopian novels (my favorites being George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World), I was immediately captured by the concept of the novel. The device called a meme was really interesting and though set in the indeterminate future, like all great futuristic fiction, there must be things you can grasp onto now to make the story make logical sense and this device and the setting really do so.

The word-flu and the disappearance of the main character's father, just when he is completing the dictionary giving people the ability to remember words whose meaning is being lost (think of teenagers who only communicate through social media) and the story has much current relevance.

Overall, I would say that this book falls somewhat short of the expectations I had given the premise and the glowing reviews. I am not sorry in the least I read it. I would recommend this book to others for a vision of a - dark - future that we can all glimpse in some ways. However, overall, the book moved somewhat slowly for me in parts and I did feel as though I had to slog through parts. But, this is a brilliant concept and weighing that against the weaknesses, I would still think if you are intrigued enough by the concept, it is a very worthwhile read.

Good, worthwhile, but not great.

Alena Graedon's ability to turn a phrase, to paint a picture, to present the future and the world in which we could live is nothing short of exquisite. The world of Anan Johnson is not one I would want to visit as it has been so vividly portrayed. So The Word Exchange is a reality check for us. Aren't we moving into that world where technology knows what I want better than I do? I thought of my e reader company sending me email after email asking me if certain books are interesting to me. They want to know me better, they say.
My only doubt with the story line is the virus/flu not quite being believable. However, it served to be a reminder that this is fiction since it seemed so real. On the other hand, I loved the words with definitions at the beginning of each chapter.
I could not believe this refresh, original book is the author's first. Hopefully this is the first of many with many words.

Copy provided by NetGalley for an honest review.

The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon has a fascinating premise. In the near future, the printed word is all but dead. Nearly everyone in the U.S. has a device called a Meme. Even better than a Smartphone, Memes intuit what their owners need. Need a cab? Your Meme will hail one before you even realize it. Searching for a word? Your Meme will quickly find it for you on the Word Exchange, for only a few cents per word.

Then people start showing signs of the Word Flu – using nonsense words instead of real ones, to the point where they can’t be understood. A powerful company has been buying up the rights to all the English words in the world, so Meme users have to pay more each time their Memes find a word for them. Copies of the last print edition of a great American dictionary are being burned; pretty soon the only place to look up words will be the Word Exchange. That and the Oxford English Dictionary, the lone holdout against greedy corporate interests.
Although I have a Smartphone, I do worry about the influence of digital devices and social media on our lives. When one goes out for a meal with family or friends, one or more of the people present are constantly checking their devices. Studies show autocomplete functions when we text or write are changing the way we communicate, as many people are too lazy to find the word they mean and accept the generic word everyone is using instead.

This book certainly taps into my own fears about what is happening in society. The author of a paper put out by the book’s word “underground resistance” writes, “Our facility for reflection has dimmed, taking with it our skill for deep and unfettered thinking.” (p. 85) I’ve had this thought myself, and ranted the following along with one of the characters:
As a nation, we’ve been practicing mass production since before World War II. We believed wastefulness would morph, by magic, into wealth. That if we created enough disposable products, it would help fire consumerism. And it did, for a while. But here’s a dirty secret: resources are finite. Waste enough, and eventually it’s all used up. (p. 345)

The Word Exchange is broken into 26 chapters, one for each of the letters in the English alphabet. Each chapter starts with a word and a definition. Although I loved the concept of this book, it’s not perfect. I had a very hard time following some plot points. There are two narrators, and one of them is suffering from the Word Flu. His chapters are filled with nonsense words, which got old very fast. But the book has a satisfying ending, and I recommend it to other readers interested in where technology is taking us. If you enjoyed Ready Player One, Amped, or A Working Theory of Love, you might enjoy The Word Exchange.

I read an advance reader copy of The Word Exchange.

The Word Exchange tells a haunting tale of a world where smart phones have completely infiltrated our lives. The story is not so far off from where we are today. Things go wrong when a virus comes through the devices, leading to a pandemic.

Graedon has created a world that is terrifying because it is so believable. She has accurately painted the reliance we have for technology, and while the idea of a virus being spread from tech to humans is far-fetched, the ramifications of the virus do not seem so far off.

One cannot help but feel that Graedon has created a cautionary tale. As technology becomes more prevalent, our vocabularies decrease and our reliance on having information available at the touch of a button eliminates our need to retain anything, much like the world of The Word Exchange.

This is definitely a must-read for anyone who enjoys thrillers or words (the word selections are fantastic and sure to improve your vocabulary)

The last fiction I reviewed was a short story collection; this time it’s a novel. This allows the reader to get a better sense of the characters’ personalities, though a strength of the book is that you are never quite sure what their role is in all of this. I will try to avoid spoilers! This book, especially towards the end when the pieces may be coming into place, even shows the power of love in desperate times and what (some) people may do under extreme circumstances. Some of the chapters are from one character’s diaries, and really are like a journal – trying to jot down ideas for the sake of memory, and the sidetracked conversation one often has with pen and paper – or whatever technology was used in that world. The vocabulary and wide reading (references to obscure authors or philosophers) are sometimes a bit much, but keep in mind that they work for a Dictionary. Presenting things as a definition has almost become a cliché, but the chapter titles here are clever. The use of newspaper clippings, letters, pamphlets and other printed(?) forms are well-done. Footnotes play an especially interesting role, and are handy on an e-reader. Beyond the diary entries, the author did seem to put in perhaps too many details of her own life. It is important for a writer to do so – what else do we write about? – but it threatened to distract from the main plot, which is exciting enough on its own. Please realize, too, that the copy I read was an advance reading proof.

“The Word Exchange” challenges the reader in many ways, which is one thing I like about it. This includes the slow unravelling pace – you think you’ve got it figured out but it never quite states flat out what’s going on; it might even raise more questions. The book is set in the near-future: about five years from now is my guess. Much of the action takes place in New York City. Already technology has evolved at a fast and steady rate. For example, driverless taxis are nothing compared to what’s at the center of this story: the dangerous fusion of devices and our own bodies. The “Meme” is a super-device that takes care of all of your “needs”, whether or not you need them. The next generation, the Nautilus, is kept as a top secret until its release, and really does have the power to change everything. One requirement, and complication, is the use of an implanted microchip. A friend’s dad had told me a long time ago people will one day have chips in their ears so they can understand any language, and I didn’t like that at all. (By the way, I have studied Spanish, which has taken a long time for me to feel in control of, and I think there is an issue of trust when learning any second language.) Again, when reading the book, I couldn’t help thinking “why would anyone want to put a microchip in their body???” Many people choose to cover themselves with tattoos or piercings or plastic surgery, and while those are in general aesthetic rather than functional (and to be fair, a separate issue), the faith placed in unnecessary introduced foreign objects worries me. Maybe I just worry too much. (Another separate issue I can’t understand, one that really frustrates me, is why anyone chooses to NOT vaccinate their children against diseases, and end up causing more harm.)

A few years ago, my computer had a virus and I got sick around the same time, joking I got it from my computer. Five years from now, could that really happen? Now, can you imagine if the very words we use are taken over, trade-marked, monopolized? One corporation in “The Word Exchange” dominates the market, and I think it’s no coincidence that the CEO’s first name is Steve. Their products are manufactured outside the United States, and popular belief is that they don’t get viruses. One of the scary things is the pricing: it’s not a far extrapolation from today’s conditions. They can put a price tag on everything, even the intangible, and they’ll get you to buy more and more, out of dependence.

One mechanism used by the corporation is the “Meaning Master” game. At first the likelihood of a word-based game becoming addictively popular seems a little low, but look how popular some have become, not to the mention social media that thrives on rapid, often truncated communication. In a high school English class, I remember playing what I think we called ‘balderdash’, where we made up fake definitions for real words, with one real definition to be guessed from the choices. “Meaning Master” sounds very similar, but has a monetary system and potential fame for its “lucky” users. Its danger is in its lasting value, and the confusion of words and their meanings, until they are replaced and both lose their meanings. When people in the novel start showing aphasia – slips of tongue, where a nonsense word takes the place of the intended word – it is not clear what the cause is. This epidemic is the most brilliant display of science fiction in the book, in my opinion. Not only are people affected, but e-mail and other future means of communication show similar “symptoms”. Cyrillic letters are sometimes part of this, raising still more questions. The “Alice in Wonderland” allusions throughout might make more sense as the nonsense words become integrated into the text.

Think about how we use words, to express ourselves. I want to improve my vocabulary, but I use the words I am familiar and comfortable with. My e-reader has the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary “built in” and I started using this more towards the end of the book, but even with such convenience, I don’t always take advantage. Maybe I should? What is the best way to learn, anyway? I was also thinking about the ‘Esperanto’ language, and the dilution of centuries of cultural and linguistic evolution. I remembered seeing in the news a few years ago a piece about endangered languages and the extinction possibility or inevitability of some cases. All of these thoughts and many more arose while reading: I am easily distracted, but this is also a clearly thought-provoking work.

The novel invites comparisons to “Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore” by Robin Sloan, one of my new favorite books (“The Word Exchange” will be joining that list too, I think). Secret societies, underground adventures, and the clashing of the new against the old are some shared elements. The darker side here is the epidemic: virology but in a new, different sense. I’m glad I recently read “Fahrenheit 451,” too – a book that the narrator even recalls in one fiery scene. “The Word Exchange” is an important book, with a fascinating plot. When I get my own print copy I will give it the second reading it deserves. There is so much in it, when I can read without taking so many notes and fewer resurfacing memories I will enjoy it even more.

I was not expecting this. The Word Exchange has challenged everything I know about what defines a good book, beaten the absolute s*** out of my standards, and spit them back out at me. I stand before you a little befuddled and completely in awe of Graedon's ability to redefine something about myself I once thought of as unyielding. There are few books that I can confidently coin as an experience, as readers we are gifted these books when we least expect it, but are most in need. The writing style is arduous but it's so consistent and entwined with a bigger implication, a cautionary tale on our relationship with and ever growing disparity in our ability to communicate. Alena Graedon's debut novel is a vivid reflection in, with and for language, an interactive looking glass that will boldly reveal the truth if you have the courage to peer through it.

"I am not yet so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of the earth, and that things are the sons of heaven."
- Samuel Johnson, preface to A Dictionary of the English Language

Anana lives in a parallel New York set in the not-so-distant future, grappling with a broken heart and a despondency found in most mid-twenty-somethings wandering throughout life. She works with her father, Doug Johnson, the Chief Editor of the North American Dictionary of the English Language, and has come of age in a world filled with Memes. Tricky little machines, life saving, life altering, intuitive, intrusive, all encompassing devices that facilitate every aspect of daily life.

The word "meme," coined by British Richard Dawkins in 1976, means an idea, pattern of behavior, practice, or style that spreads quickly from person to person within a given cultural context.

The Word Exchange is comprised of four unique elements, the journals of Bartleby and Anana, both of whom are recanting the same story from their own perspective. The third are her footnotes which at first are frustrating on the Kindle but are very useful and offer an interesting dynamic. The fourth is an op-ed piece for the Times, which was the turning point for me. To be honest, this was extremely difficult to get through in the beginning. It is drenched with unusual vocabulary, mundane details, and so many jagged puzzle pieces there isn't much to grasp onto. I counted the words I had to look up in the first quarter of the book, my count is standing firm at 27 words which in itself is very polarizing.

I knew Graedon was hinting at a bigger picture, but how are you supposed to emotionally connect to a book if the words don't hold any meaning to you, personally?

Wait.

Hold on... I think…

Did I just get schooled by a dystopian novel?

That's some next level ish, son.

After that the vernacular becomes much more relatable while still maintaing it's integrity. The world around Anana and Bart starts to spiral into chaos, confronted with a corporate conspiracy and an underground resistance, the word flu pandemic explodes on the public while she investigates the disappearance of her father. He's left her a series of clues and Anana must continue her search for answers while the lives of everyone she knows hang in the balance.

I adore these dynamic and flawed characters. This bizarre parallel world where machines can communicate and anticipate our wants and needs frightened me more than I would have thought, and I tip my hat to Alena Graedon for delivering this much needed lesson in such a haunting and poignant way.

For. The. Love.
This is an outstanding, wonderful, thought-provoking, deep, warm, engrossing read. I never expected to be so drawn-in by the premise or the characters of this book when I began it. I simply thought it would be an interesting romp through a conspiracy theorist's vision of the future of books. It was certainly not what anyone would call a romp and there is nothing simple about this title!!!
I loved it. I loved all of the new words I learned and the theories about language and Ana and Doug and Bart! I want to know them in real life. I want to work at a dictionary. And I want to read for a living. Sigh. Books like this make me so glad that I practically do...

Highly interesting, intelligent plotline and premise for a story that takes place in a not so distant future involving the use of meme's for people, the corporations that make the meme's, hackers and the death of the written word and print. Also is part mystery and has the main protagonist Anana, also known as 'Alice', who works for a Dictionary company and is searching for her missing father. Amongst all this there's chaos within the corporation involving the death of print and the meme's infecting people and causing a word flu. Corporations taking control over words, print, and inventing new words to replace the old, also viruses due to this new technology and how it coincides with the meme's and chips they have going. Book also has a bit of philosophical ideas and centers around a Hegelian-Esque type of plot for most of the story.

As some of the characters contract this 'Word Flu', they start speaking unintelligible gibberish that the reader can only interpret or guess on, as far as the sentences the character is speaking. Also this I found to be highly annoying and unnecessary. Not sure if the author thinks this adds to the story.. I also didn't care for the ending, the whole story has you thinking it's the main antagonist but then you're thrown in a lesser more unimpressive ending to what could've been better had the main story been followed through.

As another reviewer stated, it does sound a bit like a dictionary, but that's the main aspect of the plot and is central to it. But the author seems to take it a step further than words just being there because they're intrinsic to the plot. It's almost as if she's trying to cram every word shes ever learned into every other page, just for show, not even for it being connected to the story. Also the chapter titles coincide with dictionary terms and words. The author also seems to have an affinity to Alice in Wonderland and throws aspects of that into the story. This author definitely has a lot of promise and the book is well written- It's just that there's too much character development instead of too little, gets silly with the whole 'Word Flu Dialect', also the ending falls short when it could have been great. Too long and loses it's steam towards the end. Four for the writing and three for the whole story and ending.

My Thoughts On The Book: The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon was an amazing book. It is written in 26 chapters each named for a letter of the alphabet. The Word Exchange lis the kind of book that makes you think about our reliance on electronic devices. As a teacher and a purist, one who loves to read the physical book and not choose e-formats, this book was a real eye-opener for me. I had to stop and wonder what word would I miss most from the English language. I grew up with a mother who made me use a dictionary to discover the world of words and I would miss this act terribly. I love the smell of books and if given a choice will chose a "real" book over an electronic one anytime.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Netgalley, as part of their Book Review Blogger Program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I've read a review which compares this novel with "Super Sad True Love Story" by Gary Shteyngart and wrecks "The Word Exchange". On the contrary, I thought "The Word Exchange" is much better novel than "Super Sad True Love Story". "The Word Exchange" is more interesting and believable. It makes you think how we use internet and smart phone, and you start questioning yourself. I also like the atmosphere of the novel and characters.

I have encountered several problems, and I initially gave it 4 stars. However, the story stayed with me for a long time and it became more interesting in my mind. Because I believe this novel is more enduring, I switched to 5 stars. I am looking forward to re-reading this novel with my friends.

"The Word Exchange: A Novel" by Alena Graedon is a brilliant book with an all too feasible premise. A dystopian world where all printed matter is no more. No books, no magazines, no newspapers, etc. Gone. Everyone has all the information they need available on their Smartphones called memes. And memes not only give you information you ask, they tell you what you want to know before you realize it yourself. You and your meme are close. So close that when it gets a sick, you get sick too. How cozy. You, your meme, the Word Flu.

A very engaging story that pulled me into a fast paced, page turning, truly original book. This is a book unlike anything I've read before. It almost seemed to be foretelling the future which I found disturbing. The way people are attached to their phones now....who knows!

From the first page of The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon, I was caught up in the horror of a world where everyone relies on their electronic devices to guide every aspect of their lives and help them communicate with the world, to the point that they cannot survive without them. And here I was, reading Graedon's novel on my ereader. at a convention filled with geeks of every kind, having set my smartphone to let me know when it was time to leave for a panel. One friend near me was checking her email on her tablet, while another watched a movie on her laptop, and a third was doing searches on his smartphone for places to eat in the area. Often life is as strange as fiction, but rarely does it echo it so closely. I even had the technology at-hand to look up words I didn't recognize with a touch of a finger.

Fortunately, thus far anyway, I was not forced down the path that Graedon's characters faced by doing the same thing. Almost universally, everyone in her book is linked together via Memes (handheld devices) and rely on them for everything. One of the favorite uses is to buy knowledge of what word to use in a conversation, via a marketplace called the Word Exchange. As the novel progresses more and more people fall victim to the Word Flu as a result of their growing dependence on the Word Exchange, starting with bouts of forgetting a word and on to aphasia, replacing words with nonsense, and leading to dementia and even death.

Anana Johnson, who worked with her father at the North American Dictionary of the English Language (NADL) until he disappeared, discovers a world she never imagined when she sets out to find her missing father while trying to avoid contracting the Word Flu. Her father was a staunch defender of the written word and did not even own a Meme; when he vanished he left behind a note that sends Anana on a journey to rival Alice in Wonderland's. She is, time and again, thrown into situations where the technology she has come to rely on is the very last thing she should use. She is hampered at every step by those around her who want her to give in completely to the call of the Meme, not comprehending that it might be their beloved Word Exchange that is making them sick. She is assisted by a coworker from NADL and various acquaintances of her father's who seem to know far more than they are willing to share, but who do seem to be helping people keep from getting sick. And, the farther in she goes, the stranger things become, from secret pathways under New York to strange messages on sides of buildings, all hints that she is on the right path, both to breaking free from her addiction to the Meme and to finding her father.

This is a cautionary tale that says, among other things:
“As more and more of our actions are mediated by machines . . . there’s no telling what will happen, not only to language but in some sense to civilization. The end of words would mean the end of memory and thought. In other words, our past and future.”

The Word Exchange
A Novel
Alena Graedon

The Word Exchange poses that very question in a thrilling fictional novel. How much do we depend on devices for language? Is this dependence making us smarter or deteriorating our language; or our minds? As viruses run rampant through electronic fields, and seasonal biological fields, can one cross over into the other? Can an electronic virus affect a human mind and body?

This novel hits on so many current topics, the reliance on technology and what that technology snowplows over to become the latest thing. Are the printed books and paper forms of literature an extinct archeological find? Is it something we should be preserving now in great halls of antiquity because the future is already written that digital will conquer all? To what detriment will come with total society under technology dependence?

In this dystopian, not-too-far-off future digital rules and those that control the digital control the masses. This story is reminiscent of Fahrenheit 451’s television take over and book burning to the demise of society. Everyone should read this story as writing/spelling scores are already lower in our schools as a result of texting acronyms and reliance on “spell check”. Already the texted abbreviations are working into the vernacular and the new generations prefer to write in abbreviations. What will come of the encyclopedias of the world as everything moves online? What will become of the libraries when it is more efficient and speedier to visit the web for research than the stacks?
This is a brilliant novel that will become a classic once the readers are made aware of its intelligence.

To see other works by Alena Graedon visit her Face book page at: [...]

FTC Disclaimer: I was loaned an ARC of this title by Net Galley for review purposes only, no other compensation was awarded.

As a voracious reader (reviewing on this vendor's site no less!), the idea that print dying is something I fear, dread and often think is not too far down the road. Like passenger rail and what I suspect is soon to be the post office I often wonder how short sighted a society can be to toss away the resources that enable us to travel, send post and eventually pick up a book. It has happened and it can easily happen,

Graedon does a good job with the idea. And it is mostly a page turning novel. However the effort to build her setting and convey it to the reader is a clunky one and causes the book to stumble and stall more than once. The first half seeming to move like a fly in amber it was so slow in segments that did not outright ruin the book, but felt labored both on the author's part and this reader's.

Wow! Occasionally, as a reader we come across something truly original, something extraordinary. The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon is just that. I will admit that it was a bit of a slow start for me and at the beginning of summer when things are busy I didn't have the time to devote to it that I had wished. Once I was able to really sink my teeth into it, I was hooked.

Sometime in the not too distant future we have become dependent upon our personal electronic devises, known as Memes in Graedon's novel. Memes are our phones, our contact lists, they order our groceries and hail our taxis. More than that, they are an extension of our memories, remembering things and people for us. Some people have taken it a step further and had a microchip implanted in their brains and the newest upgrade is a device that attaches directly to one's forehead that interacts with one's brain function, supplying a constant stream of information ranging from the current temperature to the names of the other people in the room. It even serves to replay memories complete with sounds, tastes and smells. As we have become more and more digitized, print has neared extinction. Newspapers no longer exist, books are a rarity and libraries have become private museums. One character said this: "And I tried, for about two minutes, to read a book, until my mind collapsed in boredom." Adding irony to it all, I read this on my Kindle so each time a character mentioned how unusual reading from books had become, I felt slightly chastened.

As people have continued to use their Memes to communicate, play games and conduct business, it seems their intellectual capabilities have weakened. "Our facility for refection has dimmed, taking with it our skill for deep and unfettered thinking." The Word Exchange is actually the way people look up the definitions on their Memes as they have increasingly forgotten their meanings. Each definition has a cost of course. "Suffice it to say that as our idiom shrinks, the Word Exchange has become far more lucrative." One of the features I like about my Kindle is the option to look up any words I don't know. Graedon intentionally included many obscure words and I found myself clicking define often. See if you recognize any of these:

amanuensis

jeremiad

apotheosis

cynosure

consentient

sapient

perseveration

simulacra

lacrimate

insalubrious

ineluctably

panicles

ouroboros

circumlocutions

risible

alluvial

limn

bombenbrandschrumpfleichen

elisions

diffidently

puerile

lugubrious

prolixity

discrete (no, not discreet)

averred

abstruse

mellifluous

putative

thaumaturgic

sobriquet

sapient

sibilant

concomitantly

solipsistic

That's quite a list, isn't it?

Unfortunately for the users of this technology, a virus is being spread only it isn't your typical computer virus. This one, called the Word Flu, involves code fusing with your DNA. Symptoms include fever, nausea, muscle aches and aphasia- the inability to speak coherently. Victims usually don't realize their speech has altered and it is spread simply by hearing an infected person speak even over the phone or the television. The word flu can be fatal, but even those who survive are rendered mute. And who is responsible for this? Hackers? A nefarious corporation hoping to capitalize on society's Meme addictions? The conspiracy theories abound and add to the excitement.

I really enjoyed this book. It was brilliantly conceived and expertly executed. It was not an easy read, my brain was certainly stretched, but as made clear by the plot that is a good thing. This is exactly the kind of book that I wish had been a book club selection because I would love to have a nice long discussion about it. There are so many interesting points that it deserves thorough analysis. If you read it, let me know. I would really love to discuss it with you!

Check out more of my reviews at SmartGirlsRead!

[...]

the word exchange
by alena graedon
this is an odd book, looking at the use of language, and what would happen if language was taken from us, in the last days of publishers, the last day of dictionaries, and the story of personal struggle to find meaning in life.

This book is a thrilling adventure. What if we no longer had items in print? No newspapers, magazines, books, and people began to lose their ability to speak or communicate in the written word? I hope we read more of Alena Graedon’s works. What a great first novel! This would make a great movie.

What would happen if we could no longer communicate with each other? If we can no longer use, or even understand, the words that the vast majority of us take for granted and that form the basis of both personal interaction and knowledge?

This very interesting and frightening idea is the premise of The Word Exchange, the debut novel of Alena Graedon, which I received an advance copy of in exchange for an honest review. The novel touches on quite a few genres/themes — sci-fi, dystopian, conspiracy thriller, romance, fear of technology & globalization, a certain fairy tale — but ultimately it is a love note to words, printed or spoken, and the folks who love words.

Set in the not-too-distant future, the story is told mostly from the perspective of Ana Johnson, a twenty-something New Yorker who works for her father, Doug, editor of the North American Dictionary of the English Language (NADEL). Doug, who is one of those who love words, suddenly goes missing just days before the launch of the third, and likely final, print edition of the NADEL.

Doug had always been a bit of a wild card, heading off on adventures in Alaska and exploring the sewers of New York City, but Ana becomes instantly worried because of late his rants about technology’s negative impact on language had become more dire and opaque. He even hands Ana two bottles of pills to take in the event she gets sick and can’t speak clearly. This is the first hint the reader gets of what would eventually be called SO111 — the word flu. As Ana digs into her father’s disappearance the world she knows begins to crumble as the first traces of SO111 appear in New York, leaving both her and the reader to wonder if the two are connected.

Viewed from 2014, Ana’s world is an imagined future that could easily be realized. Print — books, newspapers, magazines, restaurant menus — has become for the most part a curiosity for collectors. Even texts and email are the stuff of memory, replaced by “beams” of information that are based on your thoughts.

Printing and writing words has been rendered obsolete by the evolution of “smart” devices, especially the Meme, a sort of future iPhone that dispenses medicine and can sense its owner’s needs and wants. Manufactured by the Synchronic corporation, the Meme will add everyone you meet to your virtual contacts list as well as update your Life status (one can only guess Life is Mark Zuckerberg’s follow-up to Facebook). Encounter a word you don’t recognize? For a small fee the Meme will pull the meaning from The Word Exchange, Synchronic’s database of words.

Of course the downside to having everything done for you is clear: you forget how to do it for yourself, and in doing so you become dependent on others. This can be unimportant when the stakes are low — taking your car in for an oil change instead of doing it in your driveway — but potentially disastrous when dealing with the underpinning of knowledge and human interaction.

As interesting as I found the premise, I’m a bit underwhelmed at the novel itself. It seemed overlong by about a third, and the pacing was erratic. As devastating as the potential havoc that a virus like the word flu could generate, I never felt a sense of real danger for Ana or her cohorts until the suspicious death of a very minor character near the halfway point. In contrast to the somewhat ponderous early third of the book, the final chapters move at lightning speed to a conclusion that left some unanswered questions.

And a word about … the words. There are a lot of Mark Twain’s “five-dollar words” in The Word Exchange. Part of this is because many of the characters are lovers of words: lexicographers, publishers, writers. Part of it, I came to suspect after finishing the novel, is a result of Ana’s therapy after exposure to the virus. Even so, I used the “dictionary look-up” feature on my Kindle quite often, which may or may not have been an irony intended by the author.

I would never fault an author for telling a story the way they want to tell it. In different hands, the word virus premise could have been a fast-paced, slick sci-fi story that does for lexicographers what Indiana Jones did for archaeologists. I’m not saying it would be better told that way — just that it could have been. It is obviously not the way Ms. Graedon wanted to tell it, and I respect that. In the end I gave The Word Exchange three stars, which on my review scale means: A good read, worth a reader’s time in my opinion. I enjoyed it.

Disclosure: I received this book free from the publisher through Net Galley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Synopsis
A dystopian novel for the digital age, The Word Exchangeoffers an inventive, suspenseful, and decidedly original vision of the dangers of technology and of the enduring power of the printed word.

In the not-so-distant future, the forecasted “death of print” has become a reality. Bookstores, libraries, newspapers, and magazines are things of the past, and we spend our time glued to handheld devices called Memes that not only keep us in constant communication but also have become so intuitive that they hail us cabs before we leave our offices, order takeout at the first growl of a hungry stomach, and even create and sell language itself in a marketplace called the Word Exchange.

Anana Johnson works with her father, Doug, at the North American Dictionary of the English Language (NADEL), where Doug is hard at work on the last edition that will ever be printed. Doug is a staunchly anti-Meme, anti-tech intellectual who fondly remembers the days when people used email (everything now is text or videoconference) to communicate—or even actually spoke to one another, for that matter. One evening, Doug disappears from the NADEL offices, leaving a single written clue: ALICE. It’s a code word he devised to signal if he ever fell into harm’s way. And thus begins Anana’s journey down the proverbial rabbit hole . . .

Joined by Bart, her bookish NADEL colleague, Anana’s search for Doug will take her into dark basements and subterranean passageways; the stacks and reading rooms of the Mercantile Library; and secret meetings of the underground resistance, the Diachronic Society. As Anana penetrates the mystery of her father’s disappearance and a pandemic of decaying language called “word flu” spreads, The Word Exchange becomes a cautionary tale that is at once a technological thriller and a meditation on the high cultural costs of digital technology.

It was hard to finish this book- I wanted to put it down and walk away. But that doesn’t mean it is horribly written book- Science Fiction is WAY over my head. I did find myself correlating a list within my head of those I know who would love this book. You might be one too!

What I did enjoy about the book was the author’s writing style. Each Chapter is labeled with a letter and a word that correlates with that particular chapter’s letter. I also enjoyed the footnotes at the end of each chapter and found them to be helpful. The author writes with much imagination and creativity making the book very interesting by itself.

The quest to find Anana’s, or Ana, father, Doug would be enjoyed by those who love science fiction and have a passion for the technological world we live in. The books characters are wonderfully detailed, lacking nothing what-so-ever.

Science fiction lovers, techies, and word enthusiasts: this book is for you. If you are like me and are a little bit more “simple” for lack of better words, give it a try anyways! You never know when you may have found a new favorite book.

As you may guess, "Word Exchange" is about words. The characters work for the Dictionary (one of the few remaining print versions) so of course they love words and their vocabulary and word choices are more intellectual. This often felt like wading through piles of words and verbiage, making for some slow reading. But that is part of it, when the Word Flu starts spreading characters start experiencing aphasia and speaking gibberish. So of course we the reader are resigned to trying to interpret the gibberish as well. I fully understand and appreciate why the author did this, but it sure did cause some stumbling points for me, taking me out of the story briefly as I worked to understand.

Those two points made the book feel like quite the reading feat, but they weren't the only thing. I struggled to connect and care for the two main characters, Anana and Bart. She was brave but seemed shallow to me and ignorant. The story actually seemed to be less about her and more about the events. Anana turned into more of a narrator, a background noise. Bart was better, his obsession with Anana made him feel more real, more human. However, his part in events was miniscule to almost non-existent. If he hadn't been written in, the book would have stood on its own.

What really kept me slogging through to the end was the realisticness. Graedon's world is a very realistic future for us. It is one in which society has become overly reliant on their Meme's (like advanced cell phones) and the printed word has almost ceased to exist. As a result words begin to lose their meaning, and helped along with a few technological bio-terrorists, a word flu spreads like wildfire. I can totally see our current society headed in this direction. I give major props to Graedon for creating a dystopian future that could very well be our own future, and doing it in such a way that gets the reader to stop and think about their own technology choices!

Overall, my feelings for this novel result in a big 'meh'. I could only recommend this work to folks who like lengthier, deeper reads about a dystopian future that could realistically become our very own future (not, for example like Hunger Games or Divergent). All this being said, I am rating "Word Exchange" with 3 stars. I'm glad I read it, but I won't be reading it again
--I received a review copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own

I love the concept of The Word Exchange--a language virus spreads through people's ubiquitous, all-knowing, smartphone-plus-esque devices. Slowly, people forget what words mean, and rely more on their devices for definitions as well as everything else. And then they start getting sick.

Graedon executes this concept elaborately, spending a bit too much time summarizing and catching the reader up on how this all could have happened. The book's best parts are when we are in the moment, right with the characters: a lavish party full of device-wearing power players going horribly wrong, or protagonist Ana stumbling across a bizarre, other-worldy type scene in the basement of her office building. Where The Word Exchange suffers most is in its information relays, and there are many of them. Many of the explanations are strained, and I wish Graedon would have accepted the fiction of her story and run with it. I realize this isn't the style of all sci-fi authors, but any story that engrosses me with its characters and their perceptions of the world around them won't leave me asking how the whole thing was possible.

I loved Ana and Bart, The Word Exchange's two main characters. As a female book lover, I can totally dig a young woman who works at a dictionary and cruises flea markets for funky vintage stylings, a collector of random oddities who is slightly ashamed of her nerdy interests. And her coworker Bart is pretentious in a hilarious and charming way that only someone who reads way too much could appreciate.

The format of the book was so language-oriented I almost couldn't handle it at times. I saw other reviewers complaining about the use of thesaurus-like words, but this is explained in a footnote near the end. Ana is reading the dictionary as she is recovering, and she has begun to absorb unusual words. More importantly, I think looking up these words constantly was supposed to mirror the experience of what happened in the book. Just as people in the book (including Ana) turned to their devices for definitions, we as readers were also turning to devices for definitions. I think as an experiential effect, it was rather cool and unique. As Bart's language suffers, his journal entries became littered with nonsense words, which would be fine for a few pages, but really frustrated me for longer periods of reading. But again, I do think this could also be seen as an experiential effect--as Bart was losing his language, I also experienced being unable to recognize words on the page.

This was Alena Graedon's first book and it is a very smart creation, and I look forward to reading her next book. Hopefully the next one will focus less on why things happen, and just tell me what happens as it is happening.

I thought this book was brilliant though I realize that it is not for everyone. I've noticed from reading other reviews that people seem to have loved it or hated it -- many rated it without actually finishing more than a couple of chapters. I loved it because I love words -- those that I hear, speak, or write. Vocabulary fascinates me and I always have a dictionary close - and it really got a workout while I was immersed in this imaginative tale involving an epidemic of "word flu" -- a condition wherein victims can no longer communicate appropriately in their native language; the "virus" is initially most severe in the USA. Speech is garbled and words are nonsense. People cannot be understood as made up words spontaneously erupt and other words simply disappear or suddenly have new meanings or definitions.

In the not-so-distant future, the entire world is dependent on handheld devices called Memes. These digital marvels can anticipate almost every need and citizens have become quite attached to them. In fact, most people don't have to remember anything, even everyday words, because the Word Exchange can give a word to use and a definition whenever necessary in a barrage of texting, messaging or beaming. Books, letters, photographs, maps -- printed material of all kinds -- have slowly disappeared. Even paper and the act of writing on it have become nearly obsolete.

There are only a few holdouts trying to prevent further obsolescence. Anana Johnson works with her father, Doug, who is the Chief Editor for the North American Dictionary of the English Language (NADEL) in New York. One night, right before launch of the latest and last print edition, Doug disappears. Frantic to find him from strange clues he left behind, Ana embarks on a harrowing mission just as the language virus hits. Her search leads her to a secret society, puts her life in danger, and forces her to confront the nature of being human.

Set in the near future, this dystopian novel takes aim at our increasing dependence on technology and serves as a warning that we perhaps ought not to rely so much on our devices to meet our every need but should instead focus more on conversation, thinking and reading. Turn off the constant contact with meaningless data, learn multiple languages, take a break from being "plugged in" -- a least for a couple of hours a day!

I really enjoyed this story concept and allowed myself to suspend disbelief when the science was shaky (re: the "virus") and just went along for the ride. It's fiction and an author is always allowed liberties! This would be an excellent choice for a book club as there are many great points to discuss and debate. I'd recommend it to all those who love linguistics and their dictionaries!

A comment about format: When reading this book on a Kindle device you may have difficulty following the footnotes.

Lastly -- this book reminded me of a series written by Jasper Fforde -- the THURSDAY NEXT novels -- which I also enjoyed immensely.

The titles of the series are:

1. The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next) by Jasper Fforde 1st (first) Edition (2001)

2. Lost in a Good Book

3. The Well of Lost Plots (A Thursday Next Novel)

4. Something Rotten

5. Thursday Next: First Among Sequels: A Thursday Next Novel

6. One of Our Thursdays Is Missing: A Thursday Next Novel

7. The Woman Who Died a Lot: A Thursday Next Novel

Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday for the e-book ARC to review.

I received a copy of The Word Exchange, the debut novel from author Alena Graedon, from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for my review. This book has been called "the dystopian novel for the digital age" and "inventive" and on some levels I agree with those descriptions. I loved the idea of The Word Exchange, which is set in the near future and deals with the constantly forewarned death of print media. Anana Johnson and her father Doug are working on the multi-volume third edition of the North American Dictionary of the English Language when Doug goes missing one night. As Anana searches for her father, entries in the dictionary start disappearing, and people begin to succumb to a disease that is dubbed "the word flu" and makes them talk in gibberish. Where is Doug Johnson? Who is behind "the word flu"?

There were so many things that I enjoyed about The Word Exchange. As I mentioned above, I loved the idea of the book. More than just a book about the death of print as a medium, this book actually goes farther to imagine the death of the English language as it is today. The allure of that premise drew me in immediately, and I felt that the basic story line held up to my expectations. All of the elements of a good dystopian story were there. Megacorporation Synchronic was plausible as the Big Brother figure, as was The Diachronic Society as the rebels fighting to preserve the current way of life, Anana as the plucky heroine, and Bart as her sidekick. Even the smallest of characters, like Vera and Victoria Marks were given interesting backgrounds that drew me to them. I think my favorites, though, were Phineas with all of his quirks and idiosyncrasies, and Max. My only detraction here was that I felt that the story went on a little bit too long. On story alone, though, I would give this book a 4 out of 5 stars.

Where I felt the book lost it was in the execution. The author uses a number of devices to illustrate the underlying philosophy of the story; that society is becoming immune to the finer points of the English language, but I felt that she tried to be too clever and that, on a whole, these devices ended up detracting from the story rather than enhancing it. The one that I felt worked the best was the way the chapters were organized by the letters of the alphabet. The inclusion of a word and definition at the beginning of each which gave an overview of the main points of that chapter was really good. In fact, that is the only device that I felt really worked. On the other hand, the author's use of obscure words unfamiliar to the average reader, while clever, was a huge detraction from the flow of the story. I consider myself to have a good vocabulary and I ended up having to look up upwards of 50 words, so many that I actually lost count. Eventually I began to think how lucky I was to be reading this on an e-Reader, with a dictionary definition just a touch away. While this may have been the author's attempt to point out how easily technology can suck you in, to me it just seemed like the author was actually touting that which she was supposed to be warning against. Another device that totally did not work for me was the actual printing the gibberish that people began to speak as "the word flu" spread. In the beginning it was interesting, illustrating how intrusive electronic devices have become in our society. As long as these gibberish words were kept to a minimum and it was easy to still figure out what the character actually meant to say, it was okay. After a while, though, it got old, and was so pervasive I ended up skipping whole pages, and toward the end, one whole chapter. While I understood that these devices were part of the plot of the book, I felt that the average reader would find them cumbersome and could find them enough of a distraction to actually give up on the book altogether.

Taking everything into consideration, I did enjoy this story on many levels. I can see a certain market for this book with just the right readers. I can't see a mass appeal for it, though, and for that reason I don't feel that I can recommend it to everyone. I will, however, recommend the book to certain of my reading friends, but that pool is unfortunately pretty small. I would like to see what this author could do with something a bit more mainstream.

Those looking for a clever and original thriller need look no further than The Word Exchange, the debut novel by author Alena Graedon. Successful suspense comes from writers that take ordinary things we consider harmless in day to day life, and turn them into something unsettling or menacing. As you may infer from the title, Graedon does this by turning words into something with a sinister side you never dreamed of.

A strange “word flu” is starting to spread through society in the near future; and it is beginning to have frightful consequences. Simple slips of the tongue begin to devolve into bouts of aphasia, and concerns about people not being able to communicate with each other at all start to rise.

As the story develops, conspiracy theories are floated, disease vectors considered, and a populace is threatened. Civilization itself will come crashing down if humans lose the ability to communicate with language. Where the disease comes from, and why it is spreading so quickly begins to consume the characters of the book as they also have to fight the effects of the illness.
After reading this novel, you will never look at words or dictionaries the same again. It is an astonishingly fresh story idea from a new author, and well worth the time to read. This is especially true for fans of horror, suspense, science fiction, and technology.
With rapid changes in our society coming as people begin to communicate by text message; this is something that everyone can relate to. Shorthand like LOL, IDK, SMH, and more is entering the lexicon at an accelerating pace. What if the devices used to communicate such messages were unable to help decipher their meanings?

This book is highly recommended. Four stars out of five.

I received this book free from the publisher as an advanced reader copy in exchange for writing an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

For anyone who loves books, “The Word Exchange” is a must read. I’ve always been an avid reader, so I found myself really connecting with the characters. This was a wonderful crafted and riveting story. It pulls you in quickly and keeps you engaged to the last page. I did find myself slowing a bit a certain points in the story, trying to read around the narrator’s aphasia. But over all I really enjoyed the authors writing style.

I was quickly drawn in by the mystery surrounding Doug’s disappearance and by Ana investigation into it. The characters all have great depth and feel very real. I really connected with Ana and was rooting for Bart (and wishing he would make better choices…) the whole time. I got so wrapped up at the end I stayed up late to finish it, something I haven’t done in quite a while.

Great story, great author – I’ll definitely be keep an eye out for anything else she writes!

Ana works for her father at the Dictionary. Just before the release of the third edition, his most significant work, he disappears. Ana is distraught. She has just broken up with her lover Max, and now her father is missing. Alone and frightened, she turns to Bart, a friend and co-worker. Bart is entranced by Ana. He can barely believe his good fortune. His friend Max is out of the picture, and Ana has turned to him.

The story is set in a future where people have become so dependent of their Memes, a device that sounds like a smart phone, that they use it to look up the words they can't remember. As the story progresses people increasingly forget words and start talking nonsense. Word Flu is gaining epidemic proportions. Communication is failing and civilization is rapidly disintegrating.

The plot is clever focusing on people's increasing dependence on personal machines to think for them. However, the story moves slowly. The book is written as personal journals kept by the principals, but as with many personal journals, the writers ramble. It becomes boring. The first chapters are particularly bad, and it isn't helped by Bart's tendency to throw in references to Hegel. About halfway through, the pace picks up, but by then you may have stopped reading.

I found the main characters unlikable. Ana is incredibly self-absorbed. I wanted to shake her and say get over it. Bart is more fun, but his tendency to be pretentious in his journal entries was off-putting.

The novel is set in a era of very advanced technology, at least as far as personal devices are concerned, but the rest of the setting is rather common place. I would have expected more advanced technology in other aspects of the world.

I can't recommend the book unless you particularly enjoy urban speculative fiction. As I noted in the beginning, I liked the idea, but felt the implementation didn't do it justice.

I reviewed this book for Net Galley.

If you read one new frontlist book this spring let this be it.

Graedon does magical things with words. This book is both beautiful and terrifying all at once. I can hardly believe that this is a debut novel. For a very serious bibliophile and someone with a casual interest in linguistics I found this book to be nearly flawless. The writing is lyrical and the vocabulary used throughout was challenging. (Yes, I realize there was irony in me looking up unfamiliar words on my Kindle version of the OED ... though I feel like I navigated the word flu pretty well.)

"The end of words would mean the end of memory and thought. In other words, our past and future."

The premise is brilliant, but more importantly it's wonderfully executed. Graedon's world building is believable and complete. She unfolds the story with expert pacing the reader is held at arms length for just long enough to get acclimated into a world where technology can predict what you want almost before you know you want it. It's easy to envision Doug as your crazy tin-hat wearing neighbor who won't get on 'The Google' because they're afraid of technology. (Except Doug is right. It leads you to reconsider the neighbor.) My one minor complaint is that I couldn't completely buy into the physical transmission of the word flu.

For lovers of print books, journals, and all things analogue, this book is for you. You will feel vindicated. For people think that our technology is outpacing our morality and corporations are exploiting this, this book is for you. For those that feel our privacy has been sacrificed at the altar of convenience and that the world is a bit too connected these days, this book is for you.

When I got my first iPod I hated having to click through songs that I wasn't in the mood for, in my youth I used to dream about the days that technology would just know what I wanted. The Word Exchange turns that dream into a very frightening reality.

"It was only when I finally gave it up for good that I realized just how much I'd ceded to the Meme: of course people's names and Life information (numbers, embarrassing stories, social connections) but also instructions for virtually everything [...] Getting rid of it was like cutting off a hand or breaking up with myself. Only later did I feel truly horrified that for years I'd invited something to eavesdrop on me. And not just my gainful breathing apparatus but the careful, quiet thicket of my thoughts."

God. Does that sound like social media or what?

This book epitomizes why I hate (and the imminent danger of) expressions like "totes adorbs". Seriously folks, are the extra syllables really that taxing on you? Western society is increasingly lazy, allowing machines to think for us, and if we fail to inoculate ourselves against the rising tide of internet acronyms, 'easy speech', and emoticons - something close to the world laid out in The Word Exchange will inevitably fall upon us. (Super guilty here on excessive smiley faces in casual text and online conversation.)

"How could we miss words? We were drowning in a sea of text. A new one arrived, chiming, every minute."

Now it's no secret that I do like my tech gadgets - especially when it comes to reading (most days I'd rather read an eBook than a real one...) but I do still read books.

True story: My ability to spell has declined embarrassingly since I bought a MacBook that underlines every spelling mistake that I make - I just right click that misspelled word and have the computer correct it for me... if I've come close enough for the computer to even recognize it. While I don't have aphasia yet ... let's not even go there, it's too scary.

I want this on all the Best of 2014 lists. This might be the best book I've read in years. This is the kind of book that I want to hand out on street corners. Go try it. Don't be afraid of footnotes, they're really not that copious. Don't be afraid of the vocabulary - that's part of the point.

Not a light read. I found myself thinking (and talking) about it more than any other book I have read recently. Only recommended it to friends who love words (and even the Literati might have to open a, gasp, dictionary). Incredible accomplishment for a young author/first book. I agree that we should read more, but I can't help thinking . . . movie.

The Word Exchange, by Alena Graedon, is a fascinating and entertaining novel that combines the unlikely subjects of language, infectious disease, romance and intrigue. I really enjoyed the deft way that Graedon wove the unfolding of the plot with discussions of language and what language means to our civilization. The characters were believable and drew me into their lives which for most of the novel revolved around rescuing the North American Dictionary from—well, read the book and you will be in for a great read—and you will never take your dictionary for granted again.

The Author pens "The Word Exchange" in a dark futuristic plot that was chilling and powerful with many twists and turns. I did find the book a bit tough to follow as there were a lot of words and the plot actually made me think instead of reading through enjoyably. If you are looking for a book that is challenging, this is the book for you.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the author which was provided for an honest review.

Anana Johnson works at NADEL (North American Dictionary of the English Language) with her father Doug and fellow employee Bart. They are working on the third print version of the dictionary. But they are in a dying field. Everyone now has Meme’s, electronic devices similar to our smart phones that work with a chip that is implanted into the user’s brain. So along with access to unlimited amounts of information, they can also order you food, a taxi, and other things.

Then Ana’s father disappears on his way to dinner with her. As Ana and Bart go looking for Doug they discovery a hidden conspiracy and a word flu is causing people to start uttering nonsensical words and dying from not being able to talk.

This book is put together in a unique way. It starts like someone used a Thesaurus to describe everything which meant that I had to look up words from nearly every sentence. Then the footnotes were more of an annoyance than adding to the story. But the more you progress the more the story breaks down. It was a pain to read but over all you can see how important this is to the story.

Beyond that, it was an interesting story but the way it was put together was a bit disappointment. If you can stick with it, the book isn’t bad but I can see a lot of people not liking it.

Shawn Kovacich
Author and Creator of numerous books and DVD's.

In the not too distant future in our digital world, the written word has become obsolete. Book stores, libraries and even dictionaries are disappearing. What everyone owns is a Meme(a highly advanced device which can do anything and everything for its owner. When Anana Johnson’s father Doug disappears she begins a search for him. At the same time the Memes become infected and therefore infects the owners. People are dying from a word virus.

When I read the premise, I was intrigued and wanted to really like this book. In today’s world everyone seems addicted to their smartphones and e-readers, that this story could be a premonition of things to come. Except it was really slow and I couldn’t get into. I didn’t give up and finished the book, but I have to say it dragged on, and I didn’t care for the characters both good and bad. In this dystopian world, this novel would be one of the first to go.

Alena Graedon has written an inventive and exciting world of the future. In this future Memes (I liked to think of them as tablets or phones) are how everyone gathers information. As people fully incorporate these devices into their lives the Memes start anticipating needs, diagnosing illnesses and, when a user needs it, provides the word you're looking for. There is even a new program that for a small fee will define a word you don't know. This, of course, leads to problems especially when a Word Flu is introduced to the public causing a global pandemic. Graedon not only reinvents the chapter by naming each one a letter of the alphabet (complete with a relevant definition) she weaves linguistics and philosophy so very cleanly that you don't even mind that you've never read Hegel or, if you have, that it's been a very long time.

Graedon's new book belongs on a reading list next to "Super Sad True Love Story" by Shteyngart, "Lexicon" by Max Berry. Fans of "Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore" by Robin Sloan and "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline will also find this novel particularly awesome.

You'd think that a mystery populated by dictionaries, the people who write those dictionaries, passionate lovers of language, tech nerds, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs can't possibly be much of a page turner, right? WRONG!

I had trouble putting down my iPAD and the Kindle edition of this book. You'd have to read THE WORD EXCHANGE to appreciate the irony.

You'd think that a mystery populated by dictionaries, the people who write those dictionaries, passionate lovers of language, tech nerds, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs can't possibly be much of a page turner, right? WRONG!

I had trouble putting down my iPAD and the Kindle edition of this book. You'd have to read THE WORD EXCHANGE to appreciate the irony.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Doubleday for the opportunity to read this e-ARC. Although I received the ebook for free, that in no way impacts my review. Given the challenge of this undertaking I am giving this book 3 stars.

<blockquote>A dystopian novel for the digital age, <em>The Word Exchange</em> offers an inventive, suspenseful, and decidedly original vision of the dangers of technology and of the enduring power of the printed word.

In the not-so-distant future, the forecasted “death of print” has become a reality. Bookstores, libraries, newspapers, and magazines are things of the past, and we spend our time glued to handheld devices called Memes that not only keep us in constant communication but also have become so intuitive that they hail us cabs before we leave our offices, order takeout at the first growl of a hungry stomach, and even create and sell language itself in a marketplace called the Word Exchange.
Anana Johnson works with her father, Doug, at the <em>North American Dictionary of the English Language (NADEL)</em>, where Doug is hard at work on the last edition that will ever be printed. Doug is a staunchly anti-Meme, anti-tech intellectual who fondly remembers the days when people used email (everything now is text or videoconference) to communicate—or even actually spoke to one another, for that matter. One evening, Doug disappears from the <em>NADEL</em> offices, leaving a single written clue: ALICE. It’s a code word he devised to signal if he ever fell into harm’s way. And thus begins Anana’s journey down the proverbial rabbit hole . . .
Joined by Bart, her bookish <em>NADEL</em> colleague, Anana’s search for Doug will take her into dark basements and subterranean passageways; the stacks and reading rooms of the Mercantile Library; and secret meetings of the underground resistance, the Diachronic Society. As Anana penetrates the mystery of her father’s disappearance and a pandemic of decaying language called “word flu” spreads, <em>The Word Exchange</em> becomes a cautionary tale that is at once a technological thriller and a meditation on the high cultural costs of digital technology.</blockquote>

I was very excited by the book blurb, thinking I'd finally found a book that combined lexicography, possibly some etymology, and a modern novel rife with action, suspense, and romance. Sadly the book did not fulfill my admittedly high expectations. Had it been shorter, and not as rife with examples of aphasia it might have come closer to my expectations. But alas it did not, or at least not until the final quarter or less.

While the premise of the story is very promising, the delivery quickly became far too bogged down with demonstrations of the aphasia that characters were suffering from, and then made things substantially worse with further examples of the "word flu." Aphasia is essentially a disruption in a person's ability to understand and formulate words/language, and in this case it was demonstrated by people making up nonsensical 'word salad' that was then interspersed with real words, leaving the reader to try to figure out the speaker's intended meaning. Though I understand this was done to demonstrate how difficult it was for the uninfected, or in the early stages of the illness, I still felt that it was relied upon far too heavily. Had much of it been cut out I feel the book would have had more impact, maintained the pacing, demonstrated the risks inherent with becoming dependent upon digital technology, all while sustaining a level of suspense.

On it's own the "word flu" wouldn't be so challenging to read about, but as the level of aphasia increases concomitantly with the severity of the "word flu," it become, for me at least, a tremendously frustrating read. To the point where I found myself struggling to make it through the book - because the aphasia impacted my ability to understand the characters, or even care about what were purportedly the major relationships.

Anana, Ana for short, goes looking for her beloved father, and boss, Doug. What she finds confuses her to no end, not to mention scaring her silly. She makes rather witless choices for someone who is supposed to be smart, and while that's to be understood given her fear for her father, it doesn't justify her continually poor choices. Before he went 'missing' her father told her to avoid using her Meme (think of a Siri that is both psychic and on steroids), that they are dangerous to everyone. She hears this from a few other trusted folks, but learns the hard way when to listen to those she respects for their wisdom and intelligence. He also told her to stay away from her ex-boyfriend Max, and even to avoid his own protégé, and Ana's friend, Bart. Hearing all this what does she do - she pines over Max and enlists Bart's help in trying to locate her father. She even drags Bart along to Thanksgiving dinner to act as a shield in an attempt to avoid telling her mother & grandparents about Max breaking up with her.

It is almost astounding that Ana survives the story at all, given her flailing about. She seems to be more of a danger to her father and others than not, even though she's just trying to locate her father to ensure his safety. In reality she would have been better off trusting others and looking to her own safety. There was no one thing in particular about Ana that left me feeling cold, yet that was just what happened. I only barely felt connected with her near the very final pages of the book, and that still may have had more to do with characters around her than with anything she herself did.

Of all the characters I found Bart to be the most likable. He was down to earth and came across as being real. He'd been carrying a torch for Ana for ages, certainly during the three years she'd been dating Max. Yet he never said anything, only supported her to the detriment of his own heart. Doug was also a cool character, and I mean that both ways. There's a lot more to him than meets the eye, and he is a loving father. His passion for language is clear, and certainly spoke to my own love of language.

As I mentioned at the start of this review, I think that the premise of this story has great potential, and real merit. Unfortunately I felt that this particular execution fell short of the mark. It almost felt as if there were two separate story lines competing throughout the book. And they both could have stayed, but they needed to be merged more cleanly for me to really enjoy them as a single story. To do that would have required some heavy editing, losing some extraneous side stories and shortening the book at the same time. All the same, this may just end up being be a very fascinating read, for the right people.

I found this book to be fascinating and disturbing. You could even say it's a bit prophetic considering the way technology is headed today. It's true science fiction, something that has the potential of becoming fact. I have already told family about this story and will recommend it to all my friends.

This is a book that has a very interesting premise but it focuses too much on the back story and not enough on the what's happening in the present. It's written by different characters in journal form. I usually enjoy that kind of plot point; however, the characters tended to ramble and they weren't very likable. It's a shame because I looked forward to reading this book.

* I received a copy from the publisher via netgalley.

Alena Graedon has written a wonderfully entertaining and thought-provoking book.

With its depictions of a society addicted to (and dependent on) digital toys, it is, of course, less about the future it's set in than it is about our present moment. It's also a page-turner, and both of our narrators make for charming company, in their own ways (I particularly enjoyed watching one of them struggle with the "word flu").

But the book's real success lies in revealing how necessary written language is to our understanding of ourselves while at the same time exploring how arbitrary and fragile it is, and how easily it could be lost. A dark philosophical inquiry wrapped in a mystery wrapped in great writing.

Enjoyable book Writing about a dystopian future is complicated especially since so many authors have trod this territory. Graedon's book mixed the dystopian future book with a mystery: the disappearance of the main character's father. While lacking in originality the mystery is well-written and a reasonably good read. Here language itself becomes valuable and commodified. There are many moments of insight here -- language and existence and power. In the end, however, the novel lacks the kind of character development I enjoy.

An ARC I received through NetGalley set in a dystopian horror of a world, an age-old story of progress and greed with a "rags-to-riches" success story in which greed overcomes commonsense.

My Take
Wow. Just wow. This was/is terrifying. When you think of how ubiquitous the computer is in our world, how reliant we are upon it, upon the Internet. How much I rely upon it! The "progress" our world is making in conjoining human with machine — think of Google Glass!

I've always been so impressed with how much people in the past could remember, could quote passages from memory. I wondered why we no longer did such a thing. A large part of it, I suspect, is that we have too many books in the world today. We read a book, and we're done with it. We move on to the next book. In the past, there were so few books. Yes, there were a number of books printed, but so few had access to those so-very-expensive books. Can you imagine someone thinking a library of 300 books was huge? Think of how many people today own books on cooking, self-help, computer manuals, a bible. The textbooks a student will buy for a semester of learning would be considered a richness back then.

And when you own only a few books, you would read and re-read and re-read those books. It makes it much easier to memorize phrases and passages. Think of the movies we watch over and over. How we can quote lines from favorite movies. Then there's our access to the Internet which can remember everything for us. A terrifying caution to consider in The Word Exchange.

Delving into the actual story, there are aspects of the Meme which would find me nailing this device to my head. I love the idea of what it can do for me! Yet when I read further, when Graedon reveals the ramifications of the Meme, I would willingly return to pen and paper, to wrack my memory for definitions, to look up the right word in the thesaurus, to thumb through encyclopedias to find information. Anything to avoid a world in which you have to consult a dictionary simply to get through email, a recipe, a conversation with someone.

Yes, the disappearance of text from documents is fanciful, but consider how many documents are now found in the digital library. How much we put in the cloud and on hard drives. It's enough to make me look at my Kindle differently.

It took me days to read this story. I had to shake the horror of the possibility for such events to come to pass from my thoughts every once in a while.

"Words … are pulleys through time. Portals into other minds.
"Without words, we're history's orphans. Our lives and thoughts erased."

Graedon writes of how words can take us places we've never been: the past, the future, soaring in a rocket ship, visiting an interdimensional plane, other worlds and other minds. Without the words to take us there, those redundant or infrequently used words, how would we get there from here? The richness of English is one of its beauties. The huge quantities of words that can be accessed, finding the exact word that provides just the right shade of meaning. How would we think? Remember? What happens when our brains are rewired, neuronal pathways changed? What happens in a cyberattack?

I love the idea that greater access to books changed us from a hunter-gatherer focus to a focus of intellect, on absorbing words, reflecting on the thoughts they engendered. I doubt, however, that inventing our own words, our own definitions, will make us reflect on language. There's no responsibility involved. No thought behind it.

Then her comment about language being like love. A beautiful thought, and it means that language is only "something when directed toward another person". I also love that comment about there not being only one definition for a word.
"Human nature only really exists in an achieved community of minds."

There's such a confusion in this. Sure some of it is normal stupid human behavior, but some of it is author confusion. Graedon tells us one thing then the other, flipping back and forth until I can't see or think straight. Governments, Max, Johnny, Phin, and Bart run across clues that should tip them off, should make them sit back and take notice. They acknowledge problems but continue to blunder on, engaging in negative behavior. Even Doug knows so much of what is happening and yet doesn't really say anything other than a few cryptic clues that anyone could dismiss as Luddite ravings.

There are a number of weaknesses in this including how Synchronic thinks it'll make money in a world where no one can work anymore or communicate. A world in which people die. The only why for what was happening was money. How does anyone understand another? I don't see how Max was trying to spare Ana "because he loved her". What kind of guy acts as he does when he loves a woman? He buys a house months before, and she doesn't know about it? Why wouldn't Rodney tell Ana about the events of that night? Why did the board sign off on the sale? Why does Bart just accept Max's offer? There are all these signs, clues, around him, and he ignores them. Why is Ana's doctor so hard to get into if so many doctors are out of business? If Max and Johnny know about Taiwan, how come Vernon doesn't seem to? What's with Phineas? Why doesn't he fly out? Why didn't he give the whole letter to Ana?

There were two things in particular that drove me nuts: the footnotes and the made-up words. I eventually learned the truth of the footnotes, and wasn't that a scary thing!? As for the made-up words, they were ideal in terms of making me feel the horror of what could happen if we lost the words we use, and I was incredibly irritated with not being able to understand what was written in the heavier sections. However, I don't feel as though Graedon made the best use of this opportunity for creating a greater sense of panic or shock. We never get a sense of the individual victim's horror; it's all tell. Probably a good thing, as the idea of losing words was horrible enough, *grin*. And then again, why would they panic? They think they're speaking just fine, and maybe that's the horror of it!

I have to disagree about I being the "only letter that is a whole, full word". Admittedly, it is the most interesting and distinctive word. But there's also a — not very interesting and ubiquitous — and O, a letter used infrequently.

I do love her thoughts about words, how "every word is itself a memento of the past", "living legends, swollen with significance". It's true. Words evolve, grow, change. It's fascinating to read of a word or phrase's origin, it's original meaning. Now imagine losing that.

Mmmm, the publishing industry is in dire straits, eh? Bookstores. Libraries. All gone.

I LOVE the idea of a building shaped like an open book!

It seems a tiny bit steampunkish with those pneumatic tubes. I remember the ones they had at an old and tiny department store when I was a child. I was fascinated by how those tubes flew back and forth.

It's interesting how Graedon populates the story with people who are barely mentioned. It's an interesting trick which makes the story seem richer without much effort.

No kidding?? Graedon talks about our current obsession with writing; we're so busy writing that we've stopped reading. We're all writing (yep, this review is an example) out to people, out to the Internet. All expecting people will flock to read, but as Graedon says, it's almost impossible to keep up with what people are putting out there.

Then that ending … bittersweet with pledges of higher demands of education, new libraries, more archives with reading and physical verbal interaction, a reversal of our current direction.

The Story
It's the Dictionary's launch in a few days, the culmination of 26 years of work. But Synchronic, a company more interested in promoting their subscription service, The Word Exchange, as well as their latest game, Meaning Master, intends a hostile takeover of the Dictionary.

The game. It's all about thought, reflection on language, but its effects are being felt everywhere as new words keep entering the lexicon. Words that make no sense. Meanwhile, Doug is missing. People are following Ana. And people are losing their words.

The Characters
Anana "Alice" Johnson is her father's assistant at the Dictionary, although she sees herself as an artist. Vera Doran is her mother who has taken up with Laird. Irina Doran is Vera's mother; she and her husband are jerks.

Douglas Samuel Johnson, a.k.a., Dr. D, is the chief editor of the North American Dictionary of the English Language (NADEL), and Anana's father, with a love for pineapples. Laird Sharpe, a.k.a., Larry Shifflett, a former investment banker and now an anchor with PI News, had been one of Doug's best friends before he took up with Vera. He had been part of the triumvirate with Fergus Hedstrom, who hates Laird's guts. Ferg and Doug go off on adventures without Laird. Magnús Jökulsson inspired Ferg with thoughts of Iceland.

The Dictionary
Horace "Bart" Tate, a.k.a., Horse and Bartleby, is Doug's protégé, the head of Etymologies as well as the Dictionary's deputy editor, and he reads eight languages. Tobias is his brother; Emma is his sister.

Other employees at the Dictionary include Svetlana who reads five languages, Frank, Chandra is in marketing, and, Clara Strange, who is also a member of the Diachronic Society.

Friends and the Diachronic Society
Phineas Thwaite, Ph.D., is Doug's friend and an outside contributor. Thwaite is a member of the Diachronic Society which meets in the Mercantile Library. Canon is his dog. Nadya Viktorovna Markova is a Russian woman with whom Phin fell in love. Clive is one of the security guards at Phin's building. Other members of the Diachronic include Rob, a retired English teacher; Archie Rodrigeuz; Tommy Keach, who puts out Best; Martha Hertzberg, pianist and poet; Zheng Weiming, translator; Winifred Brown; Matt Faltstaff and Mara Levy; Victoria Mark and Susan Janowitz, who both had been with Vabner, Ingmar, & Breuer; Franz Garfinkel, a god of lexicography; Pavel; and, Yuki. Dr. Barouch specializes in genetics.

Max, a.k.a., Hermes King??, is the head of Hermes Corporation. A man with few morals and high ambitions. And Anana's ex-boyfriend. His partners at Hermes are Johnny Lee, the programming genius; the bullying, crude Floyd Dobbs; and, Vernon Peach (also a member of the Diachronic Society).

Rodney Moore is one of the security guards at the Dictionary. Anana's friends include Ramona, a school friend from St. Ann's; Coco, a visual artist whose studio is next door to Ana's; Audrey from NYU with a huge trust fund; Jesmyn; and, Theo. Officer Maroney and Detective Billings investigate Doug's disappearance.

Oxford
Bill Jennings works at the Oxford Dictionary. Chris Bennett and Alistair Payne are some of the guards.

The Bad Guys
The Creatorium is where they're burning the books; Dimitri Sokolov is one of the security guards, and the one who is supposed to be guarding the Creatorium door.

Synchronic, Inc. manufactures gadgets that interface with your mind and emotions: the Meme is like a smartphone and a mind interface with the Internet. It learns from you and begins to take over the mundane aspects of your life. The Aleph is the first model of the Meme. The Nautilus is the latest. The company provides services such as The Word Exchange where, for the measly price of two pennies, you can access a definition or a term you've forgotten or didn't know.

Steve Brock is the CEO of Synchronic. Rhys Koenig is one of the heavies.

The Cover
The cover is perfect with its background of individual letters disappearing into nothingness at the bottom, much as words, language, is disappearing in this world. The title and author's name is a yellow to deep-orange gradation from left to right.

The title is so innocuous, and yet The Word Exchange is world-changing, life-changing, a changing of the past.

This sounded like a book I would enjoy: A literary science-fiction thriller involving the death of language in a near-future world where almost all printed material is gone and `memes' (smartphone-like devices) have become essential tools. It sounded so good, and it could have been if it wasn't so difficult to stay involved in the story.

Despite a compelling premise, the story didn't get interesting until after the half-way point. The concept was good, the execution not so much. It got bogged down in lots of stream of consciousness rambling and overly descriptive narrative that was confusing, distracting and didn't make me care about any of the characters.

I began by listening to the audio, but with the slow progress in the plot my mind kept wandering. After a few hours I switched to print figuring if I was reading faster it would be more interesting. But there were all these annoying footnotes forcing me to jump to the end of the chapter to complete the thought. I suppose they were there to make some point or other but it was lost on me.

At about the half-way point I put this book down for a week before returning to the audio version. I wanted to find out how it ended and there were still a lot of questions to be answered. Anana's father was still missing. The Word Flu Virus was spreading and people were speaking nonsense words. (However, the inclusion of actual non-sense in the dialog was another distraction that made it hard to understand and follow a conversation). At this point we still know little about the word flu or where it came from. Eventually we do learn the history of the memes, those smartphone-like devices, and a corporate conspiracy is revealed and most of the questions are answered.

The last third of the story was better, but I don't like to work this hard to read a book.

Audio Production:
The audio production was competently performed by Tavia Gilbert and Paul Michael Garcia. The story was told in alternating points of view between Anana and her friend and co-worker, Bart. My only problem with the audio was that it was difficult to keep my mind from wandering when I came to an overly verbose section. When the story picked up I had no problem paying attention. The pacing of the novel was uneven but it was not the fault of the narrators - both of their performances were fine. And those footnotes I mentioned earlier? Much easier to hear them read right along with the text - an improvement over the need to jump to the end of each chapter, multiple times, in the print version.

Conclusion: Those who like speculative fiction might want to give this a try. The story line was clever but, although this is a genre I usually enjoy, the writing style wasn't for me.