Sadly disappointing and messy for a book about the mind-altering power of words and their impact on personal lives.

Barry does the dual timeline, dual narrative technique, so your enjoyment may vary based on tolerance. The current timeline is from a man, Wil, who is kidnapped as he is leaving the airport to meet his girlfriend, while a past timeline is from a young woman, Emily, who is recruited off the streets for her talking talents to apply for a ‘magic’ school.

As enticing as that may sound, it leads me to a digression about the role of ‘magic’ and schools in fantasy systems. In most fantasy–especially since the popularization of Hogwarts–there are magic schools that are about learning magic, and magic systems. This is not one of them. The beginning is about a young woman qualifying for a private school and adjusting to it. If you pick it up hoping to learn about different spells and how they work, you will be disappointed. Instead, this is more ‘superhero’ type, where people kind of just fledged into full skills and there’s not a lot of scrutiny how this might happen. In one spectacularly inaccurate example of ‘persuasion,’ Barry tries to show us how attention-getting on the street is the same as persuading someone to do something they wouldn’t normally do (baring one’s breasts count, as does subsequently claiming assault)

Emily is the only character that is fleshed out to any degree, and even that is suspect. We don’t learn much about her runaway history, and nothing about life before. Her stories are largely consumed with love interests or manipulation by men, but I feel like I didn’t gain any understanding as to why this was okay with her until Harry. As for the rest of the characters, they are inscrutable--a nice way of saying one-dimensional. Wil argues with his kidnapper, then goes along. Eliot, the kidnapper, is full of drive but the reader has very little clue why, particularly as the dialogue between he and Wil usually consists of Eliot telling Wil they will all die if they don’t do something Right Now. The dialogue is terrible, like they are reading from fortune cookies:

“‘Yes, I kill people, when the alternative is worse. That’s the world. That’s the reason you and I are still here.’
Wil looked away. ‘I’ll come with you. I’ll do what you say. But not because you are right.’
Eliot but the car in gear. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Close enough.'”

To help us towards understanding the meta, Barry provides the reader with newspaper clippings, transcripts and, in one intrusive wall-breaking case, a (fictional) blog post:

“I just think it’s missing the point to get upset about bias in Fox News or MSNBC or whoever… relying on a single source of information means you can’t critically evaluate it. It’s like you’re locked in a room an every day I come in and tell you what’s happening outside. It’s very easy for me to make you believe whatever I want. Even if I don’t lie, I can just tell you the facts that support me and leave out the ones that don’t.”

The ending… oh, that ending. Just how Blake Crouch was that? Now I have more questions, like why a certain someone’s character was completely different Harry. How come the Harry that forgot his Australian life--although I'm not sure that should have happened--where did he think he grew up? --how did he turn into the kind of guy that asked questions all the time? And didn't go to help people in trouble?) Actually, while it was emotionally satisfying, it felt even more sloppy in terms of the novel.

While it’s an interesting collection of concepts, it would have done much better with [a:Peter Watts|27167|Peter Watts|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png], who can speak science while wrapping concepts surrounding psycholinguistics and neurobiology up in a sci-fi plot. As it is, it’s more thriller with people that have abilities, then a commentary on linguistics and thought. I mean, I guess it is a commentary on linguistics and thought, but only to the point that Barry tells us it is, about every five pages. It might appeal to those who enjoy Blake Crouch and his thriller approach to sci-fi.

Sadly, I guess these words didn’t work on me. ( )

I gave myself reader’s whiplash on the train by finishing [b:The Tin Drum|35743|The Tin Drum|Günter Grass|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327945103s/35743.jpg|922581] and then immediately beginning ‘Lexicon’. The latter is vastly easier to read, as it is a pacy thriller in which very little time is wasted on grotesque imagery. Instead, a succession of fights, shootouts, car chases, and other derring-do ensue. The main conceit of ‘Lexicon’ is that an organisation has learned how to manipulate people’s behaviour using personality segmentation (which is an actual methodology in the social sciences that I’ve researched) and specific quasi-magic words (which are not). I must say, I was curious to know more about this organisation throughout the book. What was their business plan? It was implied that they were branding and advertising consultants, however I would have liked to learn more.

Indeed, the plot was not one of institutional rivalries but personal ones. The book opens on Wil, whose name cries out for another L, yet he turns out not to be the main character. I was very pleased by this and glad that the narrative gave more time to Emily. She was undoubtedly the most interesting and well-developed character, as well as the person who really moved events forward. I did enjoy Wil and Eliot’s grumpy bickering, though.

I definitely enjoyed this novel and found the central conceit fascinating. My further thoughts constitute spoilers, though, so I’ll cut here.

There were a couple of aspects that rather disappointed me. In particular, the treatment of love, which was equated with romance as no-one seemed to have family ties. Towards the end there was some talk of intimacy and love being irreconcilable with the organisation’s training in shielding yourself against manipulation. Clearly this was a massive flaw in the whole training regime, as surely only psychopaths could wholly withdraw from others in this way. Surely those who genuinely see other people only as objects to manipulate should not be given the tools to do so? In fact, I wondered how the organisation prevented these amoral sharks they were training just doing terrible things because they could. (Maybe they didn’t; Lee seemed a case in point and his fate was very satisfying.) On the other hand, the love stories portrayed in the book didn’t really move me. I was intrigued by the suggestion that Harry’s resistance to manipulation has something to do with his disinterest in love, yet this never really went anywhere.

Which brings me to Yeats, the leader of the organisation and putative baddie. I never really understood his motivations or actions. He said something about forming a religion, which seemed to me an obvious approach to mass-manipulation, but frustratingly this was never elaborated. I also failed to understand why he chose to test the bare-word using the command ‘kill everyone’. Why not a much less harmful but easily observable command, like, ‘gather everyone outside the hospital and salute the helicopter hovering above full of shady people with clipboards’? Indeed, why not try a much more interesting and insidious command, like, ‘live peacefully together’? Surely that would provide lots more useful data than a massacre, as well as not broadcasting that you have a weapon of mass manipulation. After all, there are plenty of ways to induce people to kill each other, a method of doing the opposite would not only be quieter but of greater value. Basically, I don’t think the organisation approached their investigation of the bare-word very effectively. Maybe Yeats was meant to be an empty suit, a symbol of faceless management consultancies with no real aims at all?

Lastly, I think the final chapter was a cop-out. For preference, I would have preferred the unhappier ending. I am hard to please, really. I tend to want more world-building and less romance from thrillers. The number of car chases was well-judged, though, and Emily was an excellent character. ( )

Not bad but not great. I never felt invested in the characters, so didn’t much care how or if the story progressed. ( )

Hard to rate this one. It was super interesting and different and a real page turner but much more like an action movie than a good book.

I just wanted more from it. More character development, more understanding of the control words, the sectors, the barewords, everything. What was The Organization really trying to do? Why did they have all the operatives, what was their main purpose? Why cultivate the talent if they had to live such miserable, repressed lives. So many unanswered questions.

I cared a bit about Emily and Harry and Elliot but not enough. Yates was kind of a generic super villain and I think we needed to know more about his plans earlier on in the tale.

I'm still not sure I really understand everything that went on towards the end of the book and I have no idea who has the word. ( )

Man, I really wanted to like this book more. The whole concept of words that kill was one I loved. The first 60 pages were dynamite and then it just lost steam for me. It took forever to get where it was going. The ending was bang up and redeemed it a little for me. All in all it was enjoyable but left me feeling like it could have been more. ( )