Want

By: Cindy Pon

Narrated by: Roger Yeh

From critically acclaimed author Cindy Pon comes an edge-of-your-seat sci-fi thriller, set in a near-future Taipei plagued by pollution, about a group of teens who risk everything to save their city.

Jason Zhou survives in a divided society where the elite use their wealth to buy longer lives. The rich wear special suits, protecting them from the pollution and viruses that plague the city, while those without suffer illness and early deaths. Frustrated by his city's corruption and still grieving the loss of his mother, who died as a result of it, Zhou is determined to change things, no matter the cost.

With the help of his friends, Zhou infiltrates the lives of the wealthy in hopes of destroying the international Jin Corporation from within. Jin Corp not only manufactures the special suits the rich rely on but they may also be manufacturing the pollution that makes them necessary.

Yet the deeper Zhou delves into this new world of excess and wealth, the more muddled his plans become. And against his better judgment, Zhou finds himself falling for Daiyu, the daughter of Jin Corp's CEO. Can Zhou save his city without compromising who he is - or destroying his own heart?

©2017 Cindy Pon (P)2017 Listening Library

Great narration, except a tiny detail

I think the narrator is very talented and brought depth and emotion to the story. His pronunciation for all the Mandarin was also on point, with a perfect Taiwanese accent, except ... I just cannot understand how you'd pronounce everything else right, EXCEPT the main character's name. "Zhou" can be pronounced "Joe" in a northern Chinese accent or "Zoh" in a southern Chinese (or Taiwanese) accent, but why would you butcher it by pronouncing it "Zow"? Especially when you've demonstrated you can pronounce Mandarin just fine? It was just so jarring to hear that throughout the whole book.

Great story

Amazing story that got me hooked at the start. The mystery of it and the ending is so amazing. Highly recommend.

Against a Tycoon

Excellent narration. After the lose of the Doctor, they embark on a mission to take down the person responsible, by taking matters into their own hands starting by finding a capital source to begin with.

Eerily Realistic Dystopian Novel

There are so many subplots that ring true in today's world. It's part Romeo and Juliet, part Mission Impossible, and part Friends!

Torn, but enjoyed it.

This book was a bit of a weird one. I was really torn on if I actually like it. The only reason it received 4/5 stars was Daiyu was actually far smarter at the end than she was at the beginning. Jason was pretty boring and the story was relatively predictable.

Great story

I personally loved this story and can’t wait to for the next one called Ruse. It was over all an amazing piece and can’t think of the words to describe it.

Poor story/weak characters in a strange setting

As a Chinese person, I can tell you with certainty there was zero need for this story to take place in Taiwan. Outside of name-dropping some food and a few landmarks in Taiwan, you could have set this story anywhere in the world and it would have been no different. This seemed like a cheap ploy exoticize a story that was meandering from beginning to end, filled with paper-thin characters with questionable motivations, because they were either under-developed or too cliched, and a cardboard cutout villain that doesn't actually appear in the story very much. Because the absenteeism of the villain, it was akin to getting an account of the Vikings, who at the time had no written language, from the British monks that resided in the monasteries they sacked. There was no attempt to humanize the villain's motivations, which is odd, because the author tries very hard to pull off a check-off-the-box exercise of a handful of zeitgeist topics, many of which had marginal impact on the story: 1) LGBT, 2) pollution, 3) evil corporation with a profit-only motive, 4) a paralyzed political system that doesn't care about the poor and needy. The worst cliche in the story is the mysterious/beautiful girl that falls for the hero for under-developed reasons. For a female author, this is quite a shame to see, and goes to the heart of many East Asian male-oriented fantasies (see the Harem genre of Anime).