✨ The Confessions by Paul Bradley Carr
📚 A chilling techno-thriller where AI knows your secrets—and sends them to your doorstep.
PRE-READING THOUGHTS
I thought I was in for something like The Measure—a slow burn of philosophical dilemmas and personal reckonings. But no! This is an adrenaline-fueled morality play with chase scenes, sabotage, and a healthy side of techno-paranoia. One of those books that starts with “something weird arrives in the mail” and then spirals deliciously out of control.
POST-READING
🟢 As I thought...
The big questions are here: what do we owe each other, how do we decide who lives or dies, and should algorithms have souls? It gets under your skin in a good way. And Maud, the ex-nun turned AI teacher? Iconic.
🟡 It surprised me by...
Being way more action-heavy than expected! There's real tension, movement, and danger—explosions, betrayals, and morally complex standoffs. It also just stops at the climax, which was slightly maddening. No real resolution. I need an epilogue or at least a consequence!
🎵 MUSIC PAIRING
Featured Song: "No Choir" by Florence + The Machine — introspective, mournful, and quietly powerful, like Maud herself.
Vibe Album: Hunger by LUNIR — slick electro-soul that feels equal parts synthetic and deeply human.
Artist Rec: Zola Jesus — for all your haunting, post-human existential crises.
🌀 VIBE CHECK
🎨 Colour Palette: Midnight blue, algorithmic white, blood red.
🎬 Soundtrack: Ex Machina + Gone Girl = paranoia-core.
🌦 Season: Late autumn—just as the cold creeps in and you realise you don’t trust your heating system.
😶 Mood: Haunted by your Google search history.
🕯 Scent: Printer ink and scorched wires.
🔮 TAROT PULL
Two cards for a world unraveling from the inside out.
The Moon (Transient Light Tarot) – The truth warps in the moonlight. Secrets rise, the landscape shifts, and nothing is quite what it seems. This card speaks to the paranoia and moral ambiguity that ripple through The Confessions—a world where you’re never quite sure what’s guiding you... or why.
The Tower (Unfolding Path Tarot) – A system collapse on a global scale. LLIAM’s sudden silence topples the world’s illusions of control, and a lone figure falls—maybe Kaitlan, maybe Maud, maybe all of us. The destruction is brutal, but it clears the way for something new... if anyone survives it.
FOR FANS OF:
📖 The Circle by Dave Eggers
📺 Black Mirror (especially White Christmas or Shut Up and Dance)
