Like my previous post about The Time Traveler’s Wife, I decided to read Made for Love by Alissa Nutting after learning that it was a new series on HBO Max. Made for Love is a science fiction satire about a woman who is running away from her tech billionaire husband because he wants to test his latest product on her. The story gets weird when she ends up at her father’s house only to discover that he is sharing his home with a lifelike sex doll. And then is becomes absurd. A secondary character is a con man who suddenly finds himself no longer sexually attracted to the beautiful women he scams. His new objects of carnal passion? Dolphins.
I have to admit, I almost didn’t finish this book. Numerous times. I decided to finish it because I was interested in learning how the core story came out. It is the kind of science fiction that I like. What happens when a tech genius pushes things a bit too far and a regular citizen decides not to go along? I was mostly satisfied with that story line and the way in plays out. Unfortunately, I had to wade through the nonsense of the rest of the book to get there.
Don’t get me wrong. The book is entirely well-written. I am sure that fans of absurdist fiction as well as those who appreciate the take-down of overly serious science fiction will greatly appreciate the parts of the book that I didn’t much care for. For me they felt overly forced without adding all that much to what the book says. In the end, it felt like a book that was trying to do two very different things at the same time but only succeeded mildly at both.
I have yet to watch the HBO Max series of Made for Love. I am hoping that I like it better than the book. Since my post about The Time Traveler’s Wife I have watched all the episodes available. I really loved it! I think that book is very difficult to make into a series. They found a way to tell the story and convey the feeling in this very different medium. I highly recommend it!
