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In what looks like the very near future, personal data collection and processing has reached a very high level. By agreeing to give up the entirety of their personal data, people can choose to live a worry-free life in an experimental city where income and safety is guaranteed. Utopia or dystopia? Freedom or lack of it?
Each chapter follows the point of view of a different character, with different aspirations and different set of values, giving the reader the opportunity to approach the subject from varying angles. All chapters are loosely connected by the experimental city itself.
In terms of difficulty, most of the book is straightforward enough, but there are occasional news articles and philosophical ruminations that felt much denser to get through (and I suspect they would be in any language). There's minimal terminology unique to that society, and it's pretty intuitive. The story takes place mainly in America, and the names are almost all Western names in katakana - I found these much easier to remember than Japanese names.