book cover of Moderation
Added by 4 members
 

Moderation

(2025)
A novel by

 
 
Sometimes people just...click.

'A highly charged, passionate and tender love story. Wonderful'
Kaliane Bradley, author of The Ministry of Time

'Castillo is a literary firecracker... If you liked Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, you'll like this'
Pandora Sykes, Books and Bits


Thirty-something Girlie Delmundo works a day job as a content moderator, flagging and removing the very worst that makes it on to the internet. She's one of the best at it, too - dispassionate, unflinching, maybe because she learned by necessity to wall off all her emotions when she was still a kid - so it's no surprise to anyone when the social-media company for which she works offers her a big salary rise and an office to start moderating its new venture: virtual-reality theme parks, lush and near-perfect simulations of civilizations long since dead.

Girlie takes the job, and getting paid to spend her days wandering the crowds of medieval jousts or exploring romantic Left Bank Paris seems too good to be true. Almost. Sure, she signed up for having to deal with the sordidness of pretty much any virtual space, but as she begins to explore the intricate worlds that she moderates, she notices two deeply troubling things: that there might be something much darker built into the very code of the company, and that William, technically her new boss, a man whose barriers are as mighty as her own, might just be that long-forgotten thing... Girlie's type.



Genre: Historical

Praise for this book

"Phenomenal. A blisteringly funny critique of big tech, and an amazing love story too." - Susan Barker

"Moderation is a novel that refuses to do things by halves. It is a piercing, laser-precise exploration of big tech and its imperialist intentions; it is a breathtakingly funny and complex portrait of immigrant communities in America; it is a highly charged, passionate and tender love story, willing to embrace myriad forms of love. A wonderful book." - Kaliane Bradley

"Tender and cutting, engrossing and immediate - Elaine Castillo's Moderation is a moving meditation on connection, growth, and how, in a world that's constantly on the verge of ending, one way we move forward is cultivating our own. Castillo's prose is luminous and lucid, balancing humor and emotion with wicked aplomb. Castillo expertly stretches the possibilities of language; Moderation is infinite." - Bryan Washington


Visitors also looked at these books


Used availability for Elaine Castillo's Moderation


About Fantastic Fiction       Information for Authors