I finished! So, I ended up liking Little Eyes more than disliking it. It was pretty engaging, but I wanted (needed) more. The fragmented structure was a bit of a pain at the beginning, especially with the audiobook, but after the 30-35% mark, I got the grasp of everything. Still how it was written kinda stopped character development in a way, like they were not that deep and didn’t feel that emotional? The world itself is dull, there’s no real worldbuilding here. The focus is entirely on the kentukis, which have their flaws too. Firstly, I still think it's a scam. Imagine spending $300 only to get someone who will just be a 10 minute a day Dweller or stop after one day completely. And there are no regulations! This was constantly on my mind, making it hard to enjoy the story to the fullest. It just does not make sense. People buying kentukis and having strangers in their houses - totally possible but some other things just… no way people that are not rich are willing to gamble like that. That said, I enjoyed reading it. The eerie tones became darker as the story progressed, which I appreciated. The themes I already mentioned (humanity, privacy, safety, technology, and morality) were intriguing and presented well enough imo. I just wish there was more. Like I mentioned earlier, I feel like the ideas were underexplored: politics, the effects on children, work, and broader social life. Feel like I was constantly missing some commentary. There were some good moments, like when Marvin literally forgot he had his backpack on the whole time, that detail stuck with me. But again, it just wasn’t enough for me. I'm glad it went darker at the end. Alina's ending was exactly what I wanted. In my previous comments, I literally said "I mean, how can people treat the kentukis like harmless pets, undressing in front of them, when they have no idea if the person on the other side is a literal schoolboy or schoolgirl?" And it literally happened! She abused a very young boy, insane. I wish there had been more focus on parents' perspectives regarding kentukis and kids. With Enzo and his son, I assume that even with the open ending, the guy was actually a predator. I wanted more from Grigor's ending, but maybe his disconnection from kentuki and realising it was too much for him to bear, seeing how bad things still were, and understanding they didn’t really fix everything was exactly the point. I was pretty disappointed with Emilia and Eva's ending, it took a turn that felt too weird for me. There's really a lot in this book despite it being short. We can see so many metaphors for our current lives: how we treat pets, how we interact with technology, how anonymous we are on the internet, and how differently we behave when it's not "real life" etc. 3.5/5 stars from me.
