Mirkat Always Reading

In the not too distant future....

Maybe after Frexit AD...

What even WAS this?

According to the blurb:

Part suspenseful thriller, part wickedly effective social satire, 'Empty Hearts' is a novel for our times, examining urgent questions of morality, politics, and culture and presenting a startling vision of a future where empathy is a thing of the past.

Nope.  Not a suspenseful thriller.  Not a social satire.  It's a near-future dystopian--which I'm pre-disposed to be intrigued by--set in Germany.  The main character, Britta, runs a suicide-prevention clinic.  But, and this is the gross premise that should have caused me to pass on downloading the book, that is really just a front for her completely-opposite business, The Bridge.  The idea is that she takes "clients" through a process that should stop them from being suicidal, but if their death wish persists despite that process, she hooks them up with a terrorist organization that will pay handsomely for a martyr to be a suicide bomber (or assassin).  And this is somehow justified in her mind because reasons.

Social satire?  Maybe there is supposed to be dark humor in there, but sometimes when there is too much "dark," I can't see the humor.  I spent most of the book thinking, "What?  Why?"  There is a twist of sorts toward the end, but--I didn't manage to care.