Multiple-award-winning author Connie Willis is a rare breed. Her fiction sparkles with intelligence and humor and, at the same time, profoundly explores love, loss, self-sacrifice, and redemption, enthralling heart and mind alike. And both intelligence and humor figure prominently in this lighthearted tale of the modern-day smartphone-and-Twitter life, which brilliantly mixes the wit of Nora Ephron with the comedic flair of P. G. Wodehouse. Crosstalk pushes the modern culture of social media and continuous connectivity to hilarious and terrifying extremes as one young woman abruptly finds herself with more connectivity than she ever desired—placing her privacy, to say nothing of her patience (and possibly her sanity), at risk.
In the not-too-distant future, a simple outpatient procedure to increase empathy between romantic partners has become all the rage. And Briddey Flannigan is delighted when her boyfriend, Trent, suggests undergoing the operation prior to a marriage proposal—to enjoy better emotional connection and a perfect relationship with complete communication and understanding. But things don't quite work out as planned, and Briddey finds herself connected to someone else entirely—in a way far beyond what she signed up for.
It is almost more than she can handle—especially when the stress of managing her all-too-eager-to-communicate-at-all-times family is already burdening her brain. But that's only the beginning. As things go from bad to worse, she begins to see the dark side of too much information, and to realize that love—and communication—are far more complicated than she ever imagined.
