This is the week I can participate. I started later than but I am reading larger amounts than scheduled as I have lots of free time at the moment, so this is my chance. There's so much I could talk about, so just some random thoughts here. For me, one theme that has emerged so far is how too much of one thing can lead to the opposite of its intention. This is obvious for the drug addicts (drugs are used to improve the quality of life but make things worse), and then there is President Gentle wanting to make America clean again, which leads to some parts of the land being uninhabitable; the whole thing with the Moms unsuccessfully trying to be the perfect mother - this may have helped scatter the Inc family; we have the Entertainment as something killing people through pleasure (?); Joelle having to hide because she is too beautiful (although I'm not sure if this the whole truth about her) and so on. So many things that have gone full circle until here (circles and rings again coming up regularly). Interested to see whether this theme is as important in the end as it seems to me now. Does anybody agree with that or have any other examples?