Books like Elysium

Well this was a mess of a book in so many ways. I think I sort of see what the author was trying to do with it, but the story came across as a confusing jumble of scenes that danced around the main theme and had a conclusion that was downright unsatisfying and anti-climatic.I think the author wanted to show the power and importance of love (I could be totally off base here) but the way they went about this was quite odd Not to spoil too much, but the beginning of the book has a series of scenes shifts that alter characters' genders, relations, sexuality, and situations with generic computer errors thrown into the mix. At first this somewhat intrigued me. Just what is going on? Is reality a simulation? Is something else going on? Will we be introduced to the real world outside the simulations? But instead the scenes and people continue to change, albeit with some similar over arching themes.A consequence of this choice is that I really didn't care for the characters much at all. They constantly became new characters, even if their names remained very similar, with different motivations and situations. By the end I couldn't recall how many different iterations of the core characters I went through but they ran the gambit from straight lovers to gay lovers to siblings (not lovers) to parent/off spring (also not lovers). I might as well have been reading about different people each time because that is what they were different people, similar names aside. The big reveal at the end, while logical, really made everything that came before seem pointless. It answered some questions while leaving some other ones (such as the fate of humanity) extremely vague. I guess the problem was the book wanted me to care about things I just couldn't care about and drew out its literary conceit much too long for it to effectively contribute to the story. The loose ends it tied up I couldn't care less about while leaving some bigger issues mostly unaddressed.