Love Minus Eighty (Will McIntosh)

This story asks the question: What will we do when it is possible, but expensive, for people to be frozen and restored after they die? Who will get to be resurrected? Obviously, the very wealthy can purchase all the resurrections they need. There is another group of people, though, who might be brought  back: young and beautiful women, who are willing to sign away all their rights into actual slavery for the chance to live again. These women are called bridesicles, and they can be brought back to consciousness without complete resurrection so wealthy men can interview them and decide if they are lovely enough and desperate enough to be compliant wives. In this book there are layers of love stories, all connecting in some way to the fate of the bridesicles. I was intrigued but not convinced by the future that was described here, and ultimately left it confused about the various love stories at the center. Aside from the one that was resolved definitively at the end, I couldn't tell who really loved who, so I couldn't root for lovers to get together, which left me somewhat distanced from the whole thing. The human story of the people and their lives seemed to be taking back seat to the cautionary tale of greed and oppression. I didn't dislike it, but I was disappointed.