Splittsville

I’ll admit, I side-eyed the Virtual Voice narration at first. No inflection? No dramatic pauses? But by the third chapter, I realized it was *perfect* for *Splittsville*. The protagonist’s numb routine—his business-trip autopilot—needs that robotic delivery to sell the contrast when the town’s oddities start bleeding through. The narration’s lack of emotion makes the rare moments of human panic (like the scene in the abandoned bowling alley) hit harder. That said, the voice’s occasional mispronunciations of Texas slang (*“y’all”* sounded like a glitchy AI learning Southern dialect) pulled me out of the story a few times. Still, the trade-off works: the uncanny narration reinforces the book’s core question—*what’s real here?* Huff’s writing shines in the details. The way the town’s inhabitants repeat phrases just *slightly* off-kilter, or how the protagonist’s phone loses signal at the exact wrong moments, builds paranoia without over-explaining. The pacing drags a smidge in the middle—there’s a 40-minute stretch of corporate jargon that tests patience—but the payoff (a third-act reveal involving a *very* specific type of tech) justifies the setup. The production is clean, though the lack of ambient soundscapes (no crickets, no diner clatter) makes the Virtual Voice feel even more isolated. If you’re craving a thriller that’s more *Black Mirror* than *Bourne*, and don’t mind a narrator that feels like a sentient GPS guiding you into the unknown, *Splittsville* delivers.