Ok so it's 1:40am and I read this in one sitting and I'm so angry at how good this book was.

Like I'm legitimately vexed that I won't ever get to experience this book for the first time again. I'm so frustrated that I swore I wouldn't enjoy a book mentioning covid for years to come and yet this knocked it out of the park for me. I last felt this way when I was frustrated that no book could ever capture the awes of travel that the tv show Dark for me - and here I am now, enjoying that awe. My entire self is having a visceral reaction and I need a copy of this book immediately, I need to hold it, I need to reread it, I need to leaf through it.

Give me character studies, humanity, time loops, soft apocalypse, beautiful writing, allusions to previous work, ambiguous auto-fiction, satisfying plot progression, and a feeling of hope? I lose my mind.

I swear, Emily st John Mandel knows something that the rest of us don't know and I'm just so happy she shares that with the rest of us.

Recommended, obviously.

More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/ph6RGiTwc18